[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, everybody, JJ Cooper, Jeff Ponce.

[SPEAKER_02]: Another of the baseball America Prospect podcast and once again, this week, we are in the middle of our fixate series where we are taking, we're looking at organizations who haven't been winning a whole lot and then asking the question of, okay, how far away are they and what are some things they can do to get back to success?

[SPEAKER_02]: And when we talk about the Pittsburgh Pirates today, Jeff,

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think we should define success.

[SPEAKER_02]: Cause obviously success for every team out there is win a world series.

[SPEAKER_02]: But in the case of the pirates, I think that success also is being relevant and going to playoffs and ideally even winning playoff games.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because to just set the stage here, this is an organization that since Barry Bonds left after the 1992 season, long before many of the people watching are listening to this for even more.

[SPEAKER_02]: Since then, they've had four winning records in 33 seasons.

[SPEAKER_02]: And one of those was, I believe, they won 80, two games, maybe it was 83, but I think it was 82.

[SPEAKER_02]: So other than the third 2013, 2014, 2015 stretch, and then that 2018 team that also had a winning record.

[SPEAKER_02]: They've had losing records in every other season since.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is an organization that plays in a beautiful ballpark, but the team that plays in it has very rarely lived up to it.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is something that I would say there is a fan base there that wants to embrace a team and hasn't had a team to really embrace in a very, very, very long time.

[SPEAKER_02]: As you look at it, great to see you again, as always, like what is it that's kind of like the defining feature of Pirates teams over the last many, many years.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, losing, but I think just a lack of offensive firepower.

[SPEAKER_03]: We have seen like a lot of good pitching.

[SPEAKER_03]: come through this organization, you know, obviously, Garrett Cole and sort of that whole wave, you know, Joe Musgrove was pretty good here, and that was pretty good a few years right after he was then traded to the Padres.

[SPEAKER_03]: Of course, we have Paul schemes, Jarrett Jones, Bubba Chandler, and there's other pitching talent.

[SPEAKER_02]: Game of Sintaion was really good, you know, was was good.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, they've always been able to develop a starter or two and then be able to trade those guys for something.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think the bigger question mark with them, though, is have they really been ever ever been able to put together a consistently good lineup?

[SPEAKER_03]: The few years that they did in Andrew McCutchen's prime seasons, they did, you know, they had a good lineup and they were a competitive team and it's the best this organization has been pretty much throughout my lifetime and I just sort of missed the the prime years of those really fun 70s pirates team so, you know, for most of my lifetime outside of a handful of seasons.

[SPEAKER_03]: This has been a pretty bad organization and a bad franchise.

[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, I think there's a lot of good, I think we'll talk about that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, the overwhelming overarching point in terms of the lack of success, I think false squarely on ownership and Bob Nudding and his lack of investment within the team.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that that is the, that is absolutely the story that you kind of have to start with here.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is a team that, that quite simply it's never going to be a big spending team, that's, but there are, but

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that also the pirates have become, I think that there's a lot of, my hair from pirates fans about the need for a salary cap and the need for like, you cannot win if you don't have a salary cap.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the reality of it is, is no, we have many, many examples of teams who have success.

[SPEAKER_02]: You can argue that you can't win as sustain winning, it's like the Dodgers do, maybe.

[SPEAKER_02]: But,

[SPEAKER_02]: When you look at the royals and the guardians and the rays and we could keep going down the list there are a lot of teams the brewers to some extent the brewers do not have a market where you say oh well the brewers are just clearly in a different financial landscape than the pirates should ever be now this is something where

[SPEAKER_02]: The pirates, yes, they don't spin a ton of money, but it is really hard to point to a stretch.

[SPEAKER_02]: A sustained stretch in many, many years where the pirates have really tried other than that, like you said, that 13, 14, 15 stretch.

[SPEAKER_02]: They did some really good things then.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then when that team fell off,

[SPEAKER_02]: It really fell off very quickly and I would say also with that like so we would say the ownership like we're going to get into this part of we're going to get into today when we say how do you fix the pirates.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is, it's an ownership issue and that involves spending money because we're not saying that, well, here's our plan for how if the pirates spend $250 million, you know, they could really turn this thing around in a year.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, no, they're not because the pirates are not going to have a $250 million payroll.

