The Pirates are going to call Oneil Cruz up to join the big league team, reports Kody Duncan of Rum Bunter. Pirates manager Derek Shelton confirmed the Cruz promotion to reporters, including Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and added that outfielder Bligh Madris will be joining the team as well. Corresponding moves are not known at this time. Cruz is on the 40-man roster but Madris is not.
As of tomorrow, June 20, MLB teams will be required to adhere to a 13-pitcher limit on their 26-man active rosters, after previously being allowed to carry 14. With many teams pushing their pitching staffs to the limit, there is likely to be a slew of forthcoming transactions where a pitcher is subtracted from the roster to make room for a position player. However, it’s possible that this will go down as the most significant of those transactions, given Cruz’s prospect status and unusual profile.
Originally signed by the Dodgers out of the Dominican Republic, he was traded to the Pirates in 2017 as part of a deadline deal that sent Tony Watson the other way. Since then, Cruz has attracted attention both for his incredible skills with the bat and because, at 6’7″, he’s unusually tall for a shortstop.
Last year, Cruz utterly dominated the minor leagues. In 68 games between Double-A and Triple-A, he hit 17 home runs, stole 19 bases and slashed .310/.375/.594, for a wRC+ of 158. Based on that tremendous showing, he was promoted to the big leagues in October of last year, getting a two-game cameo as the season wound down. Cruz hit his first major league home run in one of his nine plate appearances last year.
Coming into this season, many expected that Cruz would be on Pittsburgh’s Opening Day roster, but they optioned him at the end of March, seemingly motivated by service time considerations. By keeping him down on the farm for a few weeks, they could prevent Cruz from reaching a full year of MLB service by the end of the 2022 season, thus delaying his free agency by a year. Cruz then was slow to get into a groove at the beginning of the season, hitting .176/.282/.284 in April. Based on that sluggish performance, Cruz stayed on the farm when Pirates placed regular shortstop Kevin Newman on the injured list at the end of April. Since that time, most of the playing time at short has gone to Diego Castillo, who is hitting .195/.238/.308 on the year. Meanwhile, Cruz’s bat was woken up from that sleepy start, as he hit .256/.368/.500 in May, followed by a .283/.364/.500 showing in June. The club has dabbled with playing Cruz in left field, giving him nine starts there this year, but he’s made 42 starts at shortstop. It seems likely that the 23-year-old will be given a chance to stay on the infield, at least while the team isn’t in a competitive window.
Of course, when the team enters a competitive window will largely come down to the exciting youngsters. The Pirates have never been a high-payroll team and will be dependant on Cruz, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Roansy Contreras and others to deliver on their potential while they are in their younger and cheaper years in order to build a competitive ballclub.
As for Madris, 26, he doesn’t come with nearly as much as hype as Cruz, but there are still reasons for Pittsburgh fans to be excited, based on his excellent performance this year. A ninth round pick in the 2017 draft, the outfielder has never appeared on one of Baseball America’s lists of top prospects in the system, though he did get an honorable mention on the FanGraphs list coming into this season. In 45 Triple-A games this year, the lefty swinger has walked in 11.3% of his trips to the plate and kept his strikeouts down to a 20.3% rate. Overall, his batting line is .308/.390/.526 for a wRC+ of 144. His .374 BABIP might be rubbing some good luck on those numbers, but it’s still an impressive showing for the corner outfielder. Madris will likely be battling Jack Suwinski and Cal Mitchell for corner outfield playing time. Suwinski may have earned himself a longer look in one corner after today’s three-homer performance, but Mitchell has hit just .205/.244/.356 in his first few weeks at the big league level.
Hopefully some of the things he’s done in the past do not hold him back in any meaningful way.
Okay now, let’s just keep it PG-13. We have kids on these boards. =))
As a motorcycle rider (full size Harley) this guy is our worst nightmare. Personally I don’t drink alcohol at all and haven’t for years or ride like a moron like you see most of the sport bikes doing. But he ended 3 people’s lives early and now gets a second chance at his own life all because of drinking and driving. Consider me not a fan.
Also no lights on the bike on a dark country road, it was a terrible tragic accident.
Smh, get the facts right. He wasn’t intoxicated when they came to investigate the crash. Unless he got sober within the time it took from the crash to first responders getting there, then he wasn’t drunk. He was the one who called emegency services when the crash happened. The motorcycle had three people on it and no lights on. He fully cooperated with police and other law enforcement at the time of the incident. I suggest reading the entire timeline.
