0 comments by Ted Winters on 4/9/2018
Major League’s Baseball’s 162-game regular season schedule is a marathon, not a sprint. While every ballplayer will always take a hot start over a slow one, the fashion in which they begin a season is by no means a guarantee as to how they will perform the rest of the way. A lot can happen […]
0 comments by Ted Winters on 12/26/2017
J.D. Martinez Option number one is without question unrestricted free agent J.D. Martinez. The Giants are going to have to open up their wallet if they want to lure Martinez to the Bay Area, facing stiff competition from a number of potential suitors including the Boston Red Sox. Then again, the Giants were apparently prepared to […]
0 comments by Ted Winters on 7/18/2017
Pittsburgh Pirates’ MLB Season 2017 is the team’s 136th season overall, and the 131st season as a member team of National League, and additionally their 17th season at their home stadium at PNC Park since 2001. The team has played in National League since 1887 and Central Division since 1994. The franchise was born on […]
0 comments by Ted Winters on 6/7/2017
DraftKings and FanDuel, fantasy sports tech companies, agreed to a merger that is expected to be finished as early as this year, with financial details not being disclosed. Bringing together 2 important fantasy sports innovators is going to better serve players while also reducing costs and increasing operational efficiency. The main focus of the merger […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 8/16/2016
There is no major American sport that treats its first division runner-up worse than baseball does. In the NFL, the team with the best record that fails to win a division plays the worst division winner in the Wild Card Round. The division-winner gets home-field advantage, but often has a worse record than the wild […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 8/3/2016
Here is what I would like explained to me: How on Earth can you go through a trade deadline and behave like a team that believes its playoff chances are not completely extinguished this year, then put Jeff Locke on the mound 48 hours later? And if you do go ahead and put Jeff Locke […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
The underlying implications of what the Pirates did at the trade deadline are still awfully worrisome to me, 48 hours later. By trading Mark Melancon while still in the Wild Card race, the Pirates more or less said that future value will always be considered vs. present value, even when present value has a direct […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 8/1/2016
Let’s start with this: I don’t like making strong pronouncements after trades. I have, particularly early on in the Neal Huntington era, misread trades pretty badly in the moment. I didn’t take much time to think about the JA Happ trade last year, and I looked pretty dumb in hindsight. This happens not just because […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey
Well after the trade deadline passed and when I had assumed everyone was done for the day, word leaked out that the Pirates snuck one more deal in after the deadline:
0 comments by Pat Lackey
It would appear that the Pirates’ strategy at this trade deadline is to do exactly what they did at the last one: acquire a once-promising young pitcher that hasn’t been any good for a long time for pennies on the dollar with the assumption that they can turn him into an asset for this season’s […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/31/2016
Here’s the thing about an easy schedule: it doesn’t do much good if you don’t beat the bad teams that make the schedule easy. The Pirates went into Miller Park this weekend playing relatively good baseball, then scored six times in three games in being swept at Miller Park for the ten millionth time in […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/30/2016
I have a sneaking suspicion that in a year or two, we’re going to look back at the Mark Melancon trade and call it a win for the Pirates. Felipe Rivero is 25 years old with a fastball that hits 100 mph, his peripheral numbers this year are already great, and he’ll finish this year with […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/29/2016
As we ramp up to the deadline, a lot of discussion around the Pirates this year has involved Mark Melancon. The situation as it stands is this: the Pirates have a decent shot at making the playoffs this year, but are not favorites to do so; depending on your favorite playoff odds site, they’re somewhere […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/28/2016
The main problem of the Pittsburgh Pirates was perfectly on display in this two-game series against the Seattle Mariners: sometimes, the starting pitching works and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, the offense strings its hits together, and sometimes it spreads them out. Sometimes, the Pirates look ready to beat anyone, and sometimes it’s hard to remember […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/27/2016
With the Pirates up 4-2 in the top of the third last night, I told my dad that I thought the Pirates would need six or seven runs with the way that Liriano had been pitching. Franklin Gutierrez hit the next pitch out of the park to tie the game at four. We went outside […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/26/2016
Despite all of their issues with starting pitching and a month of June that reminded most Pirate fans of the Bad Old Days, the Pirates are not in bad shape as we round up to the trade deadline. With last night’s results, they’re 1 1/2 games behind the Marlins for the second wild card spot, […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/25/2016
The math from the All-Star Break was pretty easy: with 73 games left and 46 wins in the bank, playing about .600 baseball (.602, to be exact) would get the Pirates to 90 wins. From the break (and from here), that looks like a pretty decent target to get into this year’s Wild Card Coin […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/22/2016
We have, rightly, put a lot of focus this season on the failings of the back end of the Pirate rotation. Jeff Locke, Jon Niese, and Juan Nicasio have all had really bad seasons for the Pirates, and in doing so they’ve put a lot of stress on both the offense and the bullpen. That […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/21/2016
Jeff Locke is not really a good pitcher, but he has occupied a certain usefulness for most of his Pirate career. Locke has decent stuff for a lefty, but relatively poor command. In some of his starts, he looks great (remember that he’s a one-time All-Star and he really did deserve that nod based on first-half […]
0 comments by Pat Lackey on 7/20/2016
For all intents and purposes, Jameson Taillon started off last night looking like the same pitcher that the Pirates sent to the disabled list a few weeks ago with shoulder fatigue. That’s a good thing, of course; Taillon was coming off of one of his best starts in Seattle, and no one was really sure […]
