Is The Pirates' Front Office Bad At "Talent Evaluation"?
by Charlie Wilmoth on Jun 5, 2010 3:49 AM EDT
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PrintYesterday in the comments someone mentioned a series of posts I did two years ago called "It Takes Time." It was a few months after Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington had been hired, so I looked at other moribund franchises that had hired new GMs to see what Coonelly and Huntington's first couple of years might look like.
After glancing through those posts, I'd encourage you to look at them if you weren't around when I originally published them. I hate looking at my old writing in most cases, because baseball players' careers are so difficult to predict that, with the benefit of hindsight, a lot of the assumptions turn out to seem really wacky. (I imagine most baseball writers feel like this.) The "It Takes Time" series does have some ideas that turned out to be pretty weird, but a lot of it still stands up really well. It's also relevant because we can look at it to provide a frame of reference for Coonelly and Huntington's first couple of years, now that they're over.
A lot of what I take away from the series is that we're too close now to what Coonelly and Huntington are doing to see anything too clearly. The phrase "talent evaluation" gets thrown around a lot by critics of Coonelly and Huntington, and it always makes me squirm a little bit, simply because I don't know how much we can really tell about their abilities in that area right now. Any honest baseball writer will tell you exactly what I did in the last paragraph--predicting careers is an incredibly inexact science. Most players worth worrying about could take any of a very broad spectrum of career paths, and the younger the player, the broader the spectrum.
Some examples: Garrett Jones spent his entire career through age 27 looking very much like a run-of-the-mill AAA hitter who would never get more than a couple cups of coffee in the majors; by the end of his age 28 season, he was the Pirates' best hitter. Bill Hall had a horrible minor league career and never hit more than ten jacks at any stop outside of the homer factory at High Desert, and yet he somehow made it to Milwaukee and hit 35 homers in 2006 before fading back into oblivion. Fernando Tatis was a star by age 24 with the Cardinals, but didn't post an OPS+ above 81 in his age 26 through 28 seasons and wound up out of baseball before coming back in his thirties and emerging as a good complementary player with the Mets.
My point here is that if we look at a sample size of hundreds, or thousands, of major leaguers, their careers will be broadly predictable (quick improvement throughout early twenties, peak in mid- to late twenties, and then a slow decline), but individuals buck the trend in ways that aren't that predictable at all. In a few years, a GM will only make a couple dozen moves that have immediate and dramatic impact at the big-league level. So when we're talking about "talent evaluation," what are we really saying?
One possibility is that we're saying that Huntington and Coonelly just don't know what a good player looks like. If the only pitchers they acquired were 5'4" knuckleballers, or the only centerfielders they acquired with 42-year-olds with bad knees, we'd know pretty clearly that their "talent evaluation" skills were poor.
I don't think this is primarily what the "talent evaluation" crowd is saying, though (although they might have a case with regard to a few of the front office's more minor acquisitions, like Luis Rivas, who just fundamentally did not look like a major leaguer but who picked up a bunch of playing time anyway). Instead, I think what the "talent evaluation" folks are saying is that Huntington and Coonelly have acquired a bunch of guys who haven't turned out to be very good.
I usually have a couple of problems with these sorts of argument. First, they rarely consider how little was given up to acquire some of Huntington's more disappointing acquisitions (like Charlie Morton or Lastings Milledge, say). And second, we just don't have a big enough sample to determine whether Huntington and Coonelly's "talent evaluation" abilities are lacking or not. We just don't know.
A thought experiment: would you say that Tampa Bay GM Andrew Friedman has problems evaluating talent? I certainly wouldn't--he helped the Rays win a pennant in 2008, and they had an above average team last year and are playing brilliantly this year. And yet if you look at the stage of his career where he was trading away lots of players he inherited (this is the part of Huntington and Coonelly's careers that most fans tend to focus on), there isn't an overpowering sense that he knew exactly what he had or what he was getting. He traded two relievers for Edwin Jackson and a prospect, and Jackson turned out to be a good pitcher, but Friedman quickly shipped him out for Matt Joyce, who has done nothing. He traded Aubrey Huff for Ben Zobrist, who unexpectedly turned out to be a great player. He dealt Julio Lugo, back when Julio Lugo was good, for Joel Guzman and Sergio Pedroza, who didn't do anything. He signed Carlos Pena to a minor league deal, but partially negated the value of that excellent signing by letting Josh Hamilton go in the Rule 5 draft. He also let Evan Meek go in the Rule 5 (which was probably fine, given all the awesome stuff the Rays had that needed to be protected then) and then basically gave him to the Pirates for nothing after the Bucs couldn't protect him on their roster anymore (which wasn't so good, from the Rays' perspective).
Friedman's masterstroke was a genuinely bold and brilliant trade in which he shipped Delmon Young, then an extremely valuable property (more valuable than any Huntington and Coonelly had when they entered the organization, except maybe Andrew McCutchen) for Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett. That is the trade you can point to and convincingly say, "Yep, this guy knows what's he doing." But that's just one trade. And most of the moves he made before that were uneven--a step forward, a step back. It was very clear, even then, that he had the right idea, but then it's also pretty clear to me that Huntington and Coonelly do too.
The point, and you'll see this very clearly when you look back through the "It Takes Time" posts, is that there's just a ton of chance in the business of acquiring players. Another key point is that when a GM takes over a really bad franchise like the Pirates or the Royals or the early-aughts Brewers, he usually doesn't have much to trade in the first place, so the players he gets back in return will often be pretty speculative. Take that Julio Lugo trade, for example--Lugo was a good player, but not young and not a superstar, so Friedman got Guzman, who was once a top prospect in the Dodgers system. Guzman got too big to play shortstop and completely fell apart as a hitter, and Friedman got nothing in the deal.
It is way too early to concede that, overall, Huntington and Coonelly's trades have even been disappointing, with Jose Tabata and Bryan Morris standing out as potential impact players from those deals and with Nathan Adcock and Jeff Locke also showing significant promise.
It's certainly clear that some of the individual players have been disappointing, but that's hardly surprising, and what does it even mean? If we line up the biggest disappointments next to one another (Charlie Morton, Lastings Milledge, Kevin Hart, Brandon Moss, and perhaps Jeff Clement, Tim Alderson and Andy LaRoche), what do they prove? The only player those guys were traded for who really had significant value and is still any good is Jason Bay. So, as with the Lugo trade, most of the other guys would have to be pretty speculative, and if we look at them, we can see pretty clearly why they were good players to speculate on. Morton has filthy stuff but seems to struggle with the mental aspects of pitching. Milledge was a former top prospect who'd already had semi-productive major-league seasons and was still in his mid-20s. Hart had promise but busted his arm. Clement was a former third-overall pick with a sweet swing. Alderson was a big lefty who had, at times, pitched brilliantly as one of the youngest players at his minor league stops. Moss was less interesting than the others, but then he wasn't that important a part of the Bay trade to begin with.
Maybe the failures of these players do represent a failure by Huntington and Coonelly to identify talent, but I think it makes a lot more sense to just say that these were intelligently speculative moves that haven't panned out so far. They rolled the dice and haven't been rewarded for it. And even then, they didn't give up much. The Bay and Tom Gorzelanny trades have turned out very poorly (though there's still some hope for both in the minors, and the Gorzelanny deal might have looked a lot better if Jose Ascanio hadn't busted his arm immediately after joining the team), and the Nationals have to feel relatively happy about the Nyjer Morgan trade so far. But the Pirates have won the Xavier Nady trade outright, and in several other trades (Jack Wilson, Freddy Sanchez, Nate McLouth) it's looking more and more like their trading partners will get little or nothing, while the Pirates at least have several interesting players in the minors who might turn those deals into net positives.
In short, I think it's way too early to declare that "talent evaluation" is an issue. The picture I see is complicated, and in the absence of a larger pool of trades to evaluate, I see some deals that have worked out or at least have a pretty good chance of working out, and some that haven't. In most cases, I see trades that were basically the right idea.
Besides, if there's another lesson in the "It Takes Time" series, it's that the long road from oblivion to contention has very, very little to do with who a team gets for its starting players. The Rays and the Brewers and the Pirates were bad because of those same players, so it's foolhardy to expect to get much for them. Go back and look at the post on the Brewers. New GM Doug Melvin traded guys like Eric Young and Mike DeJean and Valerio De Los Santos, even though they were vaguely useful players, for next to nothing. (And it was perfectly clear, even at the time, that he wasn't getting a whole lot.) These kinds of players--the vaguely useful players that awful teams have way too many of, your Jose Bautistas and your John Grabows--mean almost nothing in the grand scheme of things. One can take this line of reasoning too far, but it should have been expected that the Pirates would get very little in return for most of the players they traded. Those players weren't any good, which is why the Bucs were in a position to trade them.
In the end, whether or not the Pirates return to contention will depend very heavily on acquiring amateur talent. This was true for all three teams I looked at that succeeded. Tampa's success has been driven heavily by homegrown guys like Evan Longoria, Carl Crawford, James Shields, and David Price, plus having a valuable homegrown trading chip in Delmon Young. Milwaukee has won in large part because of draft picks like Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun and Ben Sheets. And Oakland never would have gone anywhere without homegrown players like Miguel Tejada, Eric Chavez, Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson and Barry Zito.
In amateur talent acquisition, Huntington and Coonelly's record is relatively strong. Their two drafts have been excellent, and the low minors are now filled with interesting players whereas three years ago there were very few. They have made clear strides in Latin America, although much remains to be proven there. Ultimately, though, It Takes Time--a lot of time--for good drafts and good Latin signings to bear fruit. It will be several more years before we know for sure how effective Huntington and Coonelly have been.
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How good are Coonelly and Huntington at evaluating talent?
You gotta be friggin’ kidding me, right? The Pirates are 22-32, and in 4th place. If all the moves these two had made since being hired resulted in the Pirates being close to .500, or in 2nd or 3rd place, you couldn’t argue that things were getting better compared to the last 17 years of losing Pirates baseball. But it’s not working. You gotta face facts-the Nuttings are incapable of producing a winner in Pittsburgh. Case closed. Winning is about being consistent and winning more games than you’re losing. Look at ex-Pirates players like Bay or Nady or Wakefield. They’re thriving elsewhere, or at least their careers are doing well with other teams. Look at ex-Buccos manager Tracy in Colorado. The Rockies were a playoff contender in his first year. The Pirates aren’t getting better, and results are what counts. 4th place doesn’t mean much in a division where all the other teams, except St. Louis and Cincinnati, are below .500. The Nuttings must go, or the Pirates aren’t going anywhere, except as they are now-heading toward another losing season-18 in a row. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.
Certainly in 1970, you could have said "The Rooneys will never field a winner. Case Closed."
And you would have been as wring as you probably are in this post right here. It takes longer in MLB to turn around a franchise, and this is only the 3rd year this FO has been on the job.
