The Pirates announced that they have selected the contract of catcher/first baseman Rafael Flores. In a corresponding active roster move, infielder Liover Peguero has been optioned to Triple-A Indianapolis. The 40-man roster had a vacancy but is now full.
Flores, 24, was just acquired from the Yankees as part of the deadline deal sending David Bednar to the Bronx. He was going to be available in the upcoming Rule 5 draft if not added to Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster. They were surely planning to give him a roster spot in order to him from that draft. Doing so a few months early allows them to get a look at him in the big leagues before the offseason arrives.
The youngster took an unusual path to being a notable prospect. He attended Rio Honda, a community college outside Los Angeles, and was playing summer ball for the Alaska Goldpanners when the Yanks found him and signed him as an undrafted free agent in 2022. He was roughly league average at the plate in 2023 while playing at the High-A level.
Flores seemed to take a big step forward last year, both offensively and defensively. He stepped to the plate 506 times between High-A and Double-A, producing a combined .279/.379/.495 line and 152 wRC+. FanGraphs ranked him 34th in the system prior to that campaign, noting that his work behind the plate was improving. Baseball America ranked him tenth among New York farmhands heading into the current season.
The 2025 season has seen Flores boost his stock even further. The righty-swinging 24-year-old clobbered Double-A pitching at a .287/.346/.496 pace (145 wRC+) in 370 plate appearances and has hit .281/.363/.459 (119 wRC+) in 157 Triple-A plate appearances with the Pirates following the trade. He’s not great when it comes to controlling the running game, but Baseball Prospectus gives him above-average framing and blocking grades in the minors this year. At the very least, he has the makings of a bat-first option behind the plate — an area of dire need for the Pirates for the past several years.
Catcher has been a revolving door in Pittsburgh ever since the Bucs traded Jacob Stallings to the Marlins after the 2021 season. They’ve since used a combination of Henry Davis, Endy Rodriguez, Joey Bart, Jason Delay, Yasmani Grandal, Tyler Heineman, Austin Hedges, Michael Perez, Andrew Knapp and Roberto Perez — among others — and received disastrous results with the bat. Only the Guardians have received less offensive output from their catchers than Pittsburgh’s combined .208/.285/.314 since Opening Day 2022.
The hope moving forward will be that Flores can turn that tide — or at least play a meaningful role in a catching committee that begins to right the ship. The Pirates’ offense, in general, is among the most anemic in baseball on an annual basis. If Flores can provide even average offense (or slightly above), he ought to receive plenty of looks moving forward, given the difficulty the Bucs have had when it comes to scoring runs year over year.
Where will he play? I don’t see an obvious lineup spot. Is this just a move to protect him from Rule 5?
Probably is. He should be the regular catcher the rest of the year. But who knows what Kelly/Shelton will do?
He’s being rewarded for having a good season. Was going on the 40 man anyway, I’d let him catch. Its a good time to do that because the games don’t really matter.
Ronk got it. He can play anywhere. 3b ss 2b 1b c lf dh cf. Reynolds is making some real $ so probably not rf.
Season isn’t over yet. Rule 5 protection could have waited. He hasn’t been so good in AAA to demand being called up. This looks like a gm desperate to save his job. Hoping even praying he has a amazing few games to say see look how smart I am. Although allowing Ben to trade Bednar for this suggest Ben’s job is safe. Mixed messages.
Davis will catch Skenes as usual but I’m sure that he’ll get an opportunity the last 2 weeks to show something.
You don’t if his job is safe. No one knows even Nutting doesn’t know. Even if he had made a decision he could change his mind 2 weeks from now.
Huntington was going to be brought back. Even with Cole Morton Glasnow doing much better elsewhere and the awful 2019 season he was coming back. Then Nutting seen Jordan Lyles era with the Brewers and that was the the straw that changed his mind. It was a fake era which makes it funny. Now he gets to see Priester with the same Brewers funny enough while at the same time getting a first hand look at Yorke. If that isn’t a wake up call. Maybe Hayes in Cincinnati is.
In July August Nutting was bringing Huntington back.
He might right now be bringing Cherington back and if this Flores has a bad week he can change his mind and Cherington is gone.
Shelton Priester Yorke should have been enough though. But Glasnow Morton Cole wasn’t enough. It took Lyles.
28 runs batted in in just 36 games including 6 homers and you don’t think he did well at Indy?
I didn’t even look at his rbi hr
Bart should be released, his offense has plummeted since hitting his mark last season.
