◆NEWSPirates Notes: Keller, Pitching Pursuits, Lineup◆ROSTERSigned free agent RHP Enmanuel Nunez to a minor league contract◆STATPaul Skenes ranks 4th in the NL in strikeouts (200)◆STATNick Gonzales ranks 4th in the NL in batting average (.303)
◆NEWSPirates Notes: Keller, Pitching Pursuits, Lineup◆ROSTERSigned free agent RHP Enmanuel Nunez to a minor league contract◆STATPaul Skenes ranks 4th in the NL in strikeouts (200)◆STATNick Gonzales ranks 4th in the NL in batting average (.303)
The Pirates’ season is effectively over, but injuries shouldn’t be the excuse. On Bucco Brew, DiNardo and Jim look at how Pittsburgh actually responded when Oneil Cruz, Ryan O’Hearn, Spencer Horwitz and Endy Rodriguez went down. Jake Mangum produced in Cruz’s absence, Esmerlyn Valdez emerged as one of the team’s best hitters, Henry Davis held his own behind the plate and Rafael Flores took off when his opportunity arrived. So what actually derailed the Pirates?
Watch the full discussion on Bucco Brew.
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The Debate
Did injuries derail the Pirates' season, or was it the pitching and Cherington's roster?
No comments yet — be the first to weigh in.
With Anthony DiNardo and Jim Rosati.
Chapters
Key takeaways
1
Injuries didn't derail the Pirates. Bad starting pitching, a bullpen that blew games early and an offense that couldn't hit left-handed pitching did.
2
Cherington knew about the O'Hearn and Keller injuries at the deadline. Bats like Jo Adell or Tyrone Taylor would have cost little, so blaming injuries now is just an excuse.
3
Using the draft pick to trade for Jacob Gonzalez instead of a reliever backfired. Gonzalez has a 58 wRC+ and -0.2 WAR, worse than Jared Triolo.
4
Cherington's gamble of trading defense for offense scored more runs but prevented far fewer, and the pitching failed 'from the ace to the 13th guy in the bullpen.'
5
With the season over, it's time to be careful with Braxton Ashcraft. He's at nearly 150 innings, above last year's career high of about 143.
Yo, welcome to the NS9, I'm sorry, welcome to North Shore Nine, presented by FanDuel, this is Bucco Brew, powered by Defer Coffee and Tea, I'm your host, Anthony DiNardo, with me, we have Jim Rosati, and Jim, happy Monday.
Happy Monday, I don't know what that was, it was,.
I just realized I had the wrong overlay on, it was from yesterday's post game show.
There you go.
And,.
And you also skipped our intro.
Well, that's why, it was on the post game shows, yeah.
Yeah.
So, let's try to do some quick producing right there.
Anyways, welcome to Bucco Brew, because it's Monday morning.
The Pirates have already been swept, that was yesterday.
This is a whole new day.
A whole new sweep can begin today.
Yeah, rough weekend.
Rough weekend for the Buccos, and, I guess we gotta talk about it.
Talk about what that means.
Right?
Well, I think we know what it means.
I think we know what it means.
I think we know what it means.
Fangraph's playoff odds down to 0.9%, DiNardo.
So, there's still a chance.
They are technically not mathematically eliminated from the postseason, but, yeah, they are about as dead as a team could be at this point.
If they just go 24 and 6.
There you go.
That's all.
You just gotta win, that's what?
80%.
Four.
Four out of five games.
Yeah.
Easy peasy.
Hey, Ben Cherington said yesterday that this team is due to make a run in September, and so that's only, like, a week away.
Yeah, and, like, that's true.
it's accurate.
They could make a run in September, so that's relevant.
They're, they should be due to make a run.
Yeah.
So, they're gonna be the best team that they've been all year in September.
Right.
So, we, that's absolutely how, we should be talking.
Just like Ben, just, guys, if we just wait till the last minute and try to do the improbable, we'll be good.
Yeah.
Sure.
Anyways, it's done.
Like, it is over.
we pretty much declared the season over a couple weeks ago, and it's not live.
it was, at that point in time, it was just, again, like, the improbable.
After you lost those series, it's just, it's super improbable.
But, of course, it's not technically over.
The players, of course, like, you don't want to see them just give up.
Not then, especially either, like, let's go out there.
You got to win two out of three, essentially.
But, go out there and prove us that, you can do it.
Well, now that you've dropped this series, not even just dropped the series, but you got swept by the Dodgers.
And, again, like, the Dodgers are a good team.
It's not in the sense of, like, because the Dodgers, like, you had, it's a good team.
I get that.
But, again, that, what it does to you, what that means now is it's not two out of three.
It's four out of five.
Two out of three was out of the realm of possibility.
Technically speaking, it wasn't.
But, it, probably it was four out of five.
Certainly is.
Yeah, it was actually two weeks ago on this show, we declared, like, the playoff start now.