Chuck Noll didn’t break .500 until after his FOURTH draft. Huntington has had TWO so far. Add in the extra 2-3 years development time in MLB, and hopefully you can see just how wrong and baseless your post is.
wait what are you talking about here?
you talking about Littlefield’s last draft of taking Moskos over Wieters? and Littlefield’s last trade deadline acquisition of Morris?
I know.....
this isn’t really your point. But, can we not put Matt Weiters in the HOF just yet. The guy has now played a full season worth of ball and in 586 PAs he has an OPS of .716 and in 201 PAs this year it is .644.
Note to Mark in Dallas
Are you just plain dumb or what? Huntington and Coonelly are the WORST GM and President in all Major League sports! Example: They traded away Morgan and got a misfit (Milledge) who wasn’t even playing baseball! The Nats sent him home due to attitude problems -as did the Mets before the Nats! With McClouth, Morgan and Cutch, they could have had the fastest outfield in MLB – and used it to win many, many games. Instead they traded for Milledge – who they could have gotten’ for NOTHING! Next you’re gonna’ tell me Clement is Major League. NOPE; he is worthless as is Charlie Morgan, Jose Lopez and so many other of the current Pirates. Just wait, Neal “Let’s Make a Lousy Deal” Huntington will trade away Jones, then Cutch, then Doumit and probably get some washed up arms, misfits or injury prone goonies! There is NO Hope for this team. Anybody with baseball knowledge well realizes that! Bad GM, bad President, bad ownership, bad (or should I say clueless) manager. Results: 18th and more losing seasons in a row! Pathetic!
Look at ex-Pirates players like Bay or Nady or Wakefield.
I dont know how Wakefield is even remotely related to this post.
Nady → thriving?
Bay → what would you have done with Bay? Held on to him till he became an FA?
Quite obvious, really. Wakefield looked into the future, saw Nutting ownership coming and intentionally lost his knuckleball.
Duh.
http://bleedblackandgold.com/
by Say Hey Johnny Ray on Jun 5, 2010 9:11 AM EDT up reply actions
just
just another know nothing pittsburgh sports fan. You obviously know nothing about baseball if you think nady is thriving and you bring up TIM WAKEFIELD really? that was what 10 years ago? am I totally defending this Front office and nutting? no. BUt you sir are just another stupid pittsburgh sports fan and sadly i live with about 100,000 other stupid pittsburgh sports fan in this city. If the pirates turn this around you and the other thousands of people will be filling the stadium saying you were fans all along just like what happend with the pens and now i cant get a dam seat.
age of last winning season: 5
Nearly 20 years....
since we parted ways with Wakefield.
This is the least valuable comment I have seen on this site to date.
Please explain to me why .500 matters?
If you don’t think the minor league system is better off than it was before NH and FC got here, I’m not sure why you are still a fan. You seem to have a deep level of hatred for what the Pirates have done and become.
I agree...
This is the least valuable comment I have seen on this site to date.
It has probably generated more response than it warrants.
"Never mistake motion for action." - Ernest Hemingway
So, essentially
…you took every point that Charlie argued against, put them all in this post in a run-on paragraph and expected to be breaking new grounds of genius?
Do you have a constant erection where blood-flow is kept from your brain? Did you have a stroke? Or were you just born with the inability to do this basic human ability called ‘think’?
Nady – A platoon player on the Cubs
Bay – Getting on base in New York, but showing absolutely no power. Not even doubles power.
Wakefield – Has nothing to do with anything, but has also never been anything extraordinary. He’s a fifth pitcher with an awesome pitch. His career ERA is above 4 and his career WHIP is above 1.40.
http://fanhuddle.com/pittsburghpirates
Charlie
I was the one who brought this up and thanks for taking the time to look back. The main argument from anti-FO folks seems to be that NH should have done better on the return side as you mention with little consideration for what they gave up. We will never know who else they could have had, but I’m sure in a few cases it would have wound up better than the deal we actually received - but that is how the cookie crumbles in these situations. I had used your series to illustrate that the 10% (or whatever) hit rate on these acquisitions from NH was on par (or better) than some of his better-known (and more lauded) peers. People don’t seem to remember, or selectively “forget”, just how terrible the Pirates situation was in 2007. The most unforgiving part of that situation, which didn’t plague a team like the Rays for example, was that the minor league cupboard was COMPLETELY bare. I mean Trinity site bare. The other part people seem to forget is that some of this is also luck — such as the Rays being in position to draft Longoria and Price (when the Pirates didn’t have that chance). The Pirates have done well so far (it HAS only been two drafts) with what they have been dealt in the draft and LA (with the exception of Sano — and we’ll see how that turns out) — I definitely think they deserve the 4-5 year timeframe people seem to regard as the minimum time to see your drafts start to bear fruit (this is ragged edge for the Pirates due to that horribly bare system from 2007, though).
Charlie
This was a nicely done piece. I’d suggest that at the amateur level NH and FC have put the right people in place. They have drafted well. They have dramatically improved the franchise’s future.
At the same time, the Pirates have made some incredibly poor calls with MLB and minor league trades. I think it’s time to clean out some scouts. I think the team also needs to look internally at how key mistakes were made.
Some of my observations here are after the fact. Some I believed at the time:
1. FC should not have blocked the Bay trade with the Indians. NH knew what he was getting and would have flipped Cliff Lee. I was in the minority at the time, but I did like the initial return.
2. The Bay trade was poorly executed. If you compare the Bay return with the Casey Blake return, the Pirates should have done better. If it meant putting money into the deal to get better prospects, so be it. Morris may help to salvage it. But trading for “major-league ready” burnouts usually doesn’t turn out well. That’s largely what they got here.
3. It looks like the Pirates had the chance to choose three good prospects from the Braves for McLouth. Obviously, Heyward was off limits. But did the Pirates have the chance to take Medlen over Morton? Did the Pirates have the chance to take Freeman over Gorkys Hernandez? Who knows? But if you looked over the Braves’ top 15 prospects from last year, the Pirates didn’t choose as well as they could have.
4. The Milledge trade was a reasonable gamble. But the Pirates didn’t give up much. Moreover, they got a future closer back.
5. I’ll never understand the rush to trade Gorzelanny. I hated that trade last year. Many of us on here talk about other teams selling low. This was a classic case of selling Gorzelanny low. Granted, you’ll never know how it would have worked out if two of the pitchers did not suffer serious arm injuries (Hart, Ascanio). But the Pirates gave up a left-handed starter who was cheap and seemed to be getting his stuff back after overuse and a good set-up guy. They should have done better here.
6. Criticizing the Jose Bautista trade is unfair, I believe. Was it a great return? No. Bautista was a 15 homer, 15 steal guy with a .250 average. Not useless. But he was becoming expensive for what he provided. Could NH have gotten more? Maybe. But no one could have predicted the HRs this year.
7. I don’t have a problem with the Sanchez trade. But Alderson is a righty, Charlie.
8. I think the Pirates did well actually in the Jack Wilson, Ian Snell trade. I think these are more of the types of players you need to go after. The C+, B-, B guys that teams are willing to trade. Get them in bulk. Scout well. Hit on a few.
9. Obviously, the Nady trade was a win. No question.
10. NH has had some bad luck with speculative trades. Guys have gotten injured. Guys couldn’t play.
11. Iwamura was a financial disaster. But did the medical people look over his records? Did they weigh him? The talent loss wasn’t that great. But I wish the money had gone to sign Sano.
Overall grade: C. Rationale, the Pirates, as you suggest, did not give up tremendous talent most of the time.I think NH and FC are smart guys and will learn. But they took over the impossible job of having mediocre major league guys and a putrid minor league system. This isn’t a five-year rebuilding job. It’s going to be closer to eight.
I’ll be interested to see how the Pirates do when they trade some bullpen guys this year.
If I recall
The Braves approached with the offer instead of vice versa so there probably wasn’t much of a selection available. I doubt that they were looking to move anyone of even Medlen’s caliber in addition to Gorkys who was the #62 prospect in BA that year.
http://bleedblackandgold.com/
by Say Hey Johnny Ray on Jun 5, 2010 9:24 AM EDT up reply actions
Johnny Ray
Here is the Post-Gazette story the day after:
The Pirates failed to get any of the Braves’ top three prospects, as rated annually by Baseball America: Hernandez was ranked No. 4, Locke No. 7 and Morton not at all. But the Braves had made clear that they would not trade either of their top two prospects — pitcher Tommy Hanson or outfielder Jason Heyward — even if it was one-for-one for McLouth.
The Pirates came back quickly with the three-player package they sought and stayed with it.
“The Braves’ initial reaction was, ‘No, we’ll never do that,’ and they tried to substitute other players,” one team source said. “We got the package we wanted.”
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09155/975012-63.stm#ixzz0pzsZvA17
Time will show whether they were the right three players. But it suggests to me there was some flexibility.
As an aside, here is my bias. I dislike trading for “tools” guys who are 20, 21, 22. I think you draft those guys out of high school in bulk and see who survives.
At that level, you need to be getting baseball players who have put up some numbers.
Yeah, at the time Gorkys was seen as a lot to give up. Throwing in a borderline Major League starter with great stuff and a good minor league pitcher had to seem like a bounty to the Pirates.
In fact, if I recall correctly, when the Jays were shopping Halladay the package they wanted from the Braves was Locke, Hernandez, Morton and Escobar. So we got 3 out of the 4 players they wanted for a guy who had a good run, but who actually sucks.
http://fanhuddle.com/pittsburghpirates
Nate
I agree you can make a case they got a good haul for McLouth (although he was still considered a commodity then). Moreover, it was similar to the package offered for Peavy.
The issue I raise is how the Pirates chose the players. The Post-Gazette says they got the haul they wanted. But who else was on the table?
Imagine if the Pirates had the option of taking Freeman and Medlen and passed. I think we’d all view it differently.
That’s one of those things we don’t know. But I just linked the Post-Gazette story above. Clearly, the Bucs got the guys they wanted. It just now seems to be a scouting misadventure.
Sure, but we never know if those guys were on the table. Obviously the deal would look a lot better with them.
However, the article also says that the Braves were not willing to move any of their top 3 guys, and Freeman was a top 3 guy even at the time of that deal. So we can strike him from the table. Medlen was a top 10 guy back then, as were Hernandez and Locke. I doubt they’d be willing to give up three top 10 guys. Maybe they could have subbed Medlen for Hernandez instead of for Morton. That would make the trade look better, but at the time I think I would have taken Hernandez myself.
http://fanhuddle.com/pittsburghpirates
Nate
You misread the article. It says that the Braves said they would not trade Hanson or Heyward, even one for one.
But it does not say that Freeman was off the table.
