MLB 2018 regular season thread

They got nothing for McCutchen and despite his decline, he had value. If you want to argue that selling him off allowed them to add Dickerson, that's fine. It still doesn't account for selling off Cole, who has been as dominant as any pitcher in the game so far. If you want to make the ridiculous argument that they would be worse with Cole, you're welcome to look foolish.

 

They added one good player when they got Dickerson. They sold off their ace, who has been dominant for the Astros. They gave away McCutchen for nothing. It is very easy to say they Pirates did not have a good offseason. In fact, given that the justification for dumping Cole and McCutchen was that the team wasn't ready to contend, yet it is 11-4, they clearly made some serious mistakes.

 

That is why you use more than one statistic to evaluate players, which I'm guessing was one of the points you were trying to make here. Yes, Diaz has an impressive wOBA, but he also has only 13 plate appearances.

 

Well, for the first 3 seasons he was 40-23 with a 3.07 ERA.

In the last 2 seasons he was 19-22 with a 4.19 ERA, gave up more homers and had a lower SO/W ratio and his FiP was 31st!

But that's neither here nor there. They got what they got for him ... and, they're 11-4 without those 2 players.

Fans of the Buccos can either enjoy this 11-4 start, or not.

 

Oops, his FiP was 29th.

 

It is one of the cruelties of baseball that a hot start by a team in April is not always or even frequently an indicator of how it'll fare the rest of the way while a very bad start almost always is. I wouldn't begin to guess how the Pirates will look come August, but I'm pretty sure the Rays will still be bad.

 

Interesting.

 

And no more Cutch definitely opened things up for Marte. I mean, 5 for 5 yesterday! Been 4 years since a Bucco went 5 for 5.

Plus, Polanco can spread his wings without being stifled by someone who's aged and tired, like McCutchen.

Not to mention, Taillon has shown thru 3 starts that he was ready to become the ace.

Cole gave up 36 total homers his first 4 seasons -- but 31 last year so the signs were there.

The Buccos had a great off-season, definitely one that their fans should be embracing.

 

Right. At this point, I would trust the judgment of the Pirates' front office, which assembled a consistent winner in a mid-level market, on Cole much more than I would trust three starts. They knew what they had in Tallion and, I daresay, Cole.

 

I'm not a fan of the Pirates. They lost me in the early '90s and they lost a lot more with their latest betrayal of their fans this past offseason. My only problem with trading McCutchen is they got nothing of value for him. It was purely a salary dump. Once they followed that up with the trade for Dickerson, you could certainly argue that they at least came out even if not better offensively.

You can't argue that for their pitching. Cole was their best pitcher and he looks fantastic so far this season. If you are going to judge based on the small sample size, the Pirates clearly weakened their team by trading Cole. As they did with Polanco, they would have been better off being patient with the young, gifted player coming off a bad season.

Thing is, Dickie just thinks he has a gotcha. He thinks that if you take the Pirates' start seriously, they had a great offseason and to argue that it is only April 16 fits into his argument about small sample sizes. He fails to realize that you'd also have to take Cole's dominant start seriously, too, and that points to the Pirates making a huge mistake. It points to them being surprise contenders, which would in turn make their decision to sell off talent during the offseason a bad one.

Whether the Pirates turn out to be good or bad this season, the offseason was a bad one. If they are good, they either missed on the opportunity to make a contender better by hanging on to Cole or getting real value for McCutchen. If they are bad, Cole is young enough to build around and getting so little for McCutchen hurts their efforts to rebuild.

It's almost as if selling off talent for the sole purpose of cutting payroll is always bad. What a concept!

 

Marte and Polanco were going to play no matter what. The idea that McCutchen was somehow holding them back is just ridiculous.

The Pirates did what they always do in the offseason. They kept the payroll down. In fact, it is lower than it was at the start of 2017. They weakened the team in the process. The fast start doesn't change that.

 

That's why I think this whole argument about Ohtani misses the point. When a new player gets off to a hot start, the whole fun of it is seeing how long he can keep it up. Enthusiasm is the natural and correct reaction. As for the scouts who bad mouthed the guy in spring training, we must assume that they are not employees of the Angels and therefore might well have been talking their books. Don't want to go back to the GM with a report that says, "boss, you blew it. You didn't sign the best looking prospect in 30 years."