You've got to win every series from this point forward.
And, if you lose a series, it means you got to sweep, you got to sweep one, right?
Make it up.
And, since we said that, the Pirates are five and seven.
Well, that doesn't seem to be the direction you want to go.
It was, so it was like, hey, you know what, like, you are, this is your final chance.
You have to start now.
And, they've been five and seven since that point.
Yeah.
Again, that's not breaking even and just saying, well, we got to, we got to make up and sweep.
You're losing ground.
So, yeah.
Here we are today.
Stick a fork in the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Because, it's just, it's done.
After that series, like, if you had hope, the hope is gone.
Yeah.
It's, I don't, I don't see how you could have any faith in this team to do what is necessary for them to come back and get to where they need to be.
It's, again, it's technically possible, but it is not going to happen.
Right.
So, Jim.
What the F happened?
What?
What happened?
What happened?
this off season, heading into it, we knew it was a tough task to get this team to where they needed to be.
And where they needed to be was a lot further ahead in this rebuild because 76 wins, 76 wins, 71 wins.
Year seven.
What's going on here?
What's going on?
We put out the numbers.
How many GMs even last to year seven?
And the ones that do, how many make it to year eight without winning just doesn't happen.
It just doesn't happen.
It doesn't happen in major league baseball.
They come out period, full stop.
for two years now, they talk about Ben and Derek Shelton tied to the hip.
That isn't a good relief.
Shelton happened.
They kept Ben.
Ben stays around.
Ben has the off season.
He has.
And again, kudos to Ben.
We gave a shout out to Ben.
It was an off season.
We didn't think it happened.
And it did.
And they built that offense and it made it one of the better offenses in baseball, as a matter of fact.
And here we are still basically what on pace for 77 wins.
So 76, 71, 77.
Okay.
Okay.
What happened?
Well, if I'm Ben Cherington and I'm trying to keep my job, I'm saying, you know what?
If it weren't for that, DiNardo, we would have made the post season.
Okay.
So you're, so you're saying the reason you didn't make the post season is because of our course of 162 games for a 26 Ross main roster.
Injuries happened.
That's why if everybody would just stayed healthy, it would have been just fine.
Oh, so we've already started this conversation to call with improbables.
And you're trying to tell me the reason that you didn't make the playoffs is because every single player didn't stay healthy.
Yeah.
Cool.
Cool.
Jim, I'm getting a little tired of hearing this and it's been bothering me over the past few weeks.
So what a better day to talk about this injury excuse than right now in the pirates of essentially end of their season.
I want to talk about all the teams, including the pirates in the NL central.
I'm sorry.
In the national league, all the teams ahead of the pirates in the wildcard standings and the national league, because Jim injuries happen.
Injuries are part of the game.
And here's a little number to show you something.
Let's talk about the injuries.
Let's talk about the players that were put on the IL with all these teams.
And as you can see here, the pirates had 14 players this year on 17 IL stints with a total of 593 days.
You know how many in total days, you know how that ranks in major league baseball and the amount of days the pirates have had players on the aisle for.
What does that rank?
Well, if you could read.
This is for the people listening to them.
I'm trying to, Oh, I know.
Yeah.
It's 27th in baseball.
There's only three teams worse than the pirates in total days on the IL.
The pirates had 14 players.
Better.
Yes.
I guess that's regard.
Yes.
Better.
14 players.
The Brewers had 23.
The Dodgers, 22.
The Braves, 21.
The Cubs, 21.
The Phillies, 17.
The Padres, 21.
The Diamondbacks, 22.
The Marlins, 20.
The Cardinals, nine.
Cause they have devil magic.
Total days.
Again, pirates had 593.
The Brewers had 1,311.
The Dodgers had 1,897.
The Braves had 1,411.
The Cubs had 1,742.
Phillies, 591.
Padres, 1,392.
Diamondbacks, 1,668.
The Marlins, 1,041.
409.
And the Cardinals, 409.
Those are a lot of days.
Those are a lot of players.
Yeah, you look at a team like the Brewers, right?
And I think that's probably a nice team to compare the Pirates to.
Brewers, Marlins, teams like that.
Brewers have almost three times as many IL days as the Pirates.
The Marlins have twice as many IL days as the Pirates.
And I think the Ryan brought it up in the comments here is like the Pirates position players got hurt for the most part.
The pitching staff, the pitching staff has been pretty intact, almost the entire year, right?
Jared Jones, we knew was going to be injured the first half of the season.
Mitch Keller, you hope that wasn't going to happen, but it did.
But outside that, like those two guys, like the pitching staff has been exactly what Ben Cherington envisioned.
It would be going into the season in terms of, in terms of health.
So, yeah, these are, these are all position player IL stints.
The pitching staff was said, was pretty good.