Here is the paragraph:
The Pirates failed to get any of the Braves’ top three prospects, as rated annually by Baseball America: Hernandez was ranked No. 4, Locke No. 7 and Morton not at all. But the Braves had made clear that they would not trade either of their top two prospects — pitcher Tommy Hanson or outfielder Jason Heyward — even if it was one-for-one for McLouth.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09155/975012-63.stm#ixzz0q00PZJn6
Like you, I just wish I knew what was on the table. But it suggests the Pirates had Freeman as an option.
Again, I have to admit a bias. I think NH worries too much about velocities for pitchers and tools for position players.
Go for a baseball player like Freeman over Hernandez would be my approach when trading for guys at AA or AAA.
I don’t like tolls guys who haven’t really done that much in the minors. I think you go after tolls guys in the draft.
I don't know why I thought that Atlanta approached first then
But I’m not nuts about Freeman as a prospect, he seems a bit like John Olerud to me which is nice I suppose. Choosing between him and Gorkys isn’t like we passed up Heyward by any means though and there weren’t many signs that Gorkys would completely stop hitting when he came over.
Without hindsight I don’t see how that anyone could complain with that one…not where there are far worse trades to gripe about.
http://bleedblackandgold.com/
by Say Hey Johnny Ray on Jun 5, 2010 1:38 PM EDT up reply actions
Freeman
I saw him in Birmingham. I think the comparison I’d make is Mark Grace. But John Olerud isn’t an unreasonable one. He’s good with the glove. He has 20 HR power. He’ll drive in 80 runs.
Your take is fair. He’s a good but not great prospect.
Yunel Escobar, as a proven 3-5 win young shortstop at the major league level, was 80% or more of that package.
by Adam Reynolds on Jun 5, 2010 2:48 PM EDT up reply actions
Freeman over Hernandez
I just don’t see how the Braves would have given up Freeman in that Nate deal all things considered since his prospect status has been pretty strong (not that Gorkys didn’t have solid status as well, but Freeman had the power).
Good stuff, Charlie
Trading useful bench players for down on their luck pedigree prospects really still seems smart to me because you only need to hit on a few.
And if the critics want to be honest with themselves I wonder how they reconcile that we have two legit top 50 prospects in Tabata and Morris to show for the grab bag of aging junk that we gave away? I honestly didn’t even expect that kind of return.
http://bleedblackandgold.com/
by Say Hey Johnny Ray on Jun 5, 2010 9:20 AM EDT reply actions
Didn't give up much
You’ve got the formula wrong, Charlie. According to Dejan, you don’t look at what the Pirates gave up, only at what they got. If Huntington trades Ryan Church for a grade Z prospect and the guy flops, Huntington’s made a bad trade.
I think you have to look at the perceived value at the time of the player traded
But conversely, you have to look at the perceived value of the player received at the time of the trade.
It doesn’t make sense to judge the Bay trade poorly because Andy LaRoche didn’t develop like almost everyone in baseball thought he was going to. If Morton never figures out how to pitch, you certainly could say the signs of his 10 cent head were there before. But I don’t see how you could predict Andy LaRoche would not hit in the big leagues.
What happens if Matt Weiters never hits very well in the majors and Danny Moskos becomes a very good closer? Does this mean that the Pirates were right to take Moskos instead of Weiters? No, absolutely not. It could never be predicted that Moskos would actually turn out better in that instance. The only way to win the prospect game in the end is to keep picking the guys who are more talented and realize that sometimes the less talented guy is going to do better. But most of the time not.
Mark
I agree that you have to look at the value of the player at the time of the trade.
I like LaRoche. I think he will have real value if he can play 2b.
But I’d disagree that everyone in MLB thought he was going to develop. In fact, he was available precisely because in 2007 he hit .226, in 2008 he hit .203 for the Dodgers.
I think there was considerable evidence to suggest he wasn’t going to hit..
I’d argue that he has exceeded expectations.
I think NH was right in his post mortem. He took the wrong deal. That’s not to say that I don’t think he got something back. LaRoche has value. It looks like Morris will have value.
I cited the trade as one he could learn from.
So
everyone who said time is needed to judge these trades was wrong? You’re basically saying you can only judge a trade immediately, by how the players value is perceived and how the players turn out has nothing to do with who won the trade. Something is off here
I don’t think it’s fair to judge any GM on one particular trade. You have to look at everything at the end and see if as a whole their thinking process made the team better.
I always use Jon Daniels of the Rangers as the example. He made one of the worst trades of the decade (trading away Chris Young and Adrian Gonzalez) and also one of the best (Teixeira trade). So, how does one compute with the other if he is the same GM?
Also, Saltalamacchia was supposed to be the best player in that trade, and he has turned out the worst. Is that Daniels’ fault? Should he have known Salty was going to have problems throwing the ball back to the pitcher?
You just can’t blame the GM for all these things. At the end of the day, where the GM’s talent becomes clearer is whether their system for making decisions and developing players is working on a whole. That’s not easily seen until 5 years or so down the line when the dots begin to be filled in.
Mark
I agree completely. I think that on the whole, NH has done reasonably well as GM.
I’ll reiterate what I tried to say before. I think where the organization has failed—in trades and free agent signings—is in its scouting at the MLB level and in the high minors. That’s the part of the process I think that needs to be reviewed.
Mr. E
With most trades, you need to give them years. It’s like an NFL draft.
That’s not what I was trying to say. I agreed with Mark that you need to consider how a player is valued at the time of the trade. It’s unfair, I believe, to trade for a top prospect. Then when he struggles to revise your perspective based on the struggles.
At the time of the Bay trade, LaRoche’s stock was down. A lot. It seems like his ability is somewhere between what the Pirates thought it was and the Dodgers thought it was.
I’d agree with NH. He could have gotten a better return. But I don’t think NH was swindled. In fact, I think it raises the question of how good the scouts were who praised Boston’s side of the deal.
I think you have to look at the perceived value at the time of the player traded
But conversely, you have to look at the perceived value of the player received at the time of the trade.
This is the fundamental problem I have with most of the trade evaluations I see.
Of course, “perceived value” has to mean “perceived by qualified MLB FO types,” and not “perceived by Pirate fans wearing ’27 Yankees-tinted glasses.”
by WTM on Jun 5, 2010 3:27 PM EDT up reply actions
The Dodgers didn’t think Andy LaRoche would develop. I’m sure they weren’t the only FO group in baseball that figured as much. In reality, the opinion was probably split more evenly.
From what I read, they were a lot higher on Morris out of the two.
by Adam Reynolds on Jun 5, 2010 3:32 PM EDT up reply actions
What happens if Matt Weiters never hits very well in the majors and Danny Moskos becomes a very good closer? Does this mean that the Pirates were right to take Moskos instead of Weiters? No, absolutely not.
Wieters would have to get hit in the crotch with a nuclear missile to not have as much value as Moskos. The better counterpoint to your argument is the Delmon Young-Bartlett/Garza trade. Most of the industry types saw that as an easy win for the Twins because of Young’s star potential. Does that mean Minnesota made the right move because of the perceived value? Or was the TB front office savvier than the rest?
Whether it’s fair or not, results matter the most in draft/transactions, because that is what separates the good front offices from the mediocre ones. The good ones are able to see past conventional wisdom.
by Adam Reynolds on Jun 5, 2010 3:42 PM EDT up reply actions
I would say that Tampa Bay made a calculated decision that the players they got back were going to be better long term, regardless of whether Young turned out great or not. Or, possibly they valued Young’s poor plate discipline as more of a negative than most did, and then made the correct decision based on that.
But I think it’s very hard to say that Tampa Bay’s GM is better than the Twins’ just from that one trade. Ultimately, the move worked out incredibly for them, but it’s kind of like guessing that a change up is coming on the next pitch. If Ryan Doumit takes Roy Halladay deep by doing that, that one at bat doesn’t tell you whether one player is better than the other.
As far as Weiters getting hit in the crotch with a missle…he is a catcher and the Orioles might take Taillon in the draft, so anything’s possible.
I don’t know that I’d say now that the Tampa Bay FO is the best in the business (although the current situation speaks for itself). But I think now we can say that Tampa made a very good deal (or at least a good deal) despite losing on the perceived value at the time.
Results will determine the Tony Sanchez move. If he doesn’t produce in the majors, this FO will get blasted and rightly so.
But if he does hit well in MLB, is it still fair to say he was a poor pick because of negative perception on draft day among most insiders? I don’t think that would be too fair. If Tony produces as a big league catcher, the FO will and should get credit.
by Adam Reynolds on Jun 5, 2010 4:14 PM EDT up reply actions
I think there is a difference between immediate results and results you have to wait for. Results that rely on various factors unable to be predicted are more often do to other things besides the initial evaluation.
For example, when Gorzo goes to the Cubs and immediate begins pitching like he would be the best pitcher on our staff, that is a huge blemish on the Pirates’ FO.
When Belisario is released in AA and shortly after is doing an excellent job for the Dodgers, that is another clear loss.
In both of these cases, the Pirates made clear misjudgments on the near future of these players.
On the other hand…
When Ronny Cedeno suddenly becomes a better player than Jack Wilson, that is a clear correct judgment for the Pirates.
When Tony Sanchez immediately hits better than anyone else in the first round of the 2009 draft, that is a clear indication that the Pirates were more correct than others on that evaluation.
I disagree on two of the points. Gorzelanny was good with the Cubs, but not that good. He couldn’t even stay in their rotation, which isn’t exactly filled with Koufax and Drysdale clones. Gorzo is more of a small loss against the Pirates FO than a large loss.
Also, I don’t buy that Tony Sanchez’ A ball numbers quite vindicate the Pirates on that pick. If his hitting translates to Double-A, then he will look more successful. His A+ production is an encouraging sign, but it does not change the perception of him very much because there are many younger and less developed players at the level.
Sanchez isn’t the best hitter in the 2009 first round, either. Mike Trout has better A numbers (one level lower than Sanchez), and is only 18 (4 years of age younger). I can’t hold Trout against the Pirates because he was not a widely discussed alternative for them like Wieters/Posey. But the Pirates didn’t get the steal of the draft or even the hitting class last year.
by Adam Reynolds on Jun 6, 2010 2:49 AM EDT up reply actions
Would you turn down...
having Zambrano, or Lilly, or Dempster, or Silva on the Pirates staff?? Talent-wise, anyway?? Obviously, we wouldn’t pay the 8 figure salaries. Any one of those 4 COULD be the best pitcher on the Pirates staff right now. It’s not a crime for Gorzo to not be in the Cubs rotation right now. It was between him and Wells for the 5th spot when they took Z out of the bullpen. Additionally, the Cubs needed a lefty in the pen with Grabow going on the DL.
It’s not a crime for Gorzelanny to not be in the rotation. It just shows that the Pirates were hardly the only team to not think much of his “talent”. He got off to a hot start, but so has Livan Hernandez and you won’t hear me clamoring to trade for him anytime soon.