Endy is injury prone and can’t be counted on to be healthy for an entire season
You don’t see an obvious lineup spot amidst the sea of garbage the Pirates have been rolling out?
Absolutely. At this point….clean-up.
Best thing would be to sit Cutch down and let the kid DH the rest of the year. Cutch looks worn down, both by his age and from losing. I Wouldn’t make Flores deal with catching till spring training- just let him hit.
And play Cruz everyday
Andrew McCutchen hit .262 with 16 hits, 2 home runs, 14 RBIs and 9 runs scored in 18 games between August 22, 2025 and September 13, 2025
Not much of a slump
Cutch leads the team in walks, is third in runs batted in and third in homers
If anyone needs to sit, it’s Oniel Cruz
He has twice as many strikeouts than hits and is batting at the Mendoza line
Plus his defense is horrible, leading the league with errors by an outfielder
All true. But Flores isn’t an outfielder. Cutch is actually a better right fielder than Reynolds but he’s not going to sit. And Cutch has been slumping. Last night he appeared to get all of a pitch and flew out to center. I think he’s either tired or hurt. He has nothing to prove, so let him pinch hit the rest of the year and let the kid DH.
Cutch is one of just a few players who didn’t strike out last night.
Cruz pinch hit and struck out.
Nutting wants Cutch to return next season.
Sitting him for the remainder of the season could make Cutch change his mind.
As it is now, Kelly gives Cutch more games off than any other player.
Reynolds never sits and he’s having a horrible season
I think Old Buc Fan was reminiscing the 1979 Pirates, because yeah…
2728-Actually some of remember all the way back to 1960 when a two decade prominence started with a World Series win.
You got your wish, Reynolds is the DH in tonight’s game, Suwinski and another strike out hitting Canario is playing and Cruz is batting cleanup
What’s the over/under for team strikeouts in tonight’s game?
Whatever it is I’ll take the over, lol
Now can they please play Oneil Cruz everyday? Sitting him against every lefty and now some RHP. Let him improve. Wasting AB’s with Pham, Cutch, Suwinski, etc.
yes, let’s play Cruz every game and watch him strikeout 3-4 times a game
He has struck out 163 times and has 87 hits
How much does he need to play to realize that he’s not the future of this franchise?
So play Suwinski strikes out just as much and old man Tommy Pham instead? At least Cruz has potential to be a 30-30 or 40-40 guy.
@Perksy Cruz also has a 42 point difference between his xwOBA and wOBA, and a 65 point difference between his slugging percentage, and xSLG%. He is around the 60th percentile of both stats. But he really needs to slow his approach at the plate down. He tries too hard, and gets in his own way. He’s very willing to wait for his pitch, but also seemingly is very willing to go into panic mode if he doesn’t get it, or misses on it.
Good breakdown. I notice much of the same with is approach. Overall I just feel like his potential is too great to bench multiple times per week. This is why the Pirates are the Pirates. I think he will likely be traded this offseason, and will probably be the best thing for him.
And the best thing for the Pirates as long as the new GM makes the trade.
they bench him at times for failing to make easy plays in the outfield. Plus he can’t hit left handed pitchers.
He starts against righties and still struggles
Thinking Cruz isn’t a part of the Pirates’ future is pretty shortsighted imo. You’re not going to find a batter with more potential than Cruz on the FA or trade market for even a semi-unreasonable price, and outside of Konnor Griffin, I don’t think anyone has a better chance of having a solid season in 2026 than Cruz.
Whatever the Pirates do this offseason, getting Oneil Cruz’s approach down has to be the #1 thing. But his approach this year was awful for the most part. How does one have the second highest rate of pitches seen outside the zone, yet rank among the most strikeouts looking? Feels like he goes up to the plate super amped up and overly aggressive, or super laid back and overly passive. I truly think he’s just trying too hard and overcompensating one way or the other.
Cruz just needs to slow his game down and not make sweeping changes each at-bat. Find an approach and stick with it, and make small tweaks based on the pitcher, and how his strengths and weaknesses play to Cruz’s strengths and weaknesses. If he gets beat the first time he faces him, make a small adjustment, not a complete swing in one direction or the other. Second thing he needs to do is take advantage of the fact pitchers don’t want to give you something to hit. Over 300 hitters saw 1000+ pitches throughout the season. The only player who had a higher rate of pitches outside the zone than Cruz’s 55.4% rate was Bryce Harper at just over 56%. Cruz should be in the driver’s seat of the count more often than not. That doesn’t mean be overly passive and waiting for a certain pitch, but work counts and get them to throw a pitch in the zone. It would also help if the Pirates gave another decent hitter behind Cruz so they have to pitch to him, but that still doesn’t mean that Cruz shouldn’t be taking advantage of this.