Full timeline: https://rumbunter.com/2020/11/02/pittsburgh-pirates-oneil-cruz-timeline/
Oneil Cruz’s lawyer’s statement on the driving drunk accusation: https://www.facebook.com/yajaira.gomezortiz/posts/10223098958957353
Hector Gomez’s report: https://twitter.com/hgomez27/status/1309862868465090562?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1309901742377754629%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Frumbunter.com%2F2020%2F11%2F02%2Fpittsburgh-pirates-oneil-cruz-timeline%2F
Smh, get the facts right. He wasn’t intoxicated when they came to investigate the crash. Unless he got sober within the time it took from the crash to first responders getting there, then he wasn’t drunk. He was the one who called emegency services when the crash happened. The motorcycle had three people on it and no lights on. He fully cooperated with police and other law enforcement at the time of the incident. I suggest reading the entire timeline.
@dad You are living my dream bro. I’ll have my girl on the back seat holdin’ on to my fat belly. Sure, she’s missin’ a few teeth, but she thinks I’m cool. That’s why, when I grow up, I’m gonna be a Harley rider.
The bike had no lights on and was travelling in the same direction as Cruz when he rear ended it. The police claimed he smelled of booze but some guy who lived near the accident said Cruz was carrying his child who had a fever and that his wife was pregnant and was also sick and Cruz was taking them to the hospital or something. There’s nothing in that case that’s clear other than the people on the bike were clearly reckless. Although just because you have your child in your hands and are walking around with it does not mean you’re sober but I also know three people on one bike with the lights off is pretty stupid so I tend to believe the driver of the bike was at fault here.
Good take on Harley riders. I can tell you I’m roughly 6’0” 185-190. Sorry to disappoint you on the fat belly.
Okay thanks dad we all need a reminder how to act!
Wasn’t his fault. Read the report. He was not drunk. Stop spewing bs
Who accused him of being intoxicated?
Swing and miss dad of Donny. Clearly you have no idea what you’re talking about. Love how he says, “this guy is our worst nightmare”, then proceeds to spew false statements.
Nottingham, what did he do in the past to cause your comment?
Sounds like a qanon conspiracy theorist
Or one of the, “experts”
Based on what @dadofdonnydownvote posted, sounded very much like an accusation of Cruz being drunk.
For two months of Tony Watson.
It’s this trade that makes the Archer yrade a little less hard on us Pirates fans.
As a Pirate fan you should know that they could have never developed Glasnow and Baz so not sure why you are still thinking about it 4 years later.
Why is everyone still acting like the Archer trade was so great? The Rays gave away Meadows for peanuts. Glasnow is out for a couple of years and by the time he gets back TB will have to trade him too, and Baz is basically nothing but a name on a prospect list right now.
Yeah the trade was a win for Tampa, but this was not exactly Brock for Broglio. It’s definitely not something that should become a synonym for a super lopsided trade.
Bingo. Meadows had a great start to 2019 then faded badly and rebounded to play average to finish the season. Was average in 2020 and 2021. Had another great start this season and again has faded. Remains to be seen how he finishes. Glasnow has spent much of the time that he has been in Tampa on the IL. Missed a lot of time prior to the TJ surgery on the IL with arm issues. Baz was good in a couple of starts to end last season. Was on the IL to start this year. Got hammered his first outing and a good 2nd outing. Will have to see how he goes from here.
Hi- I basically agree with your trade assessment.Many posters were saying that it was the “worst trade ever”.I mentioned Babe Ruth and Frank Robinson and some of them shut up.Meadows was a reasonably good player and Glasnow had promise,but the reason they wanted Archer was to provide a good #2 to solidify their starting pitching.No one knew that Archer would be hurt that much and was basically a zero for the Pirates.
NH said that the player to be named later would hurt,and therein is the real potential for a serious amount of lopsided ness.The Pirates went against their grain in making the deal,and hindsight is always 20 20.We shall see how he turns out.
I still remember posting at the time of the post that the Pirates were willing to part with Meadows because they had acquired Reynolds. A whole lot of people said that I was crazy and that Reynolds would never be close to the player that Meadows would be. So far, it seems that Reynolds is the better of the 2 players.. Still remains to be seen who will have the better career.