The Cubs figured Gorzelanny would not keep up the good work, which seems like a safe assumption given his track record. If the Cubs needed a pen lefty and Gorzo was good, they would have traded for one like Eveland when available. Gorzelanny is not thought of highly for a reason, IMO.
by Adam Reynolds on Jun 6, 2010 4:54 AM EDT up reply actions
I’ll have to go back and review some video on him. They yanked him after he gave up 5 earned in 2 of his last 3 starts.
Nonetheless, Gorzo has a 2.85 FIP, 3.66 xFIP, and 3.63 ERA this year, which is good for 1.6 WAR, twice as much as Paul Maholm, the Pirates’ best pitcher.
Now, Maholm does have 7 quality starts to Gorzo’s 5, and in all 7 of those quality starts, Maholm has given up only 2 earned runs or less, whereas Gorzo only did that in 4. So, if you ask if I think Gorzo is better than Maholm…no.
But I think Gorzo’s demotion to the pen is more about Zambrano making a lot of money and them trying to build up his value.
by MarkInDallas on Jun 6, 2010 11:14 AM EDT up reply actions
There’s also the fact that Zambrano’s career track record is tremendous, and Gorzelanny’s is crappy.
by Adam Reynolds on Jun 6, 2010 10:06 PM EDT up reply actions
Tampa was dealing from a position of strength (athletic OFs) and improving their defense up the middle with Bartlett and bringing in another live arm (Garza) as a SP. Had the Bucs been drafting as successfully as the Rays, we’d have more flexibility to fill gaping organizational holes such as SS. Who knows, maybe in 3-5 years the Bucs will be able to make a similar move that takes us into the upper echelon of MLB….
Good point...
Who knows, maybe in 3-5 years the Bucs will be able to make a similar move that takes us into the upper echelon of MLB….
I believe that’s the plan!
I wouldn't have.....
argued the Weiters-Moskos thing ever before. But, all of a sudden I’d hold off on crushing Moskos and putting Weiters in the HOF. Moskos is killing AA and Weiters is struggling big time at the moment in the Bigs. Not saying they are close to even yet. But, I’m saying the landscape has changed quite a bit in the last six months.
Just out of curiosity...
…what do you think Wieters would be doing if he were playing in AA right now?
I’m glad that Moskos has rebounded a bit, but let’s not get carried away.
Killing it of course.....
I’m not sure saying the landscape of the two players careers has changed a bit over the past six months is getting carried away, I think it’s just fact.
Wieters
has played well defensively and been inconsistent in a tough division.
Wieters has put together two decent months at AA.
I’m not sure the landscape has changed at all.
Moskos looked like John Grabow to me last year. He looks like John Grabow now.
On the other hand, Wieters is an average catcher now with the chance to become elite.
Let's say that Neal Huntington and Frank Coonelly are the door after this season.
They will have had 3 amateur drafts and as many years more or less to acquire talent-mainly from Latin America, of course, outside the draft.
With a lot of the players being teenagers when they enter the organization, you’re really talking several more years til we can pass any definitive judgment with this.
Maybe some of our BD resident experts will be pleased-hopefully ecstatic-with next week’s draft, but Pedro Alvarez from 2008 still hasn’t made his MLB debut, for chrissakes.
At the major-league level, the Nady/Marte looks pretty good for the Bucs.
The Bay trade much less so, especially if Morris doesn’t come through in the next year or so.
The McLouth move is still up in the air for sure. McLouth hasn’t exactly been “Nate The Great” for the Braves, and there still is a small chance Charlie Morton will turn out to be a decent starter for us. And we still have no idea how good Jeff Locke will be.
I think both Burnett and Gorzelanny were traded because there were “irreconcilable differences” between the players and the organization. Just my guess, but I think it’s a reasonable one when looking at the past.
The Matt Capps loss with no return looks bad. ’Nuff said.
It’s too early to pass much judgment on the Snell/Wilson trade with the Mariners, as we have some other minor leaguers that still have a chance to help out down the road. Clement might or might not pan out, but at least Cedeno is generally on the field and doing a decent job, as compared to Jack “I have a day-to-day injury that will keep me out a month” Wilson.
The Iwamura deal…I don’t want to get into it again.
Jose Bautista: I think Vlad had some very relevant points about it from the Pirates standpoint not long ago. Nobody could’ve foreseen what he has done so far this year, but it is only a couple months, and time will tell if it’s legit.
Anyway, this might make for a helluva conversation when the Pirates will hopefully have returned to winning ways:
2015: In Retrospect: Neal Huntington and Frank Coonelly
The Jose Bautista comments are the worst
I don’t remember anyone complaining about him before this season. If those people were making lists of the players we traded that they wanted back, he would have been pretty far down the list before the season.
I also agree on Cedeno, we may or may not still have Jack who is hurt, probably leaving us with someone like Luis Cruz playing SS for us.
I don't think Cedeno is any great shakes
but he sure isn’t as bad as Cubs fans made him out to be. I sort of see he and Luis Cruz as being fairly equivalent.
Cedeno isn't much
But he is still roughly a 1 WAR player this year…Cruz is lucky to be a 1 WAR player in AAA.
http://bleedblackandgold.com/
by Say Hey Johnny Ray on Jun 5, 2010 12:02 PM EDT up reply actions
"The Matt Capps loss with no return looks bad."
Does it? I’m pretty happy with how Dotel has been pitching this year, and it was going to be one guy or the other.
Capps gets bombed.....
again today. I really would like to see us move Dotel for a return at the deadline. Hanrahan and Meek are ready. We have arms coming that can fill most of the other roles.
"5'4" knuckleballers"
She’s still out there, but is really on 5’1.
i think
that a lot of this current ‘talent evaluation’ talk is being driven by the current anticipation of tabata, alvarez, and lincoln being “ready” to come up. perhaps the most important detail to mention in all this is that the reason talent evaluation is such a fickle beast is that it’s all relative.
right now, Pedro Alvarez, IF he is now a WYSIWYG player, probably comes up to the major leagues and profiles not unlike ryan howard – ridiculous power, embarrassing numbers against lefties, but probably a perennial all-star anyways. not too terrible.
BUT, what if we leave him down there for one more month, he starts figuring out LHP, and he can be even better than that? the front office would be cheating themselves to not allow Pedro a little more time, since his career performance trends would seem to indicate a guy who can figure “it” out if given enough time, no matter what “it” is.
same goes for lincoln. sure, he could probably come up and be successful right now. not dominant, just successful. but what if he gets a little more time to work on his pitch arsenal – how much better could he then be when he is promoted?
this is all based on the front office’s estimation of where exactly each player’s ceiling sits. i certainly look at these players’ stats and think “what can he really do better?” but then, there’s a reason or fifteen that i’m not working in professional baseball, and those reasons cause me to put my faith in NH and FC’s opinions.
NH and FC
I think the strongest point you made was the misperception of many regarding the value of what we traded. Even in the case of Bay, who was no doubt the highest value piece traded, the value was not limitless, since he was approaching free agency. The “years of control” issue has become enormous in baseball. Beyond that, we did not exactly break up the 27 Yankees. There are a lot more players capable of being so-so at the MLB level than being stars.
It’s really not all that hard to see that Bay was not regarded as a front-rank player, which is how FO critics always portray him in dumping on the trade. At the time of the trade, there were still a lot of doubts about Bay due to his knees and his bad 2007 season. He hit very well for the Sox in his one year plus two months, and he stayed healthy. In spite of that, the Mets—not exactly one of the better run franchises out there—were the only team with a serious interest. That’s not to say NH couldn’t have done better, but he wasn’t going to get a superstar-type return for Bay.
To be perfectly honest Bryan Morris, Andy LaRoche and parts even looks a bit like a poor man’s return on the Halladay trade.
Sure, I’d rather have Drabek, Wallace and D’Arnaud but that wasn’t exactly an option here.
http://bleedblackandgold.com/
by Say Hey Johnny Ray on Jun 5, 2010 10:45 AM EDT up reply actions
Some people like to compare the Bay trade with the Teixeira trade Texas made with Atlanta. There are several problems with this.
One, that there were serious questions by all in the national scene as to whether Bay would be as good with the Red Sox as he was with the Pirates. Bay was seen as a small town guy who might be intimidated by the Boston pressure…questions of competition level in the NL Central compared to the AL East…yada yada yada. Tex was seen not only as a guy whose bat was better head to head, but was considered a “money guy” – used to the pressure of performing – and who was always a top flight talent from his big initial signing bonus.
Two, Bay’s injury was still a question, as many people thought has done after his poor 2007.
Three, Atlanta’s deal was roundly criticized at the time, and most thought they gave away too much. Just because there’s one sucker willing to do a deal like that, doesn’t mean that fortune should be expected in every deal.
Four, partly because of number three and combined with the success of Tampa in 2008 and the growing ability of the low revenue teams to do big things with prospects, the mood toward prospects began to turn significantly in 2008. Teams were valuing their prospects much more highly, and that has made every vet for prospects trade significantly more difficult since then.
Mark
Good points. I don’t think Teix is the right comparison. But the Pirates should have done better than the return for Casey Blake. I’m not sure they did.
Enough of the Casey Blake references
It’s a fallacy to think that because Cleveland was a able to get Carlos Santana for Casey Blake, anyone trading someone better than Casey Blake should get someone better than Carlos Santana. Trades don’t work that way, Cleveland’s subsequent trades didn’t even work out that way. They traded 2 guys better than Casey Blake – Lee and Martinez – and didn’t get a return equal to Carlos Santana in either case (at least in my opinion).
Cleveland made a great deal to get Santana for Blake and they should be commended for it. But to use the Casey Blake return as the standard that all trades should meet is unrealistic.
Maguro
I’d disagree. They were traded days apart. I’m sure teams bid on both players. The reason the Indians got a better prospect was because they agreed to pay part of Blake’s salary.
NH did the same thing and dramatically improved the return in the Wilson-Snell trade.
I dunno
Were the Dodgers even interested in Bay? Seems to me that they had their heats set on Manny from the start. Not sure why Ned Coletti was so fixated with Casey Blake, but that is one of the things that makes evaluating trades from the outside difficult – GMs are humans and they all have their own idiosyncracies.
Bottom line is that we will never know what LA was willing to offer for JBay, if indeed they were interested in him, so all we can do is speculate.
Bay
I do think the Pirates and Dodgers discussed a Bay trade, much like the Bucs talked to the Marlins. But that’s based on memory. I don’t have the time to play anymore to look it up.
I agree with your post. GMs are idiosyncratic. Moreover, some are just bad. That makes evaluating even harder when you have DL guys out there making horrendous trades. Every other team expects a similar return
The Indians didn't just deal Blake for Santana.