[SPEAKER_02]: But at the same time, it is something about saying how judiciously using the free agent market.

[SPEAKER_02]: Figuring out like I will start with this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is the thing we will start with before we get into strengths and weaknesses because the biggest strength of this current team.

[SPEAKER_02]: We could say it's the pitching, but I would say the biggest strength is.

[SPEAKER_02]: The pirates as we record this he hasn't been announced yet, but I would expect that we're going to hear this week that Paul schemes as one is first sight young award very likely.

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[SPEAKER_02]: If you said, like, as great as Yoshinobu Yamamoto was in the postseason, and he's really good in the regular season too.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you said who is the pitcher really, if you said in baseball, who's the pitcher you would want to have right now?

[SPEAKER_02]: Paul schemes throws as hard as almost anybody, but he does it with a precision.

[SPEAKER_02]: I wanna give, you know, Bayley over at Fuller Spaceball how to piece YouTube video recently.

[SPEAKER_02]: That was really good about this.

[SPEAKER_02]: It just kind of laid out.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, this is the guy who has top tier stuff who also has gregmatics like Savvy and Control and Command.

[SPEAKER_02]: Two, you put that together and you dominate.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what Paul schemes does.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I would say,

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think that there's any scenario in any way, shape or form, where in a for falls of pirates fan or falls of pirates for an office that success and what going forward does not involve having Paul schemes on this team for multiple more years, many more years to come, because let me just remind you that Paul schemes is signed right now.

[SPEAKER_02]: We'll not be a free agent.

[SPEAKER_02]: He is there for the 26, 27, 28 and 29 seasons.

[SPEAKER_02]: There is no reason to be even thinking or talking about, in my mind, any reason to not say, okay, our starting point of this is we have an ace.

[SPEAKER_02]: We have a true number one starting pitcher and we're going to build around that, not build by trading that away.

[SPEAKER_02]: The pitching is is great, but it all kind of starts here with a scheme.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think, you know, it's a great place to start if we did a fantasy draft with every team.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think he's probably going with in the top three picks.

[SPEAKER_03]: He may, I think it's so tiny and then, all right, do you want judged?

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you want skins and skins as younger?

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think that's how teams approach it.

[SPEAKER_03]: So there's as much value there as there is with just about anybody in the game right now.

[SPEAKER_02]: So when you look at the rest of this though, what are the strengths of this piracy?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, it's the pitching right now.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's probably enough.

[SPEAKER_03]: talent within the pitching prospects, et cetera, to cobble together a decent bullpen.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if you look at the stats, just on their face last year, the rotation was pretty good.

[SPEAKER_03]: Pitching was not an issue for the pirates.

[SPEAKER_03]: They can't score rocks.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the pitching side of things is pretty good, and the farm system is really, really strong.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't see, like there's no reason to necessarily,

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, say that neither of those areas or strengths because they do think there's some stuff coming in the farm and the pitching was really good last year as well, but the hitting has just been a trotters.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's where I think everything kind of starts here and that's where we're going to really dive into is when you look at this it is kind of a bifurcated organization where.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say there was, if you went back eight years ago, you would say that the pitching was getting a little bit outdated.

[SPEAKER_02]: They were, I would say that, we all such credit, the pirates were kind of front of the market.

[SPEAKER_02]: They were bleeding.

[SPEAKER_02]: They were leading edge at least when it came to shifts, when it came to sinkers and pitching into shifts and all in the 1314, 15 range.

[SPEAKER_02]: At the same time, I would say that the problem they ran into then is as they kind of stuck with that, even as the game kind of shifted back to, oh, sticky stuff and four seamers up and all, and they kind of fell behind.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that they realize that they fell behind and now they've kind of caught up again on the pitching side.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say that.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there was a period of time where you look at Mitch Keller's kind of up and down, you know, when priesthood was a first rounder for them and kind of struggles he had in all like, there was a stretch there where it wasn't that many years ago, I don't think you to said that the pirates were really in good shape as far as pitching development would you?

[SPEAKER_03]: No, I think it was the opposite.