I know you're going through these now, like Jared Jones, 65 days, Keller, 22 days, Konnor Griffin, 75 days, Daniel Cruz, 70 days, and the 39 Oh, her in 38 Horwitz,
38, CISC, 35 Griffin and Cruz are obviously the two ones on there.
I think that hurt the most, with their 70 and 75 day stints.
But yeah, the fact that the pitching staff stayed healthy pretty much all year long, that is the big separator when it comes to this pirates team and all those
other teams that you listed, if you go through the I L's of all those other teams, you'll see them littered with pitchers.
and the pirates didn't experience that this year.
Yeah.
Like, I'm glad you brought that up.
And again, as you can see on the screen here's what I deem the notable injuries for the pirates.
I just want to point out here something.
I do include Jared Jones and Mitch Keller on this list here.
And the reason I'm saying this now, it's not as if they should be excluded from this list.
I think that's pretty notable for the pirates, the pirates fans that, we should be talking about that.
for other teams that I list, because you're going to see this PowerPoint here, and it's going to show other teams.
I'm going to bring them up for their notable injuries.
I didn't list pitchers that had five ERAs and above on their teams.
So I just want to point that out also, because if you had a five ERA or above, I would probably look at, Hey, if you're the Brewers, maybe that's not a bad thing.
I didn't list you, but I did hear because again, just, it's not all fair.
It's, I could add less players on this and I could omit Keller and Jones, because honestly, they didn't really help out the team, the performance to begin with on the whole year.
And there's certainly moments there were times, but they have a five plus ERA.
so anyways, those are the two pitchers like you mentioned.
Yes.
Of these players, Griffin, Cruz, 70, 75 days on the IL.
Mostly position players is where you find this.
So yeah, that's something of note as we go through here.
I actually want to do this differently.
Let's talk about the other teams before we go back to the pirates, because let's talk about injuries in total.
Right.
That's what we're doing right now.
We're talking about these injuries, right?
And how maybe it's not just so fair to just look at the pirates and not look at other teams and say, well, if injuries derailed the pirates and how come other teams didn't get derailed by their injuries.
Andrew Vaughn, who has like 140 W waiter integrated plus 38 days, South free, like 37, Christian Yelich, 29, Jared Coney, 82 games.
Now Yelich, I'll give you this.
He's been disappointing this year.
He was hot before the injury.
He has been disappointing, but it is a big name.
But again, I'll give you this.
He hasn't been performing, but that's a lot of players, Jim.
It's a lot of players.
A lot of days.
And if you look at like two days, we're not talking 70, not talking.
Yeah.
No, it's a lot.
and then like the Brewers more than anyone, I feel like, you were just waiting for the starting pitching to just like at some point, at some point, these guys can't keep pitching.
they were Misiorowski and then a bunch of guys that you didn't really have a whole lot of faith in, but you've seen Logan Henderson really turn it on.
You've seen Kyle Harrison become the pitcher that everybody hoped he would be.
and both of those guys have spent some time in the IL, right?
Like the Brewers re-signed Brandon Woodruff to pitch this year.
and he pitched 45 innings, had a 2.980 RA, but that's it.
So like, would, the Brewers have sunk a lot of money into Brandon Woodruff over the last two seasons.
I think he said $30 million basically, they've paid Brandon Woodruff a lot of money.
and he just hasn't given them any innings.
And they, their pitching staff really hasn't missed a beat.
Well, look at all these injuries.
if the amount of injuries to talk about with the Pirates derailed their season, there's no way the Brewers can be the best team in baseball after this, right?
We have to give it their GM another opportunity next year.
Yeah.
losing four starting pitchers, two of them for essentially the season, you would not expect the Brewers to be the best team in baseball.
Cherry Allen and Vaughn for combined 78 days.
Koenig's been a beast in the bullpen.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I would assume that they can't be the number one team in baseball.
the Dodgers.
Now I'll listen.
I'm going to go through this real quick.
It's the Dodgers.
F this.
We understand, but Bobby Miller, Gavin Stone, Blake Snell, Tyler Glass now, 152, 133, 108.
Tommy Edmond, 83 days.
Will Smith, 77 days.
Mookie Betts, 36 days.
Dalton Rushing, 23 days.
Roosdart, Gadderall, 152 days.
Edwin Diaz, 107 and Blake Trinan.
I don't know what that says.
My slide thing is covering it up.
It says six days.
It says six?
Yeah.
It should be 66.
My bad.
Okay.
Yeah.
Six is an odd number.
Yeah.
My bad.
Yeah.
I don't have anyone like 15 days on your list.
It's gotta be at least like 20 or plus.
All right.
Again, we'll go to this real quick.
There's a lot of names.
There's a lot of days, but they are the Dodgers.
They are the Dodgers.
They're the one team you would expect that can overcome things like this.
And they've been doing it for a really long time.
They can pretty much just pay whatever they want to be as deep as they want.