If Cruz doesn’t recover to some versio of where he was April-May Bucs are doomed to failure. I am greatly disappointed in Hague / Vogey. Not a single hitter has improved from last year. Cutch, Pham, Gonzalez, Horwitz maybe broke even. Triolo better recently after stint in AAA. Others worse. Maybe Andy Haines wasn’t the problem.
He gets all those pitches outside the zone because he swings at them.
He’s 27 years old. He will start his decline in next few years. He could be the rare guy who figures it out late but odds are he was it he is. Maybe when he sees his arbitration # $ it will be a wake up call and he will have a great off season and highly motivated season.
His chase rate this year is 28%, which is about league average. That’s a pretty big improvement from 31.7% in 2024. He’s not swinging going outside the zone that frequently. I’ll admit he has a bad approach, but it’s not from swinging outside the zone frequently.
You disappoint me. You were the the only person who ever muted me who was able to resist from taking a peak from not logged in or another account. You accomplished this feat for years! It was impressive. Why did you mess it up?
Anyways 28 percent on it’s own isn’t good but like you said isn’t bad. The problem is his whiff percentage. He can’t hit a baseball. Pirates haven’t been able to fix this so if he can’t hit a baseball there is another way to get on base and that is to walk. That lack of aggressiveness gives him a near average chase rate but leads to near worse in baseball k rate.
Also with his size and hr hitting ability pitchers waste a lot of pitches changing his eye level and setting him up or pitching around him.
That’s the reason for the 28 percent. Watch some games. Won’t take you long to see this.
Swinging outside the zone is a huge problem. He struggles with spin detection. Good breaking ball setup right and he is swinging away well outside the zone.
He leads the team in called third strikes.
It’s like he still doesn’t know the strike zone
Yeah if you just look at number 28 percent sounds reasonable enough. But you have to know the why. Even if it was slightly above average instead of below average it doesn’t matter. You just need to get him to chase 1 pitch. It takes 4 balls to walk someone. Pitchers are more than willing to waste some balls on Cruz for reasons I stated.
Quite honestly, the first time I saw your name, I thought you were a legit bot account. That’s literally the only reason I muted you.
I realized you weren’t a bot account given how often you respond and intereact on comments.
He needs to completley revamp his approach, which is the biggest issue. He’s always going to have a high whiff rate. His size and approach is always going to make that happen. But he feels like he’s throwing it into high gear, or just not putting it into gear in the first place when he’s at the plate.
Was pretty stupid of me to take your name at face value, but I am so used to seeing anything with AI in the title and blocking/muting it.
AI used to be Dream GM
no, he just swings at pitches under the plate
Cutch has hit his most doubles since coming back, same with runs batted in.
Since Kelly benches him twice a week he hasn’t played in as many games as last year
He’s played in 127 games this year. That’s the most he’s played in a season since 2022 with the Brewers, and he started 53 of the first 59 games under Kelly (time Kelly took over to the ASB). It’s really only been since then they’ve been giving him some time off.
Cruz awful swing and miss. Awful pitch recognition. When he’s guessing right he does well and when wrong he’s awful.
I seen his 2nd ab tonight. 2nd and third pitch never look like pitches you swing at any point and he didn’t. 4th pitch same thing except he swung. Next pitch strike out looking.
I dunno about changing his approach. You suggest more aggressive but that seems to me would lead to more k less walks.
It’s looking like his ceiling is Gallo and floor is Alvarez and he is settled in between. At 27 fans need to stop dreaming and accept reality. Hope for the best but don’t expect anything. Cruz is just a guy and won’t ever be that mvp they dreamed about.
I see why his chase rate is near average. 3ab he took 3 called strikes strike out.
Should just show Hannah and dogs instead of Cruz ab. Just skip davis Suwinski Canario Yorke as well.
How long before a big-market team comes calling for Hannah?
Too long! They can have her. All these teams already had a Hannah for years though while we were stuck with Robbie. But you don’t have to squint hard to see a younger better looking reporter. And hopefully one without a insecure boyfriend. I don’t watch that many games and every time she came on its my boyfriend this. Fiance this. My wedding this. I had to move my wedding so it didn’t interfere with baseball season. Sugar daddies don’t want to hear this. They want that girlfriend experience. Williams Cherington Hannah need to go!