[SPEAKER_03]: They held on to some of those race series philosophies for a little too long.

[SPEAKER_03]: The game adjusted to that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, I don't like to quote money ball very often.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's a great work of fiction in many instances.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I do think the ad adapter die is very important in baseball, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: If you take one thing away from that movie, it should probably be that.

[SPEAKER_03]: The things that we've seen adapt the two over the last 15 years, there's been cycles back and forth to the four seamers and now it's going back more to two seamers and just different variations on pitch mixes, but I think it's,

[SPEAKER_03]: not the same as it was under the series age of thinkers, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Things have evolved, they're just understanding the type of traits and things that make certain pictures successful and it's not a one-size-fits-all philosophy, which I think it was a little bit in the foreseem and the previous sinker age that we saw, but some of the things I just hear internally,

[SPEAKER_03]: In terms of things are doing with grips and some of that stuff there's a lot of interesting stuff that maybe hasn't surface publicly that's going on with the pirates.

[SPEAKER_03]: They've had some talented folks in their front office now retaining those people and you know making sure that all the needed resources are available.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think are a little bit trickier I don't necessarily think it's the front office is fault a lot of the stuff I think they're dealing with.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, a lack of resources in certain areas that probably is most comparable to the pirates, frankly.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, to pirates you meet to the Rockies in terms of how the pirates operate.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: That kind of jumps into, when we talk about the pitching, when we look at the pitching for the pirates, it's not just schemes, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: This was a good staff, a pretty solid staff last year, and that's what Jared Jones being out.

[SPEAKER_02]: We saw Jared Jones and what he could do two years ago.

[SPEAKER_02]: You saw Bubba Chandler arrive at the end of the year as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like when you look at this rotation right now and you say that going into 2026, this is a team that currently is projected to have Paul Scheme's undeniable ace.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jared Jones back, Bubba Chandler, Mitch Keller who's still under contract through 28, I believe,

[SPEAKER_02]: And throw in at the fifth starter spot, you could, we could throw a wide array of names at that Brexton Ashcraft, Hunter Barco, Tom Serrington, a numerous guys, a list of guys who you could say are plausible in that fifth starter.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say Barco would be the one that I kind of would start with there, but you may differ, you could at, you know, disagree.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that there's enough guys there also to say that there should be some bleed over into the bullpen, you know, with this as well, the bullpen, I would say that is still a spot also where the pirates can kind of do a little bit of experimentation, 26, they're not expected within the world series, kind of tried to help fashion and carve out some guys there.

[SPEAKER_02]: How do you see it?

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, when you look at this pitching staff now,

[SPEAKER_02]: It's got some present, but like who do you like when you look at the some of the names coming up and all who really kind of like what is this rotation look like to you if it's going to if the pirates are going to have success you know let's say especially 27 28 that kind of range.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, I think you're hoping for, you know, top four of schemes, color, Chandler, and Jared Jones in some way, shape or form.

[SPEAKER_03]: Braxton Ashcraft and Mike Barrow's probably both factor into that, Barrow's had a better year than I think a lot of people realized.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think both Barrow's and Ashcraft could play in the bullpen.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then they have a decent sort of clump here of guys and the upper miners who can provide some depth.

[SPEAKER_03]: Johan OVA, it was 27, had a better year I think that people realize and especially like down the stretch at a couple of rough starts in September, but leading up to that had a decent year and could be a useful sort of swing man between starting and the bullpen has decent stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thomas Harrington, we were higher on coming into last season.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's still starter traits there, you know, former first rounder.

[SPEAKER_03]: If he can add a little bit more power, maybe add another pitch or improve a pitch, I think there's maybe a chance for him to still be, you know, a number four start over at the very least.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think a number five isn't unreasonable.

[SPEAKER_03]: Hunter Barco had a good year.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's always been some health concerns with him, but a lefty that has decent stuff,

[SPEAKER_03]: Once again, like Harrington, I think he can factor into the number four and number five sort of starter range Christian Curtis to me is a really interesting arm at the have maybe he ends up in the bullpen and Tuan Kelly.

[SPEAKER_03]: is another one that had decent year will or do tell they have these guys in the upper miners.

