Francisco Liriano to Pirates

[Greedy22]

Considering Youkilis will be playing at Yankee Stadium for 81 games I'd bet he'd be more productive as a hitter than Liriano as a pitcher.

Most likely. You do have to admit that a Yankees fan (or any other big market team) criticizing a smaller market team for overspending on a player is pretty ironic though. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

not really considering liriano ****ing sucks.

[Greedy22]

Considering Youkilis will be playing at Yankee Stadium for 81 games I'd bet he'd be more productive as a hitter than Liriano as a pitcher.

Liriano will be making half of his starts at PNC Park, so your logic is flawed and I'd advise you to not throw away that money just yet

umm, actually that varies on schedule.

[SFrush90]

Most likely. You do have to admit that a Yankees fan (or any other big market team) criticizing a smaller market team for overspending on a player is pretty ironic though. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Why? It's not like I'm the one who made the offer and signed the player.

[dballss]

2-3 arms are getting 15-17mill
3-4 guys 12mill
6mill for a 5 with maybe but slim 3-4 potential isn't too bad...hes done as a sub 4era guy imo

[Leandres_sf]

FA is getting beyond crazy when a pitcher like Liriano gets this kind of money.

[MG3]

The criticism and hypocrisy on this website is hilarious. The Pirates can do NO RIGHT. If they don't sign anyone, they're cheap. If they do go out and sign someone, it's ALWAYS a bad signing. Do people not understand that they have to literally go out and OVERPAY for players because no one wants to come here?

What do you expect? I mean honestly, they could sign Hamilton to a vet minimum and people would say, "this is why they have 20 losing seasons".

Considering they'll be dumping a 7 million dollar salary in Hanrahan for someone for a pitcher who has such a high ceiling and can be a number 4 starter on this staff, I'll take it.

By the way, should we bring up the A.J. Burnett forum where pretty much 90% said how horrible the Pirates are for dealing for the guy? This isn't as bad a deal as you people make it out to be. 2 years for 12.75 whose only downfall is control problems? If he gets that under control, he could be the #2 or even ace of this staff.

[SFrush90]

The criticism and hypocrisy on this website is hilarious. The Pirates can do NO RIGHT. If they don't sign anyone, they're cheap. If they do go out and sign someone, it's ALWAYS a bad signing. Do people not understand that they have to literally go out and OVERPAY for players because no one wants to come here?

What do you expect? I mean honestly, they could sign Hamilton to a vet minimum and people would say, "this is why they have 20 losing seasons".

Considering they'll be dumping a 7 million dollar salary in Hanrahan for someone for a pitcher who has such a high ceiling and can be a number 4 starter on this staff, I'll take it.

By the way, should we bring up the A.J. Burnett forum where pretty much 90% said how horrible the Pirates are for dealing for the guy? This isn't as bad a deal as you people make it out to be. 2 years for 12.75 whose only downfall is control problems? If he gets that under control, he could be the #2 or even ace of this staff.

I can understand them taking a risk like that, but the guy has been pretty bad the past two seasons and you hand him 6M+/year. The market is severely inflated this offseason. It'll either be a big overpayment or a bargain.

[Greedy22]

Sorry we look at this objectively and see that Liriano has been awful the last 2 seasons. His main issue is that he is a head case and he has never thrown over 200 innings in his career. Hope he works out for the Pirates, I actually like that team.

[Jeffy25]

Too damn much money for him.

I thought he would get a 1/5 deal, not a 2/12.75 deal.

[rangersfan]

Too damn much money for him.

I thought he would get a 1/5 deal, not a 2/12.75 deal.

I don't get why the 2nd year was guaranteed. Why not a team option for '14 instead? That way if he sucks next season you just decline the option, and if he does great you exercise the option. Leaves you the flexibility to decide his fate based on performance. I seriously doubt any other team offered him 2 years and if that was the case, the Pirates basically bid against themselves.

[Leandres_sf]

Agreed, no reason to give him the second year guaranteed.

[SFrush90]

Only reason I can think of as to why they did was that everyone else was offering one-year deals and he would jump at a two-year offer.

[Nomar]

He's winning Cy Young next season.

[Twitchy]

Liriano's two biggest issues are HR's and walks. Pittsburgh should cut down on the homers and hey, maybe Martin's pitch framing will give him a few extra strikes.

This will either go down as a horrible deal for the Pirates or Liriano but we won't know for sure until 2014.

Edit: And I guess a third issue is his total breakdown with guys on base.

[SiteWolf]

his primary issue is that, despite his stuff he tends to try and be too precise in where he places his pitches.....and that results in the walks, which he allows to bother him too much, which results in innings getting away from him....

in other words, while his stuff isn't as filthy as it was when he first came up, it's more than filthy enough.......but he doesn't trust it enough, then overthrows when that results in a couple guys on base

boiling it down even further.....if he simply trusted his own stuff more, he can dominate