They also picked up several million dollars’ worth of salary, at a time when the Dodgers were totally unable to add payroll.
"It takes time", but time is a limited quantity when your contract is coming to an end soon
Very nice work, Charlie.
The Rays/Pirates comparison is very interesting because the 2007 Pirates look very much like the 2003 DevilRays, not a Major League team with not much help expected from the Minors.
The biggest problem with the ’It takes time" theory is that most GMs coming to small-payroll teams get a 3-years contract. Which means that their contract is up basically before the majority of their acquisitions make an impact in the Majors.
I still have confidence in NH. Let’s hope the Nuttings and FC follow The Plan, and extend NH’s contract for a couple more years. Because, let’s face it, we’re not going to brake the bank to bring in 2-3 big time FAs. So, The Plan is more or less the only answer.
Charlie
Very Good Article.
A lot of these trades were for prospects, like Locke and Morris. How good the development system is for the Bucs will determine how they ultimately will do with this plan.
Some of these prospects that appear to be failing like Morton did not spend much time in the Pirate system.
Alderson is young, they have him for a long time, they chose to completely alter his mechanics, he got off to a slow start, but at this point in time, he is doing very well with the new mechanics.
The Pirates reluctance to bring up Andrew McCutchen until they thought he was ready had everything to do with the McClouth trade, they never make that trade if Andrew is not ready.
Their standing their ground when everyone in the world wants Lincoln here, in most organizations, he would have been here last year getting his brains beat out.
Walker said even though he hated it, playing at AAA for 2 1/2 years was the best thing for him.
I give the FO credit for standing their ground with this young kids and not rushing them no matter what happens at the major league level. Until they are ready, the FO will use patchwork players, usually those are players that have high upsides, but have not produced in the past, your going patchwork, why not go with players that have potential?
I don’t know that we can laud the front office for the draft yet, either. You look at 2008 and see Jordy Mercer, Chase D’Arnaud, Tanner Scheppers who they did not sign, Robbie Grossman, Wes Freeman, Jarek Cunningham. There doesn’t look like a ton of production there except for Alvarez, Justin Wilson, and Jeremy Farrell who is arguably an organizational player. Also, there’s the issue of how Alvarez compares to the alternatives at that spot like Buster Posey (which is still debatable).
That first group that I pointed out has time to turn it around yet, but it’s hard to take a snapshot now and call Huntington and Coonelly draft masters or anything.
Scheppers
That was really the mistake. The Pirates offered him second-round money. He wanted top five money. Could they have massaged the deal and found middle ground?
I think sometimes you have to go over your budgeted amount for top-tier talent. Scheppers and Sano are examples of where the Pirates made mistakes because of hard-line negotiating.
I’d say my concern with NH and FC are that they do have the ability to tick off agents and players. We may love it when someone says screw Boras. But is it really productive to alienate the agents and players?
I suspect that is the reason Scheppers wouldn’t even sign the paperwork to allow the Pirates the opportunity to draft him again. It also seems to have contributed to Sano signing with the Twins without giving the Pirates an opportunity to make a best offer.
Moreover, people cited the irreconcilable differences above. Capps, Burnett, Torres, Gorzelanny, Salomon Torres are just a partial list.
I’m not saying these guys are or were franchise players. They are/were not. But the Pirates do seem to have more irreconcilable differences than most teams.
Torres, Burnett and Gorzelanny’s issues were all related to the previous front office, though.
http://fanhuddle.com/pittsburghpirates
Agreed
But are they issues that NH could have soothed over with a sit-down? Again, I like the front office. It’s remarkable how far the team has moved since the DL era.
But I’d suggest that both NH and FC can be too blunt and honest. And, at times, it is counter productive.
Their bedside manner does leave something to be desired at times.
On Scheppers, though, it’s more unusual for a drafted player who is not signed to allow the same team to redraft him, so that is not a red flag of any sort. He was injured, there were questions whether he could come back as strong, and yet he still wanted top 5 money. If there was any miscalculation there, it was in gauging his willingness to take less. It’s hard to fault them for not giving him big money when there were those questions.
I don’t see the Capps situation as a failure, in fact that seems to be one where things played out exactly as they suspected.
Gorzelanny could be seen as a very bad move, but sometimes you just have players that aren’t going work in your system. Could Gorzo have gotten it together in Pittsburgh and pitched well this year? I don’t know. For whatever reason, they didn’t think he was going to. That is definitely a blemish on their record right now.
Mark
I should call you on the phone the way I’m responding to your posts. You make good points on “bedside manner.”
I think the failure with Scheppers was that they knew what he wanted and then drafted him anyway. Could they have come up with a creative contract where he would have done well if healthy? I sure wish they had.
I would agree with you, but I can’t because I don’t have any data that would tell me about other teams irreconcilable differences with their players. Even the Pirates that were mentioned IMO don’t come under irreconcilable differences, they were traded for sound baseball reasons.
1. Capps, wanted more money, the Bucs did not want to gamble on arbitration!
2. Burnett was traded for Hanrahan, the Bucs wanted a power arm!
3. Torres era was somewhere close to 6 when they let him go!
4. Gorzelanny and Grabow were let go for some higher upside players!
Whether these trades work out or not, there was sound baseball reasoning behind moving these players, beyond irreconcilable differences. You could say the same thing for every trade they made.
Leadoff
Well, you have the information based on blogs, websites, newspapers. It does seem that the front office and players here have had more issues over the past few years than other teams.
Moreover, I’m not sure I agree with your summaries. I don’t think Gorzelanny was traded for a higher upside players at all. In fact, I think the Pirates gave up the two best players in that deal. (See my posts from a year ago. I hated that deal.)
As for Torres, he was a useful middle reliever. You can cite one ERA. But he was mostly a solid player for the Pirates and a good one for the Brewers.
Torres was definitely a mistake and one that Huntington has admitted. It was definitely not a mistake to trade Grabow, but Gorzo sure looks better at this point than 2 dead arms.
You can't
forecast injury as the determinant. And I’d still trade Gorzo for Ascanio and Hart today I think. I like Ascanio’s upside, but obviously we’ll have to see.
They were offering more than a million bucks...
…for a guy whose fastball was sitting in the 80s, and who wasn’t able to throw breaking stuff at all.
Yes, his recovery from the surgery went well after that, but at the time when they had to make the decision, paying Scheppers’s asking price for a guy who had suffered an extremely unusual injury and wasn’t yet back at the top of his game could’ve turned out very badly.
The situation turned out OK for us in the end. We took Victor Black with the comp pick we got for Scheppers, and he’s a good talent in his own right.
Chase D’Arnaud is scuffling in AA, but he’s also coming off a great year at A-ball, is walking a lot, and isn’t striking out too much. I still see him as a future starter in the “does a lot of things well, but doesn’t do anything great” mold.
Grossman still has plenty of time. He strikes out a bunch, but he walks a bunch too. He’s only 20, so the power has time to develop. It’s way too early to pass judgment on him.
Freeman…yeah, he’s not very good.
Cunningham is similar to Grossman, except he’s already flashing power and doesn’t walk as much. As he gets older, hopefully he’ll strike out less often. I still see a future with him. Too early to write him off.
http://fanhuddle.com/pittsburghpirates
There’s some hope for D’Arnaud, Cunningham, Wilson, and maybe Grossman. They look like low probability deals at this point, though.
I’m not sold on D’Arnaud as a future starter. From what I’ve seen in a couple of games in Altoona, his defense wasn’t that good, and not enough to make up for the offense. That’s just my take, though.
by Adam Reynolds on Jun 5, 2010 3:17 PM EDT up reply actions
As far as Grossman's K rate is concerned...
…it’s worth noting that he’s made significant progress on that front this year. It’s still too high, but it’s definitely heading in the right direction.
probably just nitpicking
but the nationals aren’t exactly laughing at us over the milledge deal. burnett has been merely average, while nyjer’s BA is down and his steal % is probably hurting the team more than helping.
by johnnycuff on Jun 5, 2010 12:09 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
Plus Lastings hasn’t thrown his glove once this year.
http://bleedblackandgold.com/
by Say Hey Johnny Ray on Jun 5, 2010 1:40 PM EDT up reply actions
That trade.
Nyjer’s OPS+: 82
Lasting’s OPS+: 75
And looking at Burnett’s and Hanrahan’s pitching stats, they’re about even. So overall, that trade wasn’t too terrible. Last year, Nyjer had a career season. Now he’s returning to normal.
Burnett and Hanrahan's stats may be even (I haven't checked)
But Hanrahan has been dominant this year for the most part, and has the ability to be a star closer. Burnett and dominant have never been used in the same sentence.
yes they have
Burnett dominates that Bench in the Bullpen
Players who should be in the Hall of Fame: Pat TIllman, Dwight White, Donnie Shell, L.C. Greenwood, Ray Guy, Steve Tasker, Greg Llyod, Andy Russel, Cris Carter, Kevin Greene and Jerry Kramer
"It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one." George Washington
Canal Street Chronicles resident Steelers Fan
Yeah, I’m not too concerned over the Morgan deal. Just giving people who might believe otherwise the benefit of the doubt, esp. since I’ve been so critical or Morgan in the past.
by Charlie Wilmoth on Jun 5, 2010 7:08 PM EDT up reply actions
The Minor league system is not just about drafts, it is about acquiring players and developing them. Many will fail, in fact most of them will fail.
2 Players made it to the majors from the 2004 draft, Bixler, cup of coffee and Walker, just made it.
Jarek Cunningham is coming back from a serious knee operation, D’Arnaud is coming back from a month long virus, according to his manager, Grossman has begun to hit again, and I believe he might be 20 years old this year. These are good prospects, but the system has better players.
The difference in Huntington’s drafts and some of the past drafts that were here is that the Pirates no longer have one or two guys that everyone is hanging their hats on, but many players that have a chance to succeed and be better than average players.
I wonder
How different the tone of conversation surrounding Neal Huntington’s talent evaluation abilities would be if the Jason Bay for Franklin Guttierez and Cliff Lee deal had actually gone through. Quite amazing to think how different things might be if he had managed to pull that off.
Bay and the Indians deal
Lee would be gone now for what the Phillies got, two minor league prospects “AA” and down, as for Franklin Guttierez, in 2008, he had 8 home runs and hit 248, the fanbase would not have taken to him very much IMO. In 2009, LaRoach’s first full season, he hit 12 homeruns and batted 258.
The Pirates got LaRoach, Morris, Moss, Craig Hansen, LaRoach, not a star, but more like average all around, Moss won’t make it, Hansen is hurt and Morris could develop into a 2 or 3 on the staff and is developing very well after numerous changes were made.
At the time of the trades, the Pirates 3 way deal looked as good to me and possibly better than the proposed trade to the Indians.