[SPEAKER_02]: Bunch of these guys come in the jinnski too we need to mention is another guy who should pick figure this as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sure yeah I already had he graduated though right.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's not prospecting more but I'm saying like but he's another guy when we talk about these things successful just again I still want to make sure we didn't lose him because he's another guy who's had some success for them already.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I think, you know, it's like a perfect setup guy, you know, kind of a situational reliever that can be pretty good for them, still young, still decent amount of control.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think you look at all these guys.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's a lot of starter depth.

[SPEAKER_03]: All the names that I mentioned, whether they fit into...

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, eventually maybe do tell or, you know, whoever goes into the bullpen fine, I mean, there's still good stuff there that could play up in that role.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's guys that we can look at as number four and number five starters as soon as number as excuse me as soon as 2026.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that like from a from a staff perspective, this is a very healthy group that very there's probably even some competitive teams that.

[SPEAKER_03]: are pretty envious of what this rotation is going to look like and the fact that there are those 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 options already in the system that you don't have to go out and spend, which we know the pirates aren't going to go out and do.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think like for for a small market team,

[SPEAKER_03]: And it's funny to Terry Frencona in an interview recently was asked about trading on a green, and kind of talked about the lack of an ability to go out and sign free agent starting pitching.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that holds true certainly with Pittsburgh, you need to be able to put together a really good rotation as a smaller market team that's not gonna spend a lot of money if you do want to be competitive.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's just a matter of, do they have enough bats, Connor Griffin, being the exception,

[SPEAKER_03]: to make all this work, they don't have to be, you know, an offense is going to knock down doors, but a mid tier offense with a, you know, with decent defense and the, you know, decent feeling, which they did not have in the outfield last year and this pitching staff, that can work.

[SPEAKER_02]: I want to get more into that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But before we do that, I do think we should also look at kind of the state of the system on the hitting side.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this has been the issue, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: This has been, I would say that part of when you say that this has been the issue, one of the things that really jumps out about this is, the pirates have actually, I would say devoted as significant amount of resources in this direction.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this is not a team.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is a team that took Henry Davis one, one.

[SPEAKER_02]: This decade.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is the team that took Nick and Zalas fourth over, sorry, seventh overall in 2020.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is the team that took to Mar Johnson fourth overall in 2022.

[SPEAKER_02]: Those are three top 10 picks where they devoted it to hitters.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, there is solid, I would say in some cases, you could say a little bit of misfortune in that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, like the Henry, they had the one-one pick.

[SPEAKER_02]: Some years you have the one-one pick and pay.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's Paul's, you know, it's Paul's schemes and you say awesome.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're making that pick.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's no question on that other years you have years like like 2021 and I would say in 2021 again trying to be fair to what the time was I don't think Jeff that there was a clear undeniable number one pick at the same time.

[SPEAKER_02]: They took the portfolio approach very much that year.

[SPEAKER_02]: You would, I think you could comfortably say between Jack Liter, Jackson, Joe, Marcelo Meyer, Jordan Loller, that those were guys who went right after, and were viewed as more likely candidates to go one-one.

[SPEAKER_02]: You had the high school short stops.

[SPEAKER_02]: You had a college picture.

[SPEAKER_02]: You had, I would say that those guys, kind of more fit what you were expecting to see go one-one.

[SPEAKER_02]: Thankfully for the pirates, I would say that the key part of that year is that they did, when you say, okay, they went to Portfolio Approach, the key part of that is, is at Pix-72, they got Baba Chandler.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it wasn't something where they didn't get anything out of the Portfolio Approach, but like this is multiple years where they've devoted significant resources in the draft to hitters.

[SPEAKER_02]: Henry Davis has

[SPEAKER_02]: He's a big leaguer at the same time, I would say at this point, the chances of him being more than one of the lesser number one picks to go in the first 21st century, it's gonna take a lot of work for it not to be on that category.

[SPEAKER_02]: Won't be worse, but, you know, there are definitely better.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say that, you know, with Nick Gonzalez.