They don't need Blake Snell and Tyler Glass now to give them 150 plus innings over the course of a season.
They just need them to give them 20 innings in the playoffs.
That's really all they need from those guys.
The Will Smith injury has hurt them.
We saw over the weekend that they're playing just some guys, a catcher right now.
A fiduciary is behind Smith and rushing out.
But yeah, it's the Dodgers are the team that is built to be able to sustain something like this for sure.
Right.
All right.
Next.
The Braves.
I don't know, Jim.
I see a lot of names.
I see a lot of good names.
I don't know.
I see a lot of lengthy names.
Oh, shoot.
A lot of pitchers too.
Actually, I left off Acuna.
I just realized that now.
He's on there.
You just got to like, we'll do this.
is he?
What are you doing?
Just remove the overlay.
What just happened?
I don't know what I'm doing.
I'm clicking buttons here.
Where did the slides go?
There we go.
Oh, you did leave Acuna.
Yeah.
Yeah, I did.
Cause the way I ordered this, Acuna is played in 78 games.
So I don't know how that translates to how many days he was on the aisle for.
I did leave off Acuna.
I noticed that.
Oh, well, either way, four starting pitchers.
Swellenbach, 152.
Smith-Shoyer, 126.
Spencer Strider, 111.
Wardrip, 79.
I don't know, Jim.
Sean Murphy, pretty good catcher, 124.
Drake Baldwin, the other good catcher, 27.
Joe Jimenez, 152.
Robert Suarez, 62.
Dylan Wood, 27.
Reynaldo Lopez, 25.
That's a lot.
And of course, Acuna, their MVP type caliber player, only played in 78 games.
Atlanta, another team where, especially with the pitching staff, they've had Martin Perez in their rotation all year.
Also injured by, I think he was notable enough to put on there.
Yeah.
But 115 innings out of Martin, out of Martin Perez.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
So they must not be that good.
I'm sure they're not winning their division.
By a lot.
No.
They can't.
The Cubs.
Starting pitchers.
Justin Steele, 152.
Cade Horton, 142.
Edward Cabrera, 75.
Matthew Boyd, 71.
Matt Shaw, 76.
Shelby Miller, 152.
Hunter Harvey, 137.
Daniel Palencia, 84.
Ben Brown, 64.
There's a lot of days.
Jeez.
most of those almost at least double a lot of the Pirates players, if not quadruple, some of them.
Yeah.
And then another team where you just thought that the rotation wasn't going to be able to hold up.
And they've essentially, they've pieced together a brand new rotation at the deadline to shore that thing up.
They traded for Holmes.
They traded for Gossman.
They traded for Peterson.
So they went out there and they got three new starting pitchers to essentially, bolster that rotation because it was a mess.
The whole first half of the year.
I don't know how they got through it, but they did.
They got through it.
And I think a lot of people like ourselves considered maybe Milwaukee and Chicago battling for the top two.
And they are, and the Cubs are certainly on their tail and they're in the puffs.
So I'll be enough.
I guess these injuries didn't derail their season.
Okay.
the Phillies now give you credit.
And it's on the first sheet.
Phillies didn't have a lot of injuries and there's really not too many that were notable either.
Zach Wheeler, 31 days.
And you knew that coming in.
They knew that coming in 31 days.
You're going to miss a month.
And honestly, he's been stellar.
I didn't think we're going to see the same Zach Wheeler, but that type of injury, but granted, there they are.
Zach Wheeler, Brad Keller, 66 days and a Duran for 20.
Hey, they've been, they've been lucky.
The Phillies have been lucky.
Cause you, they were also the oldest team, I think in the national league.
And so, yeah, they've done all the Phillies have.
it's surprising that the Phillies are this low.
and when it comes to injuries, because they are an older team and yeah, they've been able to stick out.
Let's go on to the Padres.
Joe Musgrove, one 52, Nick Pavetta, one 33, Lucas G.
Lito, 63, Camposano, 58, Cronenworth, 55, Estrada, 77, Jason Adam, 71, Matt Sui, 41.
They're fighting for a playoff spot.
Yeah.
Another team where the pitching staff, we were just waiting.
It was like, one of the Potter is going to go away.
One of the Potter is going to go away.
Cause the pitchers just, you looked at the rotation.
It was like, how are these guys winning games?
you didn't even put you Darvish on this list.
I didn't.
Well, yeah, I could have, I did omit some players.
Cause I guess Darvish, they do.
Yeah.
You knew he was going to be out, but, right.
But yeah, you're looking at, cause Darvish is technically on the restricted list.
not the IL, but.
Oh, maybe that's why I did fan them too.
Yeah.
That might be why, but that's between Giolito, Darvish, Pavetta, Musgrove, that's 80% of the rotation, right?
Like coming into the year, it was like, okay, it's Michael King and who, and they've been able to figure it out.
