Pirates Offseason Discussion Thread

[burgh_fan66]

Stupid midnight deadline. I can't believe I'm staying up just to make sure the Pirates don't do anything else stupid.

[burgh_fan66]

Pirates for some reason worked out a major league contract with Morton. I don't understand that at all. He isn't going to be ready until at least June and banking on the 30 day max rehab time being enough for him to get ready is unnecessarily risky.

Everyone else received a tender. So amazingly the Pirates officially non tender no one as Karstens was technically DFAd to free up a roster space for Martin.

Also by trading Resop the Pirates now have an empty spot on the 40 man roster meaning they can select a Rule V player on the 6th.

[Tomahawk27]

Must say that I am really not pleased with the moves the FO has made today/yesterday. I'm willing to call the Russel signing neutral but non tendering Karstens and trading Resop for an old A+ pitcher weren't smart moves.

Trading Hanrahan for an older version of Karstens (Capuano) makes even less sense. To think that a year or two ago Hanrahan was being mentioned in a package for Profar (Texas SS prospect) makes me shake my head that his value has diminished so much. Not his fault, that lies on NH

[burgh_fan66]

Seriously why exactly did they get rid of Karstens again. Injury concerns? Nope if that was the case Morton would have been non tendered. Looking towards the future? Nope Martin makes that impossible.

There is just no rhyme or reason for these moves. It's like Huntington feels like this is his last chance and he plans to go down swinging but yet he had his eyes closed and has no idea what he is swinging at.

[burgh_fan66]

Morton received 2 million dollars and won't pitch until at least June.

[burgh_fan66]

The Pirates signed Mike Zagurski to a minor league contract with an invite to spring training. He is an interesting looking lefty.

[tripleplayer543]

D'Arnaud has value similar to Taillon. No team is going to deal a top prospect for one fairly expensive year of Hanrahan. Getting a serviceable controllable player for Hanrahan would be a great deal for the Pirates.

you might think he does but the jays just aquired another catcher and d'arnaud is comming off knee surgury. unless he had adrian peterson helping him with rehab he probobly wont start the season on time anyway

[burgh_fan66]

you might think he does but the jays just aquired another catcher and d'arnaud is comming off knee surgury. unless he had adrian peterson helping him with rehab he probobly wont start the season on time anyway

I think Pirates fans have an unrealistic concept of what Hanrahan is worth because they see what other relievers have fetched. Most of those relievers were under control for more than just one season. Hanrahan is a free agent after 2013 and that severely hurts his value especially now since it isn't so easy to obtain compensation for him. The Angels just traded Jordan Walden a relief pitcher who should have more value than Hanrahan to the Braves for Tommy Hanson. Hanson is a good pitcher and represents maximum value the Pirates should be able to receive for the hammer. Since his debut in 2009 Hanson has posted a 9.9 WAR and Porcello who also debuted in 2009 has posted a 9.7 WAR.

Walden is probably not as good a pitcher as Hanrahan but is under team control for 4 years so that more than makes up for the difference. The market for Walden suggests that if the Pirates can find a Tommy Hanson like return for Hanrahan they need to take it and Porcello represents just such a return.

[rster]

Burgh, i did some quick research on Hanson vs Porcello and came up with the following.

Hanson, who is 26 yrs old, has a 45-32 record, 3.61 ERA, has pitched 635 innings, and opponents hitting .241 off him with a WHIP of 1.25

Porcello, is 24 yrs old, has a 48-42 record, 4.55 ERA, pitched 691 innings, opponents hitting .290 off him with a WHIP of 1.42

My quick thoughts are we know record isn't a great indicator of performance sometimes due to how many runs their team scores for them plus their records are comparable. Porcello's ERA is almost a full run higher however he pitches in the AL where the DH and better offenses typically give NL pitchers better numbers which explains Porcello's AVG against is much higher and same for WHIP. I didn't look up K's but i'm sure those numbers are greatly in Hanson's favor also

I can see where you would think Porcello and Hanson are comparable however i'd take Hanson (or someone like him) over Porcello. I agree when you take contracts into consideration, some team isn't going to give up a ton for Hammer but if Huntington can find a team going for it this year (Tor, Det, etc..) he may get a better return than we might think. Maybe i am too down on Porcello but i'm hoping for a better return if we move our all-star closer

We agree to disagree i suppose and if we trade Hanrahan and the return is someone very similar to Porcello, you can say i told you so!

[rster]

Also, can someone tell me how to include the post i am replying to in my reply? I guess i am not the most computer literate person but i thought i was ok but i can't for the life of me figure out how to do it.

Thanks!

[tripleplayer543]

Also, can someone tell me how to include the post i am replying to in my reply? I guess i am not the most computer literate person but i thought i was ok but i can't for the life of me figure out how to do it.

Thanks!

hit quote and it will work

[tripleplayer543]

imo the pirates eed a left fielder with some power a short stop with good defese who can hit atleat .250 to .275 and another rh starter and all the left handed pitching they can get . i see the nationals let tom gorezelany and sean burnett go also they need to resign grilli. its time to end the streak

[burgh_fan66]

Burgh, i did some quick research on Hanson vs Porcello and came up with the following.

Hanson, who is 26 yrs old, has a 45-32 record, 3.61 ERA, has pitched 635 innings, and opponents hitting .241 off him with a WHIP of 1.25

Porcello, is 24 yrs old, has a 48-42 record, 4.55 ERA, pitched 691 innings, opponents hitting .290 off him with a WHIP of 1.42

My quick thoughts are we know record isn't a great indicator of performance sometimes due to how many runs their team scores for them plus their records are comparable. Porcello's ERA is almost a full run higher however he pitches in the AL where the DH and better offenses typically give NL pitchers better numbers which explains Porcello's AVG against is much higher and same for WHIP. I didn't look up K's but i'm sure those numbers are greatly in Hanson's favor also

I can see where you would think Porcello and Hanson are comparable however i'd take Hanson (or someone like him) over Porcello. I agree when you take contracts into consideration, some team isn't going to give up a ton for Hammer but if Huntington can find a team going for it this year (Tor, Det, etc..) he may get a better return than we might think. Maybe i am too down on Porcello but i'm hoping for a better return if we move our all-star closer

We agree to disagree i suppose and if we trade Hanrahan and the return is someone very similar to Porcello, you can say i told you so!

Hanson is probably slightly better than Porcello but Hanrahan is worth less than Walden. Also when looking at Porcello's numbers one has to take into account that he is a ground ball pitcher playing with one of the worst infield defenses in the league behind him. That combination is going to hurt his overall numbers. Having a plus defender in Barmes and competent ones in Walker and Alvarez would be a big boost for him.

[tripleplayer543]

now the pirates are thinking of making joel hanrahan a starter ??????

[burgh_fan66]

Trade Rumor with the Mariners:

Hanrahan and Jones
for
Smoak, Jaso and Noesi

I'm imagining this offer was before the Pirates signed Martin as the player with the most value in the proposed package coming back to Pittsburgh is Jaso. I would have really liked a pickup of Jaso for Jones but now if it happened it would be another odd thing in a really odd offseason. As for the other two Noessi doesn't look any better than our current back of the rotation options and Smoak would really just be a high upside play.

The fact that Jaso is the key piece leads me to believe a deal like this is no longer being discussed but I figured I'd throw it out there.