Leadoff
I’d argue that citing his 8 homeruns and .248 average gives only part of the picture.
Gutierrez hit 13 HR and batted .266 the year before in 271 at bats.
Moreover, as others have cited, he’s an elite CF.
My point simply was that NH is your baseball guy. He particularly knew these players. I’m not sure FC should be second guessing him.
Finally, I think he would have brought two or three B/B+ guys. I didn’t really like the Cleveland deal. I thouht the return seemed a little low. But who NH would have flipped Lee for would have been the key.
NH & FC
I don’t know about NH or FC but i’m not at all thrilled about the so called “scouts” like GREG SMITH..& people under him, of which i believe some are leftover from Littlefield.. everyone should be handed a PINK slip & go to the Twins organization & take a blank check …
Smith isn’t from the Littlefield administration. And he’s the guy in charge of the drafts, which have mostly been really good.
by Charlie Wilmoth on Jun 5, 2010 7:06 PM EDT up reply actions
Well done article
You people have to look at the trades and look at what those players are doing now as well as what they did then.
Of McClouth, Bay, Nady, Wilson, Sanchez, and Morgan, how many would really being producing all that much better for us?
Sure Sanchez would be nice at 2B, but now we can evalute Neil Walker there.
Sure Nady and Bay at the corners would be nice but then we wouldnt have future prospect Tabata or Garret Jones starting for us. and from what Bay and Nady are doing this year ill take Tabata and GJones AND Milledge.
McClouth? with him gone we now have a much better all around player in McCutchen in the lineup and we also got two pitchers in return, how can you argue with that? McClouth is flat out bad since joining the Braves.
Do we miss Wilson’s glove, sure, but for him and quitter Ian Snell we got 5 players back! For a quitter and a guy that plays good defense, thats highly impressive, also WIlson is now contemplating retiring soon? Im glad we got what we did for those guys.
All in all the talent we had was at best C+ material and we traded it all away to eveluate future prospects and players with higher upside than what we had. If you believe we could have gotten better prospects or players in return for what we traded you are highly mistaken. NH and FC are doing it the right way, and not to mention along with there trades are their drafts which have us looking at some very interesting prospects in the next few seasons.
Hey!
You people have to look at the trades and look at what those players are doing now as well as what they did then.
What do you mean, you people?
haha!
i was reading through many of the comments and noted a lot of people commenting were not in favor of what NH and FC are doing, thats who i meant by you people
Tropic Thunder is the funniest movie in the history of funny movies.
Now, whenever we see a movie, we have to say, that was funny, but not as good as Tropic Thunder.
absolutely hiliarious
That movie was.
by BadAndy on Jun 5, 2010 3:56 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
I saw it once.
My cousin loves that movie but his wife hates it, so he’s not allowed to see it again, just like Army of Darkness.
I’ve been meaning to buy it on Blu-Ray, but i just haven’t gotten around to it.
Yeah....
He told me as they were leaving the theater after seeing it she said something like “I don’t like it, but it’s definitely a Jerry movie.” (Jerry being me).
Also...
Do we miss Wilson’s glove, sure…
Not right now we don’t. Cedeno leads the league at the position with a +22.9 UZR/150 and is 10th with +5 DRS (defensive runs saved). Wilson has a -10.4 and +5 respectively. I don’t know if Cedeno will play like this all year but right now you can argue that he has been better than Wilson this season.
I do agree with the points you made though.
i was too tired to actually look up the stats of all the guys we traded and what not. glad to know cedeno is actually performing better this year
Yeah...right now
Wilson for Cedeno straight up is a win for the Pirates. I’m looking at the rest as Snell for the lot.
Yeah.
Especially if Wilson retires at the end of the season. At that point, all the Mariners got was 1.3 seasons of Wilson and a several years of Snell for Jeff Clement, Ronny Cedeno, Nathan Adcock, Aaron Pribanic and Brett Lorin.
Speaking of which, where is Brett Lorin at these days? I don’t see him on any of the minor league rosters.
Obviously the Front Office thought that McLouth had some value...
I’m seeing alot of well McLouth sucks now, so we shouldn’t expect anything out of that trade.
We signed him for 3 years and $15.75Million in Feb of 2009 – for a team with a perennial total salary under $50 Million that’s a substantial commitment (roughly proportional to Mark Texeira of the Yankees). He had a breakout season in 2008 made the all star team, with 26 homers and 23 SBs and 94 RBIs. After the signing FC referred to McLouth as one of the teams core players as well as “championship caliber”. This is high praise. Shortly thereafter (4 months later) he was traded for Gorkys, Morton and Locke.
I think both sides of this story runs counter to many of the opinions here at the dugout.
On one side: The McLouth signing was the last extension signed by FC/NH that gave large (by PBC standards) contract extemsions to: Maholm, Duke, Snell, Capps and McLouth. None of these guys are special and Snell in particular is bad. All of these guys have shown flashes or even full seasons of productivity, but championship caliber or even core guys for successful teams? I should think not. They did a poor job of identifying true talent at the major league level.
On the other side: As a newly signed core member of the future championship team, NH/FC must have assigned a high value for McLouth. They identified players in the Braves organization they would consider for him (again, a core player) and pulled the trigger on the trade. Thus far, Morton is awful. Gorkys has been a disappointment in Altoona and Locke has middling numbers (hasn’t had a sub 4 ERA since rookie ball).
So, the way I see it – the front office invested a great deal of their budget in at best mediocre talent. But according to them, that talent was the foundation for a championship team. And one of it’s most valuable assets (as perceived by the FO in terms of $ and as a young All-Star and starting CF) was traded for three prospects that have little to no value in the system. The trade was typical of the rest of the disbursement of Pirates “talent” that was largely focused on volume – and to a lesser extent – reducing payroll at the major league level (whether the goal of that was to reinvest in LA or the draft vs putting money to the bottom line is a whole different discussion). In this case, they were a poor judge of their own talent and a poor judge of Atlanta’s talent. I think that holds true for the majority of their signings and returns on trades.
Meh. 3 years and $15.75 is not very much. McLouth really only had to be a mediocre or even slightly below average player to be worth that kind of coin. He didn’t get Aaron Rowand money. If McLouth had stayed on the team then the contract would be a slight loss, but not a lot.
The evidence is that the FO had a realistic perception of McLouth, which is why they took a small package. There’s not much evidence they were overrating him.
Maholm has done well enough to make his extension worthwhile. Duke and Capps never signed contract extensions, so who knows what you’re talking about there.
by Adam Reynolds on Jun 5, 2010 5:21 PM EDT up reply actions
No, it really isn’t. Jason Kendall’s deal of 6 years/60 million was a lot.
by Adam Reynolds on Jun 5, 2010 5:34 PM EDT up reply actions
No, Barry Zito’s contract with the Giants was a lot… shall we continue?
The point is, the pirates committed roughly 10% of their salary pool to McLouth – thus we can surmise they assigned a great deal of value to him. And to continue, they must have assigned an even greater value to the three prospects they got in return for him. They were wrong on both assessments.
No. $5 million gets a $5 million-quality player no matter which team writing the checks. It makes no difference what the Pirates total salary pool is.
by Adam Reynolds on Jun 5, 2010 7:18 PM EDT up reply actions
Sure it does for a team that throws around nickels like manhole covers that money was a large chunk of change. $5Million is a much more significant investment for the Pirates than the Phillies or pretty much any other team not named the Marlins.
McLouth was going to go to arbitration and the Bucs decided they’d prefer to sign him to a contract outside of that process. They made a very significant investment in him (roughly 10% of their total major league payroll) because they thought of him as one of their core players.
Are you saying that the Pirates didn’t value him as one of the top 5 or so players on the team?
I do think they thought of him as a core player at the time of the signing.
I also think that they probably began to change their thinking as the 2009 season approached the end of May.
However, the fact remains that the Pirates didn’t actually have to commit their own money to most of the signing. In these contracts, the Pirates only have to pay them if they can’t find any team to trade the contract to.
They probably figured they would be paying the $3.5M for 2009 and $4.5M for 2010, and would evaluate his progress along the way to determine if his $6.5M for 2011 was going to be worth it.
It probably would still be worth something to another team at that time.
by MarkInDallas on Jun 5, 2010 10:20 PM EDT up reply actions
If so, that was a quick change in thinking. Buyers remorse? I would hope PBC intends to pay players for every contract the Bucs give to their players as opposed to having a plan to trade that contract.
Also McLouth’s contract was $2M/$4.5M/$6.5M with a $1.5M signing bonus. 2012 carried a club option of, wait for it… $10.65M (wow) with a $1.25M buyout.. There were also many attainable performance bonuses. Nevertheless, it was a very attractive contract.
As I've mentioned in the past
The Pirates seem to be operating under the idea that they are willing to pay $3M per WAR, and if the payer dips below that threshold, they can find some team to pay $4M or $4.5 per WAR.
So…in every contract they make, there is an implied possible graph of that player’s performance level and possible actions the PBC could take to adjust to the player’s changing level.
Here, you see what the Pirates would expect from his salary level, and what performance level another team paying $4M per WAR would expect. If at some point in the contract, the Pirates guess that Nate’s performance would go down near or below the $3M per WAR level, they would then trade him to a team that would still find that level of performance attractive for that price.
The 2.6 WAR in light blue is perhaps a guess of what might have been expected from Nate in 2010. Notice how Nate’s contract was negotiated after a season in which he produced 3.7 WAR, and if the PBC would have held onto him and he continued performing at that level or higher, they would probably have kept him.
For whatever reason, they probably estimated his value was going to go down.
by MarkInDallas on Jun 6, 2010 12:20 PM EDT up reply actions
From the Post Gazette: <<The plan is modeled after the one Cleveland general manager Mark Shapiro — Pirates general manager Neal Huntington’s previous boss — has used for years with the Indians: Identify core young players, sign most of them early and hope that many more pan out than fail.
Since Coonelly and Huntington took over in late 2007, their list of multiyear extensions in this category are Maholm (three years plus an option, $14.5 million guaranteed), Doumit (three years plus two options, $11.5 million), starter Ian Snell (three years plus two options, $8.6 million), closer Matt Capps (two years, $3.05 million), and now McLouth.>>
My bad on Duke.
The Maholm and Doumit deals have worked out so far. The Capps deal is in-between (he was worth more than the total of $3.05 million in 2008, and worth zero in 2009). Before they dumped McLouth’s contract, it was good. Only the Snell signing was a failure that they had to eat. That’s not a tremendous extension record, but not the first thing for which I’d criticize the front office.
by Adam Reynolds on Jun 5, 2010 5:41 PM EDT up reply actions
Maholm has been solid, Doumit less so. I don’t know what to make of Capps, but paying any sort of money to a closer or MR on a 60-70 win team is foolhardy. Not it’s not my first criticism of the front office. But in the context of this conversation, I’d say that it supports the idea that the front office has a poor record in evaluting talent.