Yep.
Let's go ahead.
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There you have it.
The Arizona diamond backs also ahead in the NL West Corbin Burns, 152, Zach Allen, 46, Jordan Lawlar, 128, Lourdes Gurriel jr.
84, James McCann, 48, and AJ puck, 152.
Not a ton, not a ton there.
Now they've been pretty lucky.
Arizona has, like their core group of guys, outside maybe Gurriel, has, have been pretty healthy.
So, and they've been playing well, right?
Like the Arizona has been playing well pretty much all year.
They were a team that you expect to be right around 500.
And they're over-performing that.
Yep.
The Marlins also ahead of the Pittsburgh pirates, Robbie Snelling, one Oh three, Jansen junk, 42, Max Meyer, 37, Yuri Perez, 27.
There's some starting pitching for you.
Griffin Conine, 72, house hours, 40, Owen Casey, 24, Ronnie Henriquez, 152, Andrew Benner, Bender 57.
And, the last one I'm also covered by the slides thing.
William 44 days.
There it is.
that's a lot of names.
Yeah.
It's a lot of names too.
And like, if you're a team like the Marlins where you don't have a ton of money to spend, that's just deeper and deeper that you have to go.
there's what you there's seven pitchers.
on this list.
So, yeah, that's four being starters.
Yeah.
That's like, that's dipping deep into your depth for sure.
And like, this is a team that wasn't period, full stop destined to.
No, Miami was go for the playoffs.
You thought they were going to be on the outside looking in for sure.
Right.
And Robin's Robbie Snelling.
He's rose through the minors.
He was going to be a part of this rotation for sure.
That didn't turn out to be Max Meyer has a really nice, season going on.
Gary Perez.
We know the stud that he has been Griffin.
Conine was giving a hell of a season.
So yeah, like you said, like this is a small market, low payroll guys that they couldn't really afford to lose.
I haven't saw the seasons.
There's a lot of names and a lot of days on those injury lists.
Yeah.
if you're comparing this, like Griffin Conine's offensive numbers are better than anyone on the Pittsburgh pirates.
They've, the Cardinals are doing something that at no point that I expect the Cardinals to continue what they were doing in the beginning part of the season.
And like, it was mostly just looking at the rotation.
You're like, there's like, there's no way these guys are going to be able to continue doing what they're doing.
And they just are, they just keep winning games.
It's crazy.
They're 500 right now.
So they're still, they're about as out of it as the pirates are, I think in terms of, mathematical odds, but there are three games, three games in front of the pirates.
Also, like have no business being three games above the pirates.
No, they were, they were a team.
You would have expected the Cardinals to be last in the division this year.
Like, they traded off players traded every graze having his Cy young type of season in Boston right now, because the Cardinals were trading off still.
Here we are.
Gray traded Aaron Otto.
Yeah.
So, yeah, we go back to the pirates injuries.
So again, well, I think we have determined that a lot of teams have injuries.
Is that fair?
There's absolutely nothing abnormal about the injuries that the pirates have gone through this season.
You can argue that, there, I saw a buckle commission in the comments saying, well, they lost Griffin and Cruz.
Those are two very important players.
Well, other teams have also lost two very important players.
And you can't go an entire season just expecting that your important players are going to be on the field all the time.
And Griffin being 19 years old to like you, we weren't even expecting Konnor Griffin to be an important player this year.
He was just going to be a guy who was going to play shortstop.
If he, if he even made the majors, Cruz was different, right?
Cruz is the impact bat that this team desperately needs, but they lost them.
Right.
And, but the pirates have been very lucky this year with their pitching staff.
Like they put together their pitching staff, which was supposed to be the strength of this team.
And for the most part, it has held up in terms of health as a held up in terms of being the strength of this team.
Absolutely not.
But they have, they have been healthy this year.
You bring up Cruz first.
I want to go there.
Cruz is injured between June 8th and August 17th.
Why that might not be the end of the world.
So I want to go into like the pirates, actual injuries.
Right.
And show maybe like the injuries weren't as problematic to derail.
And again, we're talking derail to derail a season.
I'm not talking, you know what?
If these guys weren't injured, they probably don't lose a couple of games.
A couple of games isn't derailing a season.
Yeah.
The season collapsed.
The season has been derailed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm here.
And Jim, you're here to discuss why the injuries weren't the reason it was derailed.
Oh, no Cruz injured between June 8th and August 17th.
What happened that in that time?
Well, Jake Mangum took over center field duties, right?
I don't know, Jim.
I know he's very polarizing.
I know there's quite a few people that really love him.
I know there's quite a few people that don't like him.
I'm not here to tell you this team doesn't need Ryan O'Hearn.
I'm not here to tell you this team doesn't need Horwitz.
This is not the reason I'm saying all this, but where was the derailment here?