This is the most hope I’ve had in this team in years. Madris is super underrated. He demolishes RHP and will make a nice platoon with Chavis at 1B. He’s getting re-familiarized with the position, but as long as he can make the basic plays, he’ll be good enough.
IF Vogelbach is the bar for Left handed hitting 1B defense… Madris will be fine!!
Cruz has averaged one error a game at SS throughout his minor league career. SS is the most important pure defensive position on a team……..and a lot more about just fielding the ball is required.
No mention of that on the write-up, just that the evil Pirates were holding him down for service time considerations – so say MLBTR.
The kid is a DH.
Andrew Friedman doesn’t trade away future superstars for rentals.
Totally, that’s why he traded Frankie Montas for Josh Reddick, or Yordan Alvarez for Josh Fields (though Fields did spend 2.5 years in LA, I’m sure every Dodger fan would have rather had Alvarez over a solid middle reliever).
He didn’t trade Montas for Reddick. He traded Montas for Reddick AND Rich Hill. I cannot stand the Dodgers, but at least they aren’t afraid to use prospects as currency to help the big league club. Sure every now and then you get burned when a Yordan develops into a star, but no one brings up the 5 prospects they traded to the Orioles for Machado or the Willie Calhoun package that got them Darvish (even though Yu sucked). Big market teams don’t have to use their farms the same way a Pittsburgh or a Tampa have to.
It’s a fifty fifty with Friedman.
Mans is trying to claim that his favorite GM can’t make a mistake. Every GM is going to make a bad trade every once and a while, get used to it
Redsoxx_62;
Please don’t represent what I wrote…..
1, Andrew Friedman is not my “favorite GM”. Anyone that follows and understands MLB has to respect him.
2. I think Ben Cherington is a fantastic Baseball Ops guy, and that the Pirates are on their way to being an MLB power (and have written this here since a bit after the Pirates hired him and saw how he went about changing their entire organizational infrastructure).
3. I think Oneil Cruz has major holes in his game and is not closing any of them. It’s nice to hit with power. He reminds me of the White Sox Eloy Jiménez – it’s fun to watch the tape measure HR’s, but it’s always something.
4. The Pirates have a slew of quality young players being developed in the minors. They’ll need to play solid D, have a Catcher that that can run a game and handle a staff, and will need lots of quality pitchers. Cherington and the people he’s brought in are committed to that. I see the Brewers slipping in a few years (love watching them play today) as well as the Cardinals. The Reds and Cubs are in circles. Pirates take over the NLC, then it’s a matter of getting them positioned for the playoffs.
All good, solid points. The wild card remains Nutting, of course. When all of these kids arrive, begin to achieve and contracts come to the table, then what?
Friedman has made some awful trades in his career, do some research.
You need to revisit your math skills. Cruz has played in 322 minor league games at SS with 317 starts. He has had 96 errors at SS in those games. He has an average of 0.298 errors in all games appeared and if you only count the games started the average errors per game would jump all the way uip to .302 per game. This assumes he had no errors in games not started. Not gold glove stats but far from the error per game that you claim. He did deserve to be held down because he was horrible to start the year and has been inconsistent at the plate and in the field even before this year. Hopefully he has learned that he needs to keep working even though he makes it to the show.
Hayes is already one of my favorite MLB players.
Hope O Niel follows suit
C,3b,ss, Cf well covered for the future. Let’s hope there’s another round of Cole’s Taillions Mortons Glasnows on the arm side coming
There’s the pirates version of those guys coming.
Bligh Madris what is it with pirates players names in there farm system. Is boba Fett in the minors there too?
We do have a Bubba Chandler and Anthony Solometo.
It is the Pirates so we need a Captain Bligh.
Nah, it’s Captain Jack, especially after his three home run game today.
Except Captain Bligh was the exact opposite of a pirate. Fletcher Christian was closer to a pirate in that story.
Aha! Aaron Fletcher is the real Pirate.
Hate to say it, think its too soon. Things just are not clicking in AAA. I’m not worried about him, i think he’ll be good just having trouble this year that I would want him to figure out first. From what i saw on some video his defense is adequate at SS but not much better. Pirates have better fielding options for SS with projected average+ bats. BUT i’d still put him there at least to start off his MLB career. Maybe he is better than what I saw.