Doumit didn’t do well last year, but he only made $2.05 million. He was worth at least that much for the half-season he played. The Capps money isn’t any sort of money. It’s 3 million over two years. Every team in the league pays that for relief and bench players.
by Adam Reynolds on Jun 5, 2010 7:20 PM EDT up reply actions
The Bucs cannot afford 1/2 season of Doumit producing even if he only made $2Million. Add that to his questionable attitude and you get a bad investment.
And why is it that the Bucs need to pay anything for a closer for a team that won’t win 70 games? The money, which must be a finite amount is better spent in Latin America and the draft.
They still have plenty of money to spend in the draft and Latin America.
I don’t understand the idea that they don’t need to pay a closer, or a lead off hitter, or a shortstop. They need all of those positions to win games in the proper proportion.
They don’t need to be paying a closer more than a 1 – 1.5 WAR player is what it boils down to, and that is exactly what they are paying Dotel.
by MarkInDallas on Jun 5, 2010 10:27 PM EDT up reply actions
Do they have plenty of money for the draft and Latin America? They’ve spent lot’s of cash, but they’ve also lost Scheppers and Sano over “money”. I’d take either of them in our organization over Capps and his “core closer” money.
What’s the proper proportion for winning games? Closer by committee certainly has worked in the past. I agree on Dotel – I hope he’s a useful commodity at or near the trade deadline (Donnelly too)
They lost Sano...
…because his agent never presented the player with their superior offer. Money was not the motivating factor there.
They had a price at which they were willing to sign Scheppers and a price at which they weren’t. Which, considering the extensive medical questions about him around the time when they had to decide whether they had to fish or cut bait, is an entirely reasonable position.
You can tell the type of budget they’re using by looking at their total record of signings. They’ve spend more on draft bonuses over the last two years than any other team in baseball (the Royals are #2). And they’ve signed more than a dozen $100k+ teenage amateurs in the international market, where they had signed lieterally none in the entire time Littlefield was in charge.
It just seems bizarre to me to hear people saying that they’re constrained by financial limitations in their budget for amateur talent. They’ve been shoveling dollars out the door with both fists.
Oh I agree for sure. But considering the Pirates plight, can there be too much money funneled into the Amateur Draft and LA?
After a certain amount...
…you kind of hit the point of diminishing returns. Even in an arbitrary situation where money is an infinite resource, playing time and instructional time at your low-level affiliates isn’t.
The contracts the FO has given to players that are within their arbitration years were simply putting a solid number on what these players were going to get anyway through arbitration. The only alternative to paying them that kind of money would be trading them or non tendering them. So far, they’ve been able to find a trading partner that looked on these contracts favorably, and so that tells you those contracts were not bad.
Most of the other teams in the league can afford our contracts – point taken.
My point is that the Pirates committed roughly 10% of their team salary to McLouth. So they must have really thought highly of him. The fact that other teams find find our players and their contracts attractive should only increase the Pirates leverage when making trades. McLouth and Bay are prime examples of that. In the case of McLouth, we committed that 10% to a player with one good season under his belt and since then he’s been garbage. In hindsight, it was a bad contract and in my opinion, bad identification of talent. So when they turned this “core player” with one of the Bucs “good contracts” into three prospects, they must have had high expectations. But, because they’re not good at identifying talent, they chose Charlie “Nook” Morton a disaster at the major league level thus far and Gorkys and Locke that are struggling in A and AA.
At this point in time it appears that we evaluated the talent poorly, or we’ve totally screwed them up with our training staff and coaches. Time could change that assessment but I’m not betting the farm on that.
Unless the idea was to trade him all along...
I’d agree with your premise but it’s based on a lot of what if’s. The arbitration process over values players and the Pirates signing McLouth to a team friendly contract says more about the arbitration process, IMO, than it does how they valued him as a player. The fact that they were so quick to pull the trigger tells you how much they valued him. Even though they said he was a core player the trade is evidence that they didn’t really view him that way. And they shouldn’t have because he is not a core player and never was. He was a nice third OF or possibly 4th OF on most teams who looked like an All-Star because he played for the Pirates.
I think McLouth is better than what he's shown this year.
McLouth wOBA…
2007 .364
2008 .369
2009 .350
2010 .272 so far.
It’s not really fair to say after 2 months that McLouth has lost it after putting up 3 above average years in a row. Should you expect .370+ wOBA All-Star caliber from him? No, but I would be surprised if he doesn’t return to .350+ production.
by MarkInDallas on Jun 5, 2010 10:34 PM EDT up reply actions
I agree...
but he really hasn’t put up three above average years in a row (based on plate appearances). It’s more like 1 1/2 above average years and 1 1/2 average years. I don’t think he is as bad as he has been this year but I also don’t think he is a .370 wOBA player going forward. A .350 wOBA is nice but I wouldn’t exactly throw that into the core player category.
I don’t think McLouth is coming back any time soon, because his strikeouts are way higher than when he was hitting well.
That said, the Pirates paid him like a mediocre player despite him producing like an above-average player before the extension. It wasn’t a bad move in theory.
by Adam Reynolds on Jun 6, 2010 2:34 AM EDT up reply actions
the braves have always had a good minor league system though, and we had McCutchen waiting in the wings, we dealt McClouth basically at his highest value. did management contradict themselves by sayig he was part of the core and then trading him yes, was it a smart trade, yes, did we get a highly productive return, yet to be determined.
gorkys was a top prospect with the braves who i thought had a good potential outlook. morton has been bad this year but if management was going on potential then they chose the right guy, as for locke, he could turn out to be a guy that could give us some starts in the future. all this for a guy who had one all-star/breakout year and now has been awful since being traded. what more can you ask. we would not have got hanson, heyward or freeman.
well if you count the fact that we also got McCutchen by trading McClouth, then yes, the return is very productive.
I don’t count trading a “core player” for nothing so we can bring up a great prospect a bonus.
We didn’t have to move McLouth to get Cutch, although rumor has it McLouth was resistant to taking a corner OF slot.
I don't agree that McLouth was a "core" player...
but I do agree that moving McLouth had nothing to do with McCutchen’s readiness. Therefore, McCutchen cannot be factored into the equation when evaluating the McLouth trade.
im just stating
that with McClouth gone it gave way for McCutchen, also at the time of making the McClouth deal many people were upset, dont i dont see anyone calling for McClouth now? No one is saying, darn, if we only still had McClouth….
Also what we received in return was a high return “at the time” again, goryks was a top 10, morton was a mlb ready starter, and locke was a minor league starter, cant argue with that kind of return
If only DL wasn't the GM the year we signed Reggie Sanders, Kenny Lofton
we may have gotten some good players in return. But then again if DL wasn’t the GM we wouldn’t have signed them to begin with
Players who should be in the Hall of Fame: Pat TIllman, Dwight White, Donnie Shell, L.C. Greenwood, Ray Guy, Steve Tasker, Greg Llyod, Andy Russel, Cris Carter, Kevin Greene and Jerry Kramer
"It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one." George Washington
Canal Street Chronicles resident Steelers Fan
I don't think the question of talent evaluation is fair at this point (as Charile has pointed out).
Talen evaluation is a 2-way street. All of the players we acquired had potential to break out and they all undeniably have upside and talent. Of Milledge, Laroche and Clement all of them had a pretty nice pedigree but have not been able to achieve their ceiling for one reason or another. I don’t think simply acquiring these players and running them out there in the hopes they will reach their ceiling simply through extended playing time was the asnwer. So I think a more fair question to ask is do the Pirates have the ability to develop these players (at this stage of their careers) and help them overcome their weakenesses? While Laroche has made some progress the jury is still out on all 3. Can the Bucs get Laroce to be more consistent? Can they get Milledge to have a more patient approach? Can they get Clement to fix that canyon size hole in his swing? Their previous teams didn’t have the patience, or maybe the ability, to accomplish these tasks. The Pirates have the patience but whether they have the ability or not remains to be seen.
Now talent evaluation is a two way street. I think the Pirates have done a decent job so far because other than Batisita, they seemed to have correctly identified the future value of most of the players they have traded away. So far this season here is where some of the key players traded rank in terms of WAR:
Batista – 15th (2.2)
Bay – 64th (1.3)
Laroche – 87th (1.1)
Morgan – 160th (-.1)
McLouth – 167th (-.5)
This list is out of 175 players who have enough at bats to qualify. Now Aki is 177th on the list at -1.3 so this trade would indicate that the FO did not do a good job of talent evaluation but this trade and the Gorzo trade are the only trades at this point that I think you could classify as a loser. I can’t put the Bay trade here because it doesn’t look to me like Bay will outperform his salary this year and probably won’t for the remainder of his contract. Also, Morris (one of the two main pieces acquired) hasn’t reached the majors yet and his arrival will ultimately tip the scale in one direction or another. And as I mentioned above, Laroche can still improve and become an above average player. In the case with Aki we only gave up a Chavez and in the case of Gorzo all of our key players were hurt. Milledge was a 170th on the list with -.5 WAR but as I pointed out there is still some upside there and the player he was traded for, Morgan, has not faired too much better this season.
So this is a long way of saying that I don’t think this is a talent evaluation issue. It’s simply a case of NH doing the best he could with the assets he had. We have a some potential in the minors through the trades and the Nady trade is a clear win at this point. IMO the trades indicate that NH has done a fair job of evaluating talent so far. However, that question will be better answered when some of his draft prospects reach the majors.
they draft good
how do we know that ,they are afraid to bring up one of there drafted players. this is a result driven business and the current front office winning % is less than the 2 previous . I’m sick of all the excuses.
What excuses?
we believe they have drafted well based on the players the picked and the money they spent. You are correct in that we won’t know how well they have drafted until some of these guys make it to Pittsburgh but they have clearly upgraded the resources they have allocated to the draft and have spent over slot for several players…that’s something the previous administration never did. So in that respect they have indeed drafted well. That’s not an excuse it’s a fact. Also, because they are being cautious with Pedro does not cancel out the fact that they drafted him. Your point really doesn’t make any sense. Charlie’s whole point is that building a winning organization from scraps takes time. That’s not an excuse it’s a fact. Now, if the W-L record doesn’t improve when players like Alvarez, Tabata, Lincoln and Sanchez have settled into major league roles you argument will hold a little more water.
bla bla bla
just win baby, tired of all bs. put your best players on the field and GIVE THE FANS SOME FUCKING HOPE!!!!!!
If you’re tired of it don’t come on a message board to talk about it. Leave your trolling elsewhere.
by thecheeseisblue on Jun 5, 2010 4:57 PM EDT up reply actions
You say “Just win” then “give us some hope” within the same sentence. So which do you want? False sense of hope by bringing guys up too early? Or actual winning down the line?
by TravisDW on Jun 5, 2010 6:04 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
+1
and a smile.