Exactly, Cruz just needs more protection and he will be able to flourish. Maybe and I might be dreaming, but just maybe KG breaks camp with the team and Flores is the real deal too. Could be enough to get him in a better spot.
Cruz has had protection but striking out with men in scoring position doesn’t help him at all
Cruz has had problems seeing the spin on pitches thrown to him
Maybe he needs glasses?
Perksy-Wrong.
Cruz has had plenty of chances.
It is obvious that he wants to pull a Hayes and get traded.
At this point in his career he has believed all of the bs that the Pirates have been feeding him about his speed and exit velocities.
A month ago he was hitting 103 against lefties all year.
They would be smart if they just got rid of him for whatever they could get.
This trade made no sense for Pittsburgh. He wasn’t ML ready and profiles the same as Bart
They certainly didn’t do anything before this season to straighten out Cruz’ swing considering he struck out 181 to last year and is on pace to match that this year
Yeah he has potential but he’s been playing now for 3 years, is 26 years old and still has not reached his full potential
Plus he’s a horrible fielding center fielder committing a league leading 11 errors
I really think saying he’s horrible in center is major hyperbole. He hasn’t been great, just not awful either, and he’s definitley gotten better since April. It’s really hard to base his fielding on errors alone. He has made the same amount of errors with the same fielding percentage as Jose Ramirez, and Nick Castellanos has the third best fielding percentage among qualified outfieders the last 3 seasons.
People just love to hate Cruz. They see “lazy and he’s just jogging” but don’t realize because he’s a tall guy things looks different. His jogging is faster than most catchers. Sure he gets in his head at times but that’s also why people hate him so much. “He should be playing better. He sucks in the outfield.” Don’t forget the infamous “He strike out too much.” People need to understand the game has changed. Strikeouts don’t matter and he would likely cut down on that more with protection
Rat- Do you really believe that garbage that you type?
To the smarter teams strike outs matter greatly. With protection Cruz would if anything strike out more. Probably stay similar. Protection is overrated. I’m not walking Cruz though with power behind him. Cruz can’t hit a baseball. If he walks he can steal 2b. More importantly the hitter behind him is more likely to hit a hr because they can’t possibly whiff as much as Cruz. Cruz would probably hit a few more hrs. Strike out the same. But walk less. Protection would hurt him but not a significant enough amount.
It’s not complete garbage, just not completley right either.
Over the last MLB 5 seasons (since 2021), the Dodgers, Braves, Red Sox, Astros, and Yankees rank 1-5 in runs scored per game. Meanwhile, they rank 9th, 10th, 20th, 1st, and 16th in K%. Then the bottom 5 teams in runs scored per game are the Pirates, Marlins, White Sox, Athletics, and Royals. They rank 25th, 15th, 13th, 22nd, and 6th in K%.
The average K% between the Dodgers, Braves, Red Sox, Astros, and Yanks the last 5 MLB seasons is 22.1%. The average K% between the Pirates, Marlins, White Sox, Athletics, and Royals is 22.9%.
Compare that to 1980-1985. The top 5 teams in runs scored per game were the Red Sox, Tigers, Yankees, Orioles, and Brewers. They ranked 5th, 17th, 2nd, 8th, and 3rd in K%. The bottom 5 teams in runs per game were the Mets, Giants, Padres, Astros, and Mariners. they ranked 26th (last), 25th, 11th, 12th, and 16th in K%.
The Red Sox, Tigers, Yankees, O’s, and Brewers had a combined strikeout rate of 12.4% The Mets, Giants, Padres, Astros, and Mariners had a combined strkeout percentage of 14.1%.
Today, the difference between the top 5 teams and bottom 5 teams in scoring runs when it comes down to strikeouts is very small. It is only a 0.9% difference in K%. Back in the 80s, it was a larger 1.7% difference between the top 5 and bottom 5 teams.
Let’s put this in a smaller, more understandable sample. Let’s say we have two players, and both have a 600 plate appearance. Batter A has a 22.1% strikeout rate, which means he is going to strikeout 133 times in a season. That’s how frequently the best teams in the league are striking out, Batter B with a 22.9% strikeout rate is going down on strike three 137 times, just about four times more.
Now let’s take the same example from but with the strikeout rates from 1980-1985. Batter C has a 12.4% strikeout rate over 600 plate appearances, which is the equivilant of about 74 K’s in a season. Batter D with a 14.1% strikeout rate will have about 85 K’s in 600 trips to the plate, which is 11 more times.
No, strikeouts do not mean nothing today, but the corelation between runs scored and strikeouts is a lot weaker than it was 40-45 years ago.