Hitting the MLB though, things might just flip that switch and he’ll take off out of the gate though. possibly that’s what the front office sees.
the pirates are set to take off. They need pitching though if they want to try for 2023. If these guys show up and show anything close to potential Ben will have to go out and get some decent bodies to fill the pitching staff and a stop gap catcher.
by 2024 they should be a contender. IF prospects get anything close to their potential the position players are set, more so if they can extend Reynolds. Even through this slump Reynolds is average+ and he seems to be coming out of it.
‘Funny’ story i was editing a video saying they should hold him down when i read this. there goes an hour of my day lol.
Bryan Reynolds is one of the most professional hitters I’ve ever seen. He’s struggling this year with the new baseball. I don’t have high hopes for Cruz.
ElGaupo77;
Interesting observation. But the ball was “dejuiced” in 2021 during which he did fine.
Heard one broadcaster note that Christian Yelich was hitting “lasers” 2 years ago, and suddenly all that changed. Since Yelich hasn’t had a major injury and it doesn’t appear that he’s one to sneak body building meds past the testers, I’d put forth that the unjuiced ball has hurt him more than any other player in MLB.
Maybe the league adjusted to Reynolds, maybe it’s something else. Surely the Pirates coaching staff is breaking down his AB’s and working with him. Who knows…..sometimes guys are playing hurt and it doesn’t get into the media. We’ll see.
Yelich has had chronic back issues the past couple years, i think that is pretty bad if you swing as you have to turn your hips and back to swing fast.
yeah Bryan has turned it on to more of what we expected the past month.
I have high hopes for O’Neil but realistically those hopes need to be tempered lol. He has the skills, if he and the team can get them to translate to the mlb, he could be one of the greats. I’m more optimistic that could happen with the new people in charge.
Reynolds hasn’t been in much of a slump this month. Cruz looks worse than average to me. He will need to improve to stay at ss.
BLIGH
It’s about time. Even if he winds up not hitting, you can always send him down again when Kevin Newman is activated.
Madris is the one who isn’t getting the spotlight here, but he honestly had the team made out of spring training. There was no need to sign Marisnick over him other than the fact Marisnick bats right-handed.
The one problem here is that the Bucs will continue to have a very lefty-heavy lineup. It’s not a BAD thing if they can hit LHP decently, plus it plays well for PNC Park (I remember when the park opened, they called up pretty much anyone who could hit lefty) but it would be nice to see a little balance.
Who gets sent out? You have to cut a pitcher, and my choice is Hembree to get DFA’d (also opens a spot for when you reinstate Newman next week). I’d send down Castillo in terms of a position player. Yes, he has 2HR this week, but also has been showing signs of needing more seasoning.
Bigger issue is that you have a bunch of veterans coming back in Van Meter, Gamel, Yoshi, etc. Shame we couldn’t have traded some of these guys earlier.
DfA Hembree solves pitcher numbers and 40 man spot. Knowing the Pirates the rookie probably gets option down and they release Marisnick. Maybe Yoshi or Chang but Yoshi is still owed over 2 million and need to give chang another month look. I don’t see too many lefties as a problem since most pitchers are righties. Suwinski doesn’t seem to mind lhp. Half the team is batting under 200 so doesn’t matter what arm they throw with the ain’t hitting.
Honestly i’d let Yoshi walk at this point. There is no point in keeping him around now. No one will want him in trade and we can give other people a look with out having to worry about the roster spot.
I would let VanMeter and Marisnick go along with Yoshi and Chang.
probably look for a trade partner for Gamel. I would like to keep him, i like him but someone looking for a 4th OF might give up a few bucks for him.
few more ways to free up some space 🙂
I think that Hembree should be dfa’ed.I would like to see Allred come back and dfa Banda.Chang will be gone soon,and Park can go back to AAA.Mitchell will be sent down once Marcano comes back.Newman and Yoshi will fill the last 25 and 40 man roster spots.
They will let Cruz play shortstop until he proves that he cannot last there.I would rather see him in right field as his arm is supposed to be good.He will be given an extended chance to see if he can start to hit ML pitching.
I foresaw the gaping hole at catcher if R Perez got hurt.I do not understand why they did not pick up Romine as at least he would stay in the majors.I know that he would not be knowledgeable about the pitchers but he is a veteran who could learn on the fly.Heinaman and Pérez are not even good AAA hitters.I think that BC could have done a better job before the year started at having a competent backup catcher although R Perez was a good signing.
If Madras players well there will be no need to resign Gamel unless he does not get good offers and wants to be a fourth or fifth outfielder depending on the ultimate destination of Cruz.