If you ask me, this open up opportunity and it provided a guy who actually helped the team more than those two were doing going that time.
Yeah.
Valdez doesn't get a shot up here.
Even if it not for some of these injuries and he completely responded and gave you a ton of production.
Would you just based off these again, three, the three injuries of the mainstay of this lineup right now, Cruz O'Hearn and Horwitz, there's a drop off with Mangum likely that's fair.
What has Merlin did compared to O'Hearn and Horwitz.
Is this almost looked like a net zero, a drop off, an increase.
So I'm not going to call it a net zero, but it's nothing that should derail a season.
Okay.
Absolutely.
Nothing should not derail a season.
Like, and that's what happened.
Like if you pull up the post-season place playoff odds, the season, the season completely tanked.
Yeah.
They did not tank because of this.
So again, like Esmerlyn Valdez, we're not talking about him.
If these injuries don't even happen.
And again, you see those numbers, a 1.7 war and essentially two and a half months time.
Yeah.
It's been really good.
Okay.
On to the next one.
Endy was injured between July 6th and July 26th.
And then on eight, seven on the first time is injured.
The July 6th to July 26.
Now, mind you, all-star break was in there as well.
So again, like it wasn't that impactful because there's the all-star break.
No one's playing baseball.
Those days count, but those games were being played.
Again, I say this like 0.3 wars and anything to go crazy over, but there wasn't a ton of games.
So that helped out that injury.
Right.
And that's when Sean Ross came up and even had that magical game before saying goodnight to his pirates career.
so essentially what I'm getting at was, Andy was hurt.
Sure.
that stinks, but the catcher position was still quite fine.
you see what Rafael Flores Jr.
has done.
Well, I'm not getting there yet.
Yeah.
We're not even there yet, but yeah, the ND injury.
You just look at, Andy was hitting the ball a ton, but I don't, I don't know if there was a drop-off between Davis and ND and Davis and Flores.
Yeah.
So then again, eight, seven, he got injured and that's when Rafael Flores got to get his run.
And since eight, seven, Rafael Flores is about at three Oh six, three 59, seven 50 with a one 95 way to runs credit plus.
And since that timeframe, he has a 0.6 war, which is the first on the team.
He's been the best player on the team.
If any doesn't get injured.
we saw it before our eyes.
Rafael Flores literally won games for this team.
I did the ND injury.
Was it, did it derail the season?
No.
Okay.
You could actually say that the time that he was there, seven 26 to eight, seven, that's the timeframe of derailment really, to be honest.
Again, like his injury is short.
Like it stinks that he got injured.
I don't want him to be injured.
He has put up a good season, but when he was injured, there was no derailment to that position either.
The guys that came in, came in and produced.
And also like, and I put them here.
Cause again, we're talking of note and he doesn't get the job that he gets without Bart getting injured.
Again, we keep talking about this team being resilient.
I'm not finding these injuries derailing this team.
If Andy wasn't injured, like you mentioned, I ate seven on.
Does Rafael Flores do all that?
No.
so does Andy do that?
I don't know, but Rafael Flores did do this.
He did do this.
He put up better numbers in that timeframe that Andy has all year.
I don't see the derailment here with Andy's injury.
Yeah.
You could actually say the best thing that happened for the catcher position was Joey Bart got hurt.
Right.
Cause then we would have, we wouldn't have had Andy or Flores.
Yeah.
Okay.
So we talked about some individual players that got injured and how the replacements didn't really derail the season.
So like you mentioned, Jim, most of the players that are injured were on the offense.
It wasn't really the pitchers.
It was the offense, right?
So I would imagine if your excuse is, and again, the excuse of why this season was derailed was injuries.
And the injuries are on the offense.
The offense must have suffered as we clearly have pointed out right now.
Right.
Right.
Okay.
So through April, there are 10th and runs eighth and weighted runs created plus in May, they were third and runs six and WRC plus June ninth and runs fifth and WRC plus July, fifth and runs eighth and WRC plus then August came 18th and runs 25th and weighted runs created plus.
But on the year, but on the year still you're to date this team third and runs scored third and all of major league baseball third, most runs the offense that was derailed by the injuries has a third most runs in baseball.
Seventh and way to run creative plus.
I'm confused if you are Ben, as you mentioned, and I'm Bob and you're trying to tell me that the season was derailed because of injuries that happened on the offense.
However, the production shows top three in baseball.
I need you to keep talking.
Yeah.
August took a dip, but also 18th and runs.
That means you're still middle of the pack, right?
That shouldn't, that shouldn't completely tank a season, especially when you were fifth and ninth and third and 10th and year to date, your third and run scored.
If you're third and run scored year to date, you should be a top 12 team, right?
That's what I'm taking out of that.
We spent all last year saying if this offense could just be average, if this offense could just be average, this team's going to have something and they were way better than average.
They had one month where they were average the rest of the season.
They were very good to excellent.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know what?