[SPEAKER_02]: At Nick Gonzalez, you're hoping now is going to be

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's your, you know, a one and a half to two or starter would be a positive development for him at this point.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know he played some short stop late in the season for them last year, you know, and that's not really I don't still don't think the fit for him.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then from our Johnson, who we talked about him on the hot sheet show yesterday, but

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, as we're recording this yesterday from recording this, but could be a regular, but at the same time it's not a top hundred prospect is not really anywhere near the top hundred right now, I would say, and that's something where you're getting that's a top five pick.

[SPEAKER_02]: Is that is that kind of synopsis of what's happening in the organization on the hitting developer side or when we point to that there is Connor Griffin, and now there is Edward quarantine, as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: Is that maybe where things actually are starting to turn around, even if I just brought up a 2020, 2021 and 2022, first rampant?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think so.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I still don't think that, you know, the ship is sailed on tomorrow Johnson being a pretty good regular.

[SPEAKER_03]: And still get on base, like he still plays the game hard.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think we talked about this a little bit yesterday at the Hot Cheat Show.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're still power there.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's some adjustments that need to be made.

[SPEAKER_03]: Just in terms of his setup and his approach to the game and just in terms of hitting, I think some of that stuff can be fixed.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's fine at second base.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's a pretty good base runner.

[SPEAKER_03]: He could come up and be a very solid contributor.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think anything but saying that the Henry Davis pick at this point was a miss.

[SPEAKER_03]: Even if guys behind him haven't set the world on fire, and I didn't expect the pirates to take Jackson Merrill.

[SPEAKER_03]: One, one, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Even though if we redrapped it today, that might be the limit, yeah, we're not crazy.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's why I didn't bring it up.

[SPEAKER_03]: That wasn't actually a consideration at the time.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm saying, there aren't a ton of guys behind that pick that have gone crazy, but still, that's kinda how bad Dave's is.

[SPEAKER_02]: You would rather have Jack Lider.

[SPEAKER_02]: You would rather have a dorkloller, you would rather have more cello myowker.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, right on down the list.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's the case.

[SPEAKER_03]: But none of those guys have been like phenomenal either.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's just a matter of that's how bad Davis has been.

[SPEAKER_03]: But,

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I do think you look at Florentino and Griffin and credit to them.

[SPEAKER_03]: There were some changes that were made to his swing.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the team was involved in implementing some of that, obviously all the credit at the end should go to Connor making those adjustments.

[SPEAKER_03]: But he's a different hitter, he's a better hitter than he was.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's not something that we've seen from a pick with the pirates.

[SPEAKER_03]: We've actually only seen the worst, and we've seen it in different demographics, even.

[SPEAKER_03]: In terms of power hitters like Davis and at the college level, you know, a more pure hitter like Gonzales at the college level.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then a pure hitter that we thought had a ton of power at the high school level that got some of the, you know,

[SPEAKER_03]: For us to see a guy like Griffin that gets a really good development, it's followed by a very good breakout by Edward Florentino, who I think is, hitting prospect wise, you could put him in the top 10, frankly.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's a lot of attributes and traits here, a little bit more risk, because he's further away, but really, really exciting.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'll even give him some credit on his Merle and Valdez.

[SPEAKER_03]: who took a big step forward this year in terms of the basketball and getting to more of that prodigious power.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we've seen that play out all throughout the season as he reached AA, was on that alternate team that made it run in the playoffs.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then in the AFL where I think up until this point still a final day of games today as we record,

[SPEAKER_02]: leads the league and sorry for Jeff's AFL fantasy team.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I'm only a half point behind.

[SPEAKER_02]: So if you lost regular season games, they, they, I'm a good shape.

[SPEAKER_02]: They canceled regular season games is what I'm talking about.

[SPEAKER_03]: So you lost it.

[SPEAKER_03]: All regular season games.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, they can't say, though, tomorrow's games are off the schedule now.

[SPEAKER_02]: All right.

[SPEAKER_03]: But today's are being played.

[SPEAKER_03]: Today's are being played.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I got a shot.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's a half a point.

[SPEAKER_03]: I still got a shot in my AFL fantasy leagues.

[SPEAKER_03]: First time I'm doing this.

[SPEAKER_03]: But either way, my point on Valdez, that was pretty good.