Just a thought- Maybe they sign Josh Bell to be their first baseman/ DH for three years.I do not see Mason Martin ever cutting down on his strikeouts.
The error issue with Cruz isn’t fielding its throwing. That’s where over 80% of his errors come from. Yeah he looks awkward but then again when was the last time anyone has seen a 6’7” SS at the MLB level.
A lot of you guys have zero clues as to what you are looking at. And for the Mr worst nightmare guy above pound sand troll.
Spar-I think that the Pirates will give Cruz a test run at shortstop to see how he stands up.He obviously wants to play there.It will be up to him to prove that he is a major league caliber shortstop.
There is really no difference whether his errors have been fielding or throwing.Errors are errors.
I think that you will agree though a 933 fielding average is non tenable for a ML shortstop.Let’s hope that he can greatly improve that % and stay where he wants to play.
Rumble Mavs!! Let’s go Bligh! Good luck, buddy!
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Who thinks Bob Nutting will be any different once these alleged young stars make it to the majors. Maybe they will develop into good players and maybe the Pirates will finish over .500 and maybe they will reach the playoffs. But Nutting will never pay for quality rental players who can give the team a chance down the stretch to win a championship and once the alleged young stars are ready for free agency they will be gone and the same song and dance will repeat. He is a miserly despicable human being.
Mario- Tell is how you really feel about Nutting!
Nutting will spend to add players at the trade deadline like he did during the 2013-2015 years if the Pirates have a good team.He May even add a few free agents to multiple year contracts if they fill holes in the roster.
Like before,he will not be signing players to huge contracts,and will try to get decent deals on key Pirate players to keep them from moving
That modus operandi will not change for this small market team.It is the basic outline followed by most of them.
Bob Generally stays out of it unless it is a franchise player (Cutch)
Bob sets the budget that likely would be modified at the GMs request. for example, being strongly in the playoff pool at the break. Or the GM thinks the team as a legit shot going into a season. we saw that a few years back.. the problems then was there was not much of a place to upgrade and then those that were available in trade where not a huge upgrade over what they already had.
The problem really is that few players would want to sign in Pittsburgh for the obvious reasons and the GMs don’t want to trade their future away
Bob takes most of the blame for the poor play of the team being at the top of the food chain but were he did fail the most is letting the front office run the team down.
NH did some good but coming out of the winning years nothing worked when trying to improve the current team at the time.
NH failures were in the scouting and development personnel.I think that he somewhat rested on his laurels after the very fine three year period,and tried to make changes too late.
He was a tremendous improvement on the two clowns that they had immediately before him.
I think that overall he did a good job but his failure was in the most important areas of a small market team.
Just a thought. It appears that Martin may not be more then a quad A player. Why not look at Cruz at first base. I know they have Gorski at Altoona but he also plays center field without the “resistance” that Cruz has. I love BREY but if Gorski can fill that spot BREY may bring someone to fit in the SP rotation.
Yeah, I put forth this idea a couple weeks ago and MendozaLine had a good reply. On one hand, it would be a shame to lose his arm by playing first and at the same time, such a move would be something of a last resort. If he didn’t cut it there, then what
He also explained that Cruz is something of a hard head about SS. Only envisions playing that position
Going to be interesting to watch, that’s for sure
not having that arm somewhere on the field where it could be showcased is against all natural law. Corner OF, left IF… or the pitchers mound lol. I say out field. from short fast throw to first but slow to throw it. Cruz’s size and wingspan would be nice at first though…..
We need Martin in the MLB now. doing it next year when there is potential to be not bad will be too late. Not only that, he seems to have worked on his quickness. 21/22 he seems to be a better base runner than before.
They should be working out Henry Davis at first… just a little anyway, just in case.
Joe- Cruz’ throw the other day was the hardest from a Pirate that I have seen since Clemente.
I think that if he bombs at shortstop you have to put him in right field.No one will be taking two bases on a single.
The Pirates said that Martin was supposed to be working on some things which evidently have not been manifested.They will be using Yoshi until well after the All Star break then Martin will come up if he has improved.