In essence, in today’s game, good teams strikeout less than bad teams, but by a very small margin of less than 1%. 40-45 years ago, bad teams struck out a lot more frequenetly than good teams.
I’m not gonna argue if that’s good or bad for the game as a whole, but that’s how the game is right now.
Now if you want to say that good teams don’t strikeout when it matters, that’s a different story.
The top 5 teams in OPS with men on base since 2021 are the Dodgers, Braves, Astros, Blue Jays, and Phillies. They have a combined strikeout rate of 25.4%. The bottom 5 teams in OPS with men on are the Pirates, White Sox, Athletics, Marlins, and Guardians. They have a combined strikeout rate of 27.6%.
That’s a much larger gap. Using the same 600 plate appearance player as before, player A with a 25.4% K% would have 152 strikeouts. Player B would have about 166 K’s, a whopping 14 more.
The corelation has actually gotten stronger since 1980s. From ’80-85, the top 5 teams in OPS w/men on were the O’s, Red Sox, Brewers, Yankees, and Tigers, who had a combined 12.1% K%. The bottom 5 teams in OPS with men on were the Mets, Giants, Reds, Mariners, and Dodgers, with a combined K% of 13.9%.
In 600 plate appearances, a 12.1% K% is about 73 K’s, while a 13.9% K% in 600 plate appearances is 83 strikeouts, only a difference of 10.
MLB-Here’s two stats that took me about 30 seconds to uncover.
Cruz is hitting 105 this year with 17 hits against left handed pitchers.
He has 11 errors which is more than many full time infielders and leads all outfielders.
His lack of hustle is alarming.
He has clearly tuned out of baseball since the All Star game and his extremely hard hit home run in the home run derby.
There is such a thing as analysis by paralysis.My guess is that Cherington is unfortunately doing the same thing.
At this point I would not even put him at first base.
If they cannot or won’t trade him he needs to be the full time DH against right handed pitchers.
I’m still going to have to disagree that errors are a good way of looking at this. He is slightly above average in terms of outs above average and he has gotten a lot better since the start of the year. Even if you want to go based on errors, four of his 11 all came within the first two and a half weeks of the season. Since April 14, he has a .975 fielding percentage. The league average fielding percentage for outfielders is .988. I still don’t like using fielding percentage either because we’re still looking at a stat that doesn’t even see Ozzie Smith as a top 25 defender at shortstop all-time.
I agree that Cherington overthinks things (we definitley saw that at this year’s trade deadline), but if you believe that using errors, hit totals, and strikeout totals, and not even the rate versions of these stats would be better, then I would be equally concerned. This doesn’t even have to be about Cruz specifically.
he has close to twice as many strikeouts than hits this year, and leads the majors in called third strikes
What exactly does protection havr to do with that?
The 2024 team set the all time franchise record in strikeouts and this year will come close to breaking that record.
You aren’t going to score many runs when your team strikes out 10+ times a game
Me personally, I think he could really use the protection to get more hittable pitches. Like I said before, the only batter who has seen more pitches outside the zone this year is Harper. He has also seen the lowest rate of pitches in the heart of the zone this year.
Now I’m not saying he’s going to suddenly become a superstar with more pitches in the zone. He has a horrible approach. He tries to force things to happen. When I watch him, it feels like someone is trying to fit a square block in a round hole with a hammer. But it wouldn’t hurt if he had better pitches to hit, and you do that by putting a hitter behind him that will force the pitcher to pitch to him.
If he gets so many pitches out of the zone then he should be walking all of the time and stealing second base.
I was never a Cruz fan but always said that he was talented.
He is hitting 203 and 105 against lefthanders.
He has been in the ML’s now for three years and his approach has gotten worse.
I realize that he is 6’7” and hard to judge but he is clearly too lackadaisical to the eye which no statistic can interpret.
He has made errors in CF over the last couple of months based on that attitude that I have never seen in the 64 years that I have been watching baseball.
You can say that it is poor hitting coaching and some of it may be true but he is not a student of the game and never will be.
If they are not giving him good pitches to hit then he should be like Suwinski and be too patient up at bat but with much better results.
Cruz is enamored with exit velocities and the Pirates have been doing him a disservice with being enamored with them also.
These guys are imperfect human beings and not all deficiencies can be measured by statistics.
I really don’t think his exit velocity is the problem. I just think it’s bad approach is all. And for his fielding, I also don’t see a guy who is any worse than a run-of-the-mill below average defensive CF. Sure, he’s made errors, but I really don’t think it’s because he’s not trying. If anything sometimes I think he’s trying too hard. There are a lot of instances I’ve seen him let a ball go under his glove, or he bobbles it because it looks like he’s thinking about the throw before even picking it up.