It's a long, it's a long season, like being average and average to below average in August should not have derailed them.
No.
It shouldn't have, but however, it's, it is a huge drop off.
I think we all can recognize that August is much different from all the other months.
So.
Glad you bring it up.
Thoughtbook commission.
Cause it looks like the offense suffered in August when all those guys were hurt.
Your decision was your choice was not to add a starting pitcher.
We have karma emergency at home.
Karma's give me a 10 Oh five ERA.
He can't go more than three innings in a start as a starting pitcher.
You knew you saw it leading up that this lineup for his lefties is just, it's bad.
We talked about some cheap guys that are not going to take much to acquire that can hit left-handed pitchers.
Jo Adell, a two 76 way to run square plus versus lefties since the trade deadline, Elaine Thomas, a one 73 way to run square plus versus lefties.
Since the trade deadline, Tyrone Taylor, you could have easily got easily got and like, you could just throw something else in it in the Weaver package to get him.
A one Oh five would run square plus versus lefties.
It doesn't take much.
It doesn't cost much to get into those players.
That would have helped you with the things that you already knew.
That are just now an excuse because we didn't do anything to correct it.
If it was a problem, then why didn't you treat it as a problem?
I go back to that trade deadline show that we had.
And I think a lot of people got upset that I think we gave it a C minus.
B minus, right?
It was a B minus.
Okay.
It was, because he did do a really good job of getting the bullpen taken care of, but it was like, but we all recognized like there were other opportunities here that he didn't address.
If they knew Mitch Keller was going to be injured.
They needed to get a starting pitcher.
If they knew, at that point they knew they couldn't hit lefties.
They needed to go out there and get somebody who could hit lefties.
And they didn't do either of those two things.
And as this is showing again, the season, the season certainly like Oneil Cruz being out, Konnor Griffin being out, those things hurt, but those aren't things that derailed the season as you've gone through here.
And what has derailed the season is the starting pitching, not holding up.
They had, they had a good April basically.
And then they haven't really held up since then.
What derailed the season was the bullpen blowing a ton of games early on.
So that all that great offense that you did early, it just didn't matter.
What derailed the season was not being able to hit left-handed pitchers at all.
And what's derailed the season are the people who have been healthy.
And then people you have had to rely on just being invisible for a stretch of time there.
Like Bryan Reynolds, since the all-star break, I'm sorry, but just completely, he had an outstanding first half, but since the, since that all-star break, Bryan Reynolds has been awful.
Spencer Horwitz came, has come off the IL and he's been awful.
That these, that's Marcell Ozuna, who you signed to be the DH, right?
And maybe could have helped with some of these injuries.
He's been awful.
He was awful.
And then he, and then he got released, but yeah, I'm with you, Leonardo.
I, the injuries suck, right?
They hurt.
They suck because those are valuable players.
But when you look at what happened this season, missing a 19 year old for 70 games, missing Oneil Cruz for 70 games, isn't the reason why the pirates are in the spot.
They're in right now.
The reason they're in the spot.
They're in right now because they're starting pitching.
Hasn't performed like they should and how they were advertised.
Their bullpen has blown too many games to overcome.
And then the guys who you needed to perform late here have just disappeared.
Yeah.
Now notice the players I didn't put on there was Konnor Griffin.
And I do want to point that out.
That to me is the one that hurt this team the most, like hands down.
We're talking about a 19 year old though, that Konnor Griffin being injured shouldn't derail the season because you shouldn't have had expectations that Konnor Griffin was going to save the
season.
Like again, he's 19.
We mentioned it to go into the season.
Like if he's a league average hitter, that should be the expectations.
he has the ability to be more than that.
Absolutely.
He's 19 years old.
Get some perspective here.
But to bring that up, the general manager went out to address that.
When we thought they would use the draft pick on a reliever to help out with the bullpen, a much needed bullpen direction.
What they chose was shortstop and they brought in Jacob Gonzalez and his decision and his person to trade for with Jacob Gonzalez to help that out has batted 200 to 17,
388 for a 58 weighted runs created plus and a negative two war negative point to war.
He went out to use that draft pick to help the season to get Jacob Gonzalez who has done worse basically than Jared Triolo.
Yeah.
looking at it right now where we stand, you would have much rather like if Brooks Raley was on the table for that pick, which has been said a little bit.
Maybe it's a little bit different of a conversation.
I don't know how many games Brooks Raley wins for you over the course of a month before the deadline.
probably not any, but he, maybe he doesn't lose any for you.
I don't know.
It's that was an opportunity to address the bullpen issues though.
And he did not use it to do that.
He used it a different way.
Right.
Sounds like excuses.
Again, like we just showed like all teams have injuries and a lot of them were very notable.
And then here, I think we've highlighted that it wasn't that problematic.
This past offense played well.
The most of the year, August was a drop-off.