"I choose to gamble with my life
Twice the risk, four times the prize
Nothing knocks me over"
by lighthouse913 on Jun 5, 2010 11:15 PM EDT up reply actions
Slick
I’d go beyond what you said. They inherited the biggest disaster I’ve ever seen. A mediocre MLB team and the most pitiful minor league system I’ve ever seen.
It’s going to take five more years, I believe, of trying to draft well and putting $s into it. Something that DL and the previous regime did not do.
Who knows whether they made the right picks? But at least they seem to be trying. Something that wasn’t the case with the Moskos trade.
What's the hurry?
Their drafted players will come up when they’re ready to perform at the MLB level. Thus far they (Pedro in particular) don’t appear ready yet.
"Never mistake motion for action." - Ernest Hemingway
Slow in evaluation
Not slow in evaluating but defintely slow in using.
Tom Specht
I always wonder if Pirate brass reads the endless
debating over trades. We as Pirate fans seem to really give these trades way too much debate. Why its fun to comeback and analyze trades made in the past. That question in Bucconation seems to come up a lot.
because
its all we have to discuss, i dont want to discuss about us losing another game, its more fun to analyze the trades we have currently made and the outlook of the team in the coming years. i quite enjoy debating trades, espically when it appears the pirates have made the better move.
I'm one of the talent-evaluation second-guessers
Why? To be honest, it’s more of a gut feel, but they have squandered (IMO) their only useful trading chips on prospects who WERE top prospects but who had lost their shine. This seems to be the front office’s MO. The hope is that one of these guys regains their former prospect status, but the results, thus far, are less than inspiring: LaRoche has been mediocre, Hansen has been a dud (and let me tell you, Sox fans were THRILLED to be parting with Hansen). Milledge has been mediocre. Alderson hasn’t dispelled any of his doubters. Hernandez looks like a dud. Morton… well, we all know his story, there’s a chance he turns it around. Cedeno is Cedeno. Clement has time to turn it on but he’s looked ugly at the plate and in the field. I know people here are high on Tabata but, potential age issues aside, he has yet to put up even an .800 OPS over a full season in the minors. Hopefully his speed and defense makes him more valuable, but his AAA line this season translates to a sub-.700 OPS at the ML level. That we’re so hopeful for Tabata just evidences how few top prospects we’ve had the pleasure of rooting for.
Put briefly: the FO has yet to acquire a top prospect in any of their deals. The non-former-top-prospect-types in those trades have a decent chance (Morris more than the others). My gut tells me that better prospects could have been had for Bay, McLouth, and Sanchez. I’m hoping they strike gold with Doumit, Duke, or Maholm.
I think that Bay was their best bet for a "top" prospect...
Morris arguably was that and so was Laroche but you’ve already addressed that. I disagree that anyone else we had could get a top prospect back…especially Sanchez. For the record, Locke and Hernandez were in Atlanta’s top 10 and Hernandez was in just about everyone’s top 100 before the trade. Yes they are trending in the wrong direction and were both struggling in their respective leagues before the trade but they were still top prospects. At least Locke seems to be turning things around a bit. I respect your opinion but we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
That brings up a great point – maybe the talent evaluation is correct, but our farm system stinks. Could it be that our coaches and trainers are subpar?
Possibly...
Only time will tell. Truth is, I have more faith in our minor league coaches than I do in the major league ones right now. Our minor leaguers seemed to tow the company line when it came to plate discipline but at the major league level it’s almost non existent. I think Kerrigan has done a decent job but I look at Long and wonder what exactly has he accomplished since he’s been hitting instructor.
I also...
credit our player development program for getting Locke and Morris turned around. They were also able to get players like Owens, Lincoln, Crotta, Hughes and Moskos to take their games to the next leve when the previous regime could not. Say what you want about talent evaluation but I think the player development program has been one of the biggest positives so far.
My last two posts were a round about way to say...
that I think our major league hitting instructor sucks.
It’s either that, or it is easier to get younger guys to change what they are doing rather than old guys.
by MarkInDallas on Jun 5, 2010 10:37 PM EDT up reply actions
Probably more a case of what you said...
but Long really doesn’t have anyone that you can say has taken a step forward because of him. Milledge keeps chasing fastballs low and away, Cedeno keeps swinging at everything, Clement keeps swinging at sliders low and in and Jones keeps trying to hit every ball 500 ft. I guess his biggest accomplishment, IMO, has been that he has gotten Doumit to draw a few more walks this year. That’s something but it seems like the failures outweigh the successes.
Our farm system doesn't stink.
BA rated us as middle-of-the-pack this year, up substantially from prior ratings. And our affiliates are doing pretty well, mostly on the strength of contributions by age-appropriate players.
Poorly worded on my part. How about: Maybe we are evaluating talent properly but our farm system (coaches/trainers) must be poor.
Is BA’s rating based on talent in the system or our ability to turn amateurs into pros? I"m sure it’s based on the talent.
Yep, talent.
That said, they also base part of the rating on the proximity of that talent to the majors, so since most of our prospects are in the low minors, we can probably anticipate another bump up in their rankings even if things don’t change much simply by virtue of everyone being a level higher next year.
Just as bad a statement
Most of the players thought to have the most talent (best prospects) have played very well. Most players are progressing nicely. Yes there’s always some exceptions, that is to be expected in any system, but where is there evidence that the coaches must be poor? Also, all the minor league teams have been playing well – led by Altoona with best record in professional baseball – and it has been achieved with mostly legitimate prospects or otherwise age appropriate players for their levels.
There are a couple of your assertions that make me question your judgment.
First, “Cedeno is Cedeno”. The Cedeno we’ve seen this year is markedly better than the Cedeno before the trade. And I was not hopeful about Cedeno at all previously. He’s never going to be an average hitter, but he is currently #10 in MLB among SS in total WAR value.
Secondly, “Clement has looked ugly in the field”. Regardless of the questions about Clement’s defense coming into the season, he is rated positive in both plus/minus and UZR, and the only people I have heard saying he looks ugly in the field are those that will blast the FO regardless of the facts. He’s been a pleasant surprise there, despite the fact that he’s been substandard at the plate.
On Tabata, he has an OPS 20 points higher than McCutchen did in AAA at the same age, and he had not spent an entire year at a level since he was in the low minors, so it’s natural that his numbers would dip when moving up. And he has always been 2 or 3 years younger than most people at each level. He was 16 when he started rookie ball (hit .314) and 18 in high A when he hit .307/.371/.392.
Don't mind the criticisms at all, though I do have a few counter-points for you.
1. Cedeno – When acquired he looked like a total waste of roster space. Now he’s an average to below average SS, depending on the metric used: he’s in the bottom half in WPA, a little better than average in WAR, a few places from the cellar in VORP, etc. While that’s improvement, he’s still not the guy once hoped for. I shouldn’t have really included him in my post anyways since I started off talking about the “big trade” acquisitions (for that matter, Clement should have been left off as well), and I certainly don’t have a problem with trading for the Cedeno’s and Clement’s of the world, but I think my point still holds: he’s not that good.
2. UZR data is beyond worthless over a sample size of a few months. Additionally, UZR is pretty much worthless for 1B since it doesn’t measure scooping/stretching/bag-handling ability, which is where I think Clement has looked a little shaky. I think his range has looked fine but that he’s awkward around the bag. Certainly room for him to improve, though.
3. If Tabata had the raw ability or upside that McCutchen possessed, then maybe we could make that comparison. Thus far, Tabata has yet to show any power (McCutchen at least hit double digits over a season’s time twice), which may be related to his hamate injury, but that doesn’t bode well for his power showing up later (Wily Mo Pena and Nomar Garciaparra are two famous examples). I do think that he was mishandled by the Yankees, as he had no business being in AA at age 19. He has showed maturity problems, but hopefully those are behind him. Of course, then, there’s the elephant in the room: if he’s really 21, he’s a decent prospect. If he’s, say, 24 or 25, he’s not a prospect at all.
I’m not a FO-hater by any means. I think they’re moving in the right discussion and I’ve defended them against some boneheads before. But having said that, this team is still a LONG ways from ever contending for a WS. They’re fairly close to being competitive, which is a start. I know it won’t happen overnight, but forgive me for being impatient.
Charlie the Apologist!
Charlie, i never thought I would read something like this from you. You’re usually pretty cynical. I agree with what you wrote except you are missing another component. In the Sid Thrift era, he not only drafted and acquired talent but put in a system that taught them how to play winning baseball. I think the Pirates do have a mix of terrific to good to so-so talent. I think they are either not being taught how to improve themselves individually and as a team or the players are not listening. Payroll is not the issue! (my response to some of the other posts to this article). I am not sure the current administration has a system. They have a plan but I don’t think there is any consistency to teaching these players as they come up through the Pirate minor leagues.
Tom Gilroy
Dig a little deeper...
there is a very uniform system in place now. That has been one of the biggest changes from the Littlefield ERA. The minor league system embraces the “Pirate Way” at all levels. This system was put in place when Huntington got here. Neal has only had two drafts worth of players learning the Pirate Way. We’ll see if this player developments system is any good when some of the players NH drafted reach Pittsburgh. So dar the results seem pretty positive IMO.
NH is a joke
saying D Young was more valuable than Bay is a joke. Saying Mclouth was worthless when traded is a joke, he led the team in HR’s and RBI’s when traded and while I haven’t done the homework, he had to be on a 30 Home run 100 rbi pace when the deal was done plus the fact he had a gold glove and signed cheaply for 3 more years.
It’s sickening reading people throwing out excuses for this management team. Why can other teams receive top prospects and rebuild and the lowly bucs acquire low grade guys who were marginal producers or failed major leaguers like the mendoza-line Andy laroche.
I’ll tell you why, other teams do a better job of evaluating talent and ask for prospects when trading their star talent. The bucs trade their star talent for a bunch of low level crap, or previously failed prospects. They’ve literally lost or cut more talent, guys pitching or playing on other teams currently, than they have on their current Major league roster.
Quit making excuses, the pirates aren’t losing because of bad luck or un-even tables, they are losing because they are the worst run organization in all of sports.
McClouth might have possibly been the most overrated Pirate ever. Think about that. His Gold Glove was a joke. Any stats guy worth a nickel could show you a dozen reasons why McClouth didn’t deserve his GG. The proof is simply looking at his Braves career. He’s the same player playing on a better team, and he’s a bottom of the lineup, mediocre player.
It has nothing to do with the front office. It starts at the top. Ownership has determines that enough boneheads will buy shirts, hats, and tickets to keep the team afloat, so all they have to do is show videos of 1960 and 1979, keep touting average players like Garrett Jones, and develop one solid player per decade to keep the team afloat. They’re masters of fooling fans out of their money.
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