Perhaps the Pirates their young catcher with this guy. A good cup of coffee will be a good evaluation.
Skenes has 3 starts left, Davis is always his catcher
Since Bart has regressed, Flores should catch the other games
But Ramirez and Castellanos are far better hitters than Cruz so comparing them to Cruz is just silly
Cruz should have more than just raw speed to make his case for being the center fielder
I don’t really see why the comparrison is silly if we’re just comparing defense, and saying Castellanos has been a far better hitter is also hyerbole. Castellanos is hitting .253/.304/.418 the last two years. Cruz is hitting .234/.315/.419 the last two seasons. Either way, errors and fielding percentage both say that Juan Soto has been perfect in the outfield, while Manny Machado has been awful at third base.
You tell him bright eyes
Sure, why not?
They need to DFA Kelly/Shelton and Cherrington. DFA Pham, Holderman, Suwinsky, Bart,Canario, enen Triolo, and all others who have no future with the pirates. For those who want Triolo as next years regular ss, you are kidding yourselves. Personally I don’t think Cutch will be back. Everyone should be available for trade except skenes and chandler.
Cutch said he will play next year but for who is the question
I love the guy but I want him to win a championship and under this regime, it probably won’t happen
McCutchen seems pretty adamant about staying with the Pirates even if he won’t win a championship with them, but yes he deserves a chance at a championship.
Cutch is just old and cranky like someone else I know. He wants to stay in Pittsburgh. Probably will eat up how the Pirates go “all in” next year. Apparently Nutting is going to allow the gm to make trades and spend $ even if a multi year contract is needed.
Kelly is manager in 2026.
Triolo is fine utility player so won’t be dfa. He has trade value.
Kelly is a fine manager. He’s done pretty decent with what he’s been given. I honestly think Triolo is underrated. He was striking out over a quarter of the time last year, and cut his K% down below 20% this year. Upped his walk rate, upped his exit velocity, still a solid defender. I don’t expect him to be elite, but every team would take a guy who can play every infield position at least at an average level with a 90-95 wRC+.
He’s decent but he’s been managing on cruise control for a few weeks. Like he’s been told your job is safe just keep playing to see what guys can do instead of setting the line up to win. Regardless this franchise needs to add 3 solid to good bats this off season and they won’t be able to do it for multiple reasons. The first being nutting won’t spend any cash and the second being nobody wants to go there unless it’s their only option.
playing to see what guys can do
Exactly what they should be doing
They know what Jack, Bae, Davis, Canerio are going to do. Make them loose more games. All for Flores and Yorke to get their shots
Baseball trade conspiracies
Don’t forget Devanney, Simon, Bae , I could go on and on.
Yea pan i forgot those 3
Devannny can’t hit major league pitching and you’d think with Bae’s speed he would learn how to lay down a bunt for a hit
TheMan 3
Amazing that the Royals knew this and were able to convince Cherington to take him.
We would have been better off with a lower level prospect.
A lower level prospect that the Pirates would never develop.
They were not going to get much for Frazier anyway.
Cherington took a chance that Delaney could bust out from being a career minor leaguer but there was a reason why he was a career minor leaguer.
This was a minor trade.The ones that Cherington has screwed up have involved good ML players.
A+ Selection. Night and day better than Yorke Devanney Cook. Would love to know all of the better higher rated prospects they turned down though.
Anyone remember people yapping on here that Liover Peguero hitting 3 home runs in one game versus the Rockies in August was the result of him taking hitting advice from McCutchen and NOT getting lucky with the Colorado air? Guess that advice still hasn’t panned out as he was optioned to the minors for this roster move.
Or that advice was helpful but just for that game.
Seriously? Liover Peguero Hit 4 homers all year and is a bum. And 3 of them at a game in the Colorado air and somehow McCutchen gave him the hitting advice to do that. You show how useless you are at baseball smarts with that comment. Geez, Cutch should retire and be hired as the batting coach for 2026. They would hit almost 500 homers a year with his insight. Haha.
You’re the bum Chico. Your bat was a black hole in a line up and the one thing the only thing you was there to do field and you made the error that cost your team the pennant.
I didn’t say anything about this 1 game advice. But apparently Chico has never heard of something called tipping pitches. Well if a pitcher was doing it a veteran like Cutch would likely be the one to spot it and if he did it could be the reason for multiple hrs off the pitcher as if a batter knows what is coming has a huge advantage. So yes there is a thing as 1 game only advice.