I think that having Davis play first at this point would send the wrong signals to him and complicate his development as catcher far too much.They need a good catcher first and foremost but I think that they should sign someone for a couple of years like they did with Martin.
hardest sure and wow just wow it was. but he needed to do that hard simply because of his approach to the ball and the windup. Also i noticed his throws make the first basemen work more than they should, On another team I would think he could stick there for more than a few years.
yeah martin needs to work on getting less SOs but given the throw away season he can do that just as well here and not keep ‘dead weight’ on the mlb roster. should’ve been the guy when yoshi went down. even if he didn’t stick it will show him whats up for next spring. I wouldn’t even kep Yoshi on the 40 man at this point. No one wants to trade for him and he is taking up a spot someone else could have. if he signs else where pirates save a couple hundred K.
everyone seems to forget about Edny Rodriguez. He profiles to be a plus catcher from offense and defense. will be here sooner than Davis unless they push Davis through faster. having davis work at 1b some if Edny does well would be a good idea more so if Martin Busts or has trouble doing first at the MLB level. Assuming neither Rodriguez or Davis bust you cannot start them both at catcher, i don’t see Davis as a DH
maybe they could trade cash and a lower end prospect or two for Stallings now that he is having a horrible year. sarcasm but wouldn’t mind seeing it.
Joe-I thought of a Stallings trade yesterday when I saw his numbers.They were not good.But I think that him and Roberto Perez splitting the catching duties would be beneficial.They would still need a third one,at least in AAA,who would be at least a good AAAA catcher.
I do not know much about Rodriguez but maybe he could be that guy next year.I do remember that they had another catcher more advanced than Henry Davis.
I still do not know why they did not sign Austin Romine.
I think that you are right about Cruz at shortstop.He is just not quite smooth enough to be a good one,but the arm makes up for some of it.
Yoshi will not go until after the trade deadline at which time you will get your wish about Martin.
Is there a reason to keep Yoshi? I can’t think of one. no one wants to trade for him, but someone might sign him at the league minimum which would save the pirates something like 200k(?)
He is on rehab now, i’d just grant him release so he can try to find another job else where.. Just me I guess. Even if Mason doesn’t come up, Chavis has been doing fairly well.. some of those stretches hurt me just watching it on TV.
Yeah Edny looks pretty great. if he had more power we might not be talking about Davis lol.
Joe-I think that they may be hoping that Yoshi wises up and flashes some of the power from last year.If not they will try to get something for him by the trade deadline.
The main reason,though,is, you guessed it,money.
I think that they will dfa Van Meter off the IL since they just do not have room for him.
The same thing will happen to Marisnick when he gets off the 60 day IL.
Gamel will come back and they will send Mitchell down.
They will try to trade Yoshi,Gamel,and Stratton by the deadline as they need their spaces for further promotions.
Newman and Marcano will come back soon and Castillo and Park will be sent to AAA.
They will need to dfa Chang and Delay to open up spaces on the 40 man roster.
Eickhoff and Banda( no options left) will be dfa’d and Fletcher will be recalled and Underwood will be reinstated.
Players like Martin and Bolton and Bae will be brought up after the trade deadline.
I hope that they keep Vieux to give him a chance to see what he can do.
That leaves Peters and Thompson to be reinstated when they are ready.
As you can tell though by the trade deadline the Pirates 40 man roster will be stocked with young players who to at least some extent show promise.The ones who do not progress will be moved reasonably quickly to make room for others.It shows little room for trade or free agent acquisitions,and hopefully they will not need to put any more on the 40 man roster this year to keep them from the Rule 5 draft.
I think that the days of having AAA and AAAA players are soon comimg to an end.
Time will tell how good they will become and how good the Pirates team gets.
except Yoshi, we’re not too far apart on our thoughts
they’re not going to get anything out of him. even if he hits 10 HRs between his return and the deadline something like 3 1/2 weeks… no one is going to give much and that would probably just be cash and even that probably wouldn’t be enough to fill the soda machine (money ball reference). Let him come out of rehab and let him go
IMO keeping that spot open for prospects and such is more valuable.
Also don’t forget about quintana, he isn’t doing bad, might be able to pull a diamond in the rough type prospect out of a deal.
I forgot about Jose,although I would keep him if they do not get any sort of decent offer for him.
As far as Yoshi is concerned,I am just saying what I think that the Pirates will do that as opposed to what you would do or I might do.
At least the Pirates have hope,unlike some other teams who do not seem to have a plan.
If Madris is named Captain, there won’t be much of a Bounty for the Pirates.
sure its only a couple MLB games, but i’m convinced Cruz isn’t a long term SS. Let him play out the season mostly at short to prove me wrong. when not at SS in the corner OF to let another SS have a look.