This thing was happening before August and you saw some of the issues and you didn't address those issues either.
Like that's controllable stuff.
And it didn't take, it didn't take a lot.
I don't know, man.
I, again, like let's have a real honest conversation.
Seems like a lot of opportunities came through with the injuries.
The only one that was a true problem was shortstop.
And that's was caused by a 19 year old rookie.
You're putting this season on the injury of a 19 year old rookie.
Sorry.
We can't do that here.
I think that's all my slides.
No, that's and it's a good point because I think, once the season's over, there's going to be a debate.
There's going, it's going to be, does Ben Cherington deserve to come back?
And the argument for the people who say he should be back are going to be, look at, the system's in a much better spot now than it, than it was before the organization as a whole.
Undeniable.
and if it weren't for those injuries, this team, this team would have done it.
I beg to differ.
I, they said the injuries certainly didn't help, but you have to go into every season expecting that there are going to be injuries.
The issue was the pitching.
The issue was the pitching and the defense.
It was those two things.
And, he made, the gamble was made to trade defense for offense.
And it resulted in a lot more runs scored.
It also resulted in a lot less runs being prevented.
And the pitching just the pitching did not hold their end of the bargain on all fronts from the ACE to the 13th guy in the bullpen.
Right.
It just is what it is.
It is what it is.
Again, you're the general manager of this baseball club.
There are limitations.
And Bob Dunning is a huge problem.
The biggest problem, but that's not changing.
That's static.
That's not changing.
You had to do what you did.
You had to make that gamble because you had zero inabilities to provide this team hitters throughout this whole course up until now.
Like finally, the system looks like it might be developing hitters.
Finally.
Shouldn't take eight years.
And again, most of these are process.
Like we don't even know for sure what's going to happen.
These guys, they're in the uncertain stage right now.
It's very hopeful that his mother is going to be good.
Right.
It's very hopeful that Connor is going to be good.
I think he will.
I think we're good on that, but that's, this is the fruit that you bear.
This is what you sow.
Like this is the product of your system.
You had to take that gamble because you couldn't create the system.
You had a great pitching and you had to expend all of it.
And again, like the hands down, the Michael Burrows trade was it was amazing.
Great trade.
Yeah.
Great trade.
I don't know what Houston was thinking, but thank you, Houston.
And with that, you might win one more game this year than you did back in 2023.
That's the surprising thing to me is that like on paper, this team looks like the best team he's ever put together.
And he's in danger of not having his best season.
Like there's going, like he's going to have teams that outperforming.
There's a possibility.
This team doesn't get to 76 wins.
Very strong possibility.
And that's mind blowing.
Mind blowing.
Yeah.
So there you have it.
There you have it.
No, it's a, it's a, it's one of those things where, you could, you could make this argument either way to like August for sure was the
problem, right?
August derailed this team, but you put the numbers up there, right?
This team was 18th and run scored in August 18th.
If this pitching staff was where it was supposed to be, let's say instead of, I think that I, where are we at team ERA?
Right now, year to date, we are 20 second.
All right.
If that number is seventh, eighth, or ninth, then being 18th and run scored doesn't matter as much.
you win some games three to two or three to one or four to one, four to two.
It seems like this team, especially, whenever they were going through a bunch of losses, they just couldn't win any games unless they won like nine to seven.
they'd win, they'd put together a game where they won nine to seven.
And that was it.
The starting pitching has been a massive disappointment.
Braxton Ashcraft is the only starting pitcher and Bubba Chandler.
You know what?
Bubba Chandler is the one, also another one who's like, he's gotten, he got quite a bit better as the season has progressed, but overall as a unit, starting pitching bullpen, they just weren't good enough.
Just looking right here.
I don't know if this is even truly of note to talk about, but looking at other, like looking in the month of August, the other teams as well, of all the teams we mentioned, they all have better offenses in the power, except for the Braves.
The Braves are 24th in run scored.
The Pirates have scored 81 runs.
The Braves have scored 77 this month in the same amount of games.
And WRC plus, as mentioned, the Pirates this month were bad 26th and the Braves are 24th, but the Braves are 11 and 10 this month.
And ironically enough, all their injuries happened to their pitching.
Go figure.
And I just point that like, again, like it, like I think it was your lean to is, things happen.
Like you're entitled to have an average month.
The worst, this team's offense in August was average.
They scored the average amount of fronts.
Like you have 24 days where you're average, like that should be okay.
That shouldn't derail a season.
Hasn't derailed Atlanta's.
Yeah.
The difference in August, Atlanta's starters ERA or is 2.83.
Pirates is 5.40.
That's 28th in baseball.
Again, bullpen.
The Pirates have been a lot better.
They're seventh in the month of August.
They like that.
That issue was addressed, but that having, a good bullpen doesn't matter if you're starting pitchers suck and their starting pitchers have sucked.
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