Haha. You are a pathetic on your take. He hit 3 homers vs Rockies off THREE different pitchers throughout the game. So the “never won a batting title or HR champ in the MLB Cutch” gave some advice on how to hit 3 homers off three different pitchers in the Colorado air is beyond impressive hiring advice. Damn, you are blind bro. All your comments now are proven a joke haha. Colorado air made him a footnote in history. Keep trying dude.
Are you a kid or old man or old man pretending to be a kid? Seems only a old man would have your user name but comments like this “Damn, you are blind bro. All your comments now are proven a joke haha.” Make me think you are a kid. Got to be old man though because thinking Colorado makes no low power guys hit hrs is even before my time. You are weird as old man bro. And how come you never learned to read bro? And why you liar bro?
Nothing against old men. My 3 closes bros in here are old. But they don’t pretend to be or talk like a teenager which is really weird.
We just wish that we were teenagers.
Then we would know that this is the historic norm for the Pirates and be satisfied that they will rarely have a 500 team let alone one that competes for the division championship.
Good catch by you on the previous oldies statements.
I was just having a lil late night fun. Old people are awesome. I hope to make it to be old. Really old. There’s so many things that can kill you it’s quite the achievement. Having seen the city of champions has to be tuff to see the last 30 years I feel for you there.
I tried to bait old Chico but unfortunately he was just smart enough to sniff it out. Probably just embarrassed I caught him. Very grouchy though. Hates Cutch for some reason. Very snarky. Very strange lil man. If you think Cutch is good then get off my lawn bro. He never even won a batting title dude!
You are an idiot. Tipping pitches…guess Cutch saw the signs for 3 different pitchers and also hit 3 homers that game. I’m either 10 or 50. Guess I’ll have to check my birth certificate when the babysitter leaves and I head to my job to make enough money to buy some bubble gum and pay my mortgage on pay day. It’s tough being a tween these days.
At least I can read. I never said Cutch helped him hit those 3 hrs. Never said Cutch seen tipped pitches. And pretty sure 2 of those hrs were off the same pitcher. I never even heard Peguero say Cutch helped him hit those hrs.
No you are definitely old talking Colorado air making garbage players hit 3 hrs and batting titles. That’s fine. If lucky we all get to be old. Just you talking like how Clint Eastwood would think someone young would talk like when writing a movie was interesting to me.
I typed 1 sentence playing devil advocate and it set you off. You are grouchy and rude. And not funny at all.
You should go talk to someone though.
“You show how useless you are at baseball smarts with that comment.”
“Damn, you are blind bro. All your comments now are proven a joke haha.”
“Guess I’ll have to check my birth certificate when the babysitter leaves and I head to my job to make enough money to buy some bubble gum and pay my mortgage on pay day. It’s tough being a tween these days.”
I was just having a lil fun with you. But now I am serious. Go talk to someone even a family member show them your comments. You are using all CAPS and dropping dudes and bros and haha. Calling someone pathetic idiot on a baseball discussion site.
Maybe you are just having a bad day. I’ve had those. But if this is who you truly are every day it doesn’t have to be this way. Go talk to someone. Maybe you always been this awful toxic person but if you weren’t try to get things better.
At the rate he strikes out, he will fit in very nicely to the lineup
I would have thought that with Skenes pitching Kelly would have put the best possible hitters in the lineup to give Skenes a better chance of winning
Instead, worthless Suwinski and Canario are in the lineup
Hopefully this is Jack’s last year with us and Canario isn’t invited to spring training
Draft pick odds race is extremely close. Seems lineup was perfect.
two guys on, 2 outs and Cruz strikes out looking
yep, he’s got potential. The potential to set the single season strikeout record for the Bucs
Reynolds batting average against the Cubs is .150
Why is he in the lineup?
Kelly is similar to Shelton by pulling names out of his cap to write the lineup
Sitting a guy who is hitting .272/.371/.470 line since the start of August because he hasn’t done well in an 11 game sample size vs a team where he may not even face the same pitchers he did last time would be an even worse choice if you ask me.
Can you believe people buy tickets and pay cable bill to watch these garbage players? I had to turn it off.
Reynolds lived up to my expectations by striking out with men in scoring position
Then striking out again later in the game
13 strikeouts in last night’s game, 3 by MLB1225 favorite, Cruz and 2 by Suwjnski
I actually watched a chunk of that game. What a boring depressing product. If you are going to rest cutch Pham Gonzales etc do it on the road. Last home stand of the year why would you torture your fans with bae Suwinski Canario Devanney Yorke. Well actually they deserve Devanney Yorke because they kept saying why are they still in AAA and not MLB so maybe it’s alright. You are impressive though watching this every day. Die hard fan.
Skenes is the odds on choice to win the cy young. Only he and gooden ever will have won rookie of the year in rookie season and cycle young in their second yesr
That was a shame about Gooden.Sure fire HOFer but other things got in the way.
Wheeler was the sure CY winner until he got hurt. Skenes will get it now by default. Good for Skenes… we get one more year to see him play before he gets traded
Today’s game was the mirror of a folly, 3 errors, 2 in the same inning
I can’t remember the last game Ramirez pitched where he didn’t allow a run to score.
Today was not one of those games
11 strikeouts, another double digit performance by Kelly’s lackluster offense.
At least Bart hit a 3 run homer and Cutch had an rbi, walking with the bases loaded
Canario struck out with the bases loaded and Jack, who’s arbitration eligible for the first time this offseason continues to show why he will become a free agent instead
2 strikeouts in 2 plate appearances
Flores showed his power potential by hitting a double off the left center notch for his first major league hit
I had hopes for this team during the 12-4 run but they are awful.This left handed reliever cannot pitch to right handed batters.Another awful trade by Cherington.
Nutting should not wait until the end of this season to fire him.
I know this is a story centered on Flores, but looking at the performances of the players who came up through the Buc’s farm over the past SEVERAL years….. is Nutting being so cheap on coaching salaries, too, that they just don’t have the coaching and development talent in the minors to develop their draft picks? Davis: not living up. Gonzalez: doing well, but just average by league standards. Cruz. Temar came in and seems to be regressing since drafted. Griffin: a very bright spot. Skenes: minimal time in minors and pitching doesn’t seem to be an issue in the minors (but the Hanrahan decision bothers me). Hayes, Triolo, Suwinski, and several others who were drafted or came in to the minors via trade have underperformed. So, is it the system or is it something about the players who join a perennially losing franchise and lose their “it”? Maybe a little of both? I would hate to be Skenes and part of me would like to see him traded so he can go to a franchise where he could be the winner that he is.
Take a look at the 1st round. How many players you taking over Gonzales Davis? Baseball is hard. Mlb coaches make hundreds of thousands. Minors it’s tens of thousands. So 1 it’s affordable even for Nutting. 2 a certain amount has to be spent to receive revenue sharing and it certainly isn’t all going into mlb players. They stole front office employees like crazy from other teams. They’re paying a absolutely useless analytics department. So I imagine lack of spending on coaches isn’t a thing.
Problem all starts at the top. Nutting who is clueless hires Williams who is clueless who hires Cherington who is clueless who hires Shelton who is clueless.
$ isn’t helping a team that hired extended refused to fire Shelton. A team that doesn’t even have a kindergarten level analytics department. Who gave away Priester for nothing. Keller will instantly become better elsewhere as well if traded to a team with a kindergarten level analytics department.
Suwinski isn’t supposed to be good. You wouldn’t trade a good player for Frazier. Or Bell. Or Stallings. That’s a problem. They didn’t have much value to trade away. They couldn’t develop it anyways. Nutting shut down some trades.
The Pirates have been run by pretty dumb,dumb,dumber,and dumbest.
They can only get rid three of the four though.
Whatever boomer. Can’t even reply to someone it ends up down here as new comment.
Gen X-You have to hit “reply”,which you evidently did as it is indented to my post.
See!
Yeah boomer. Unlike you I know how to hit reply. Gen Y baby. If we know 1 thing it’s tech. I’m sure gen x can hit reply instead of a new comment though.
Go through your rolodex or call the operator. Give your granddaughter a call. It’s time to take the keyboard away from Grandpal.
You’re going to a new “home” Mendoza. Aren’t you excited!!!!!!!!
Got some good news for you though. In 10 years you can run for president!
They are all lumped together as XYZ to this boomer.Then I guess that they start at Gen A.
No children so no grandchildren.
No Kensington for me this year as your man Cherington got the under at 100 losses.
My source tells me that he is gone at the end of the year.
Still can’t figure out the reply huh boomer!!!!!!!!
Not too late for kids. That ss check will go a long way with a Kensington lady. Get yourself a lil 28 year old. Sure she might look 72 but the womb might be viable still. Have yourself a lil zombie baby.
Sometimes just a straight out comment.
I’ll leave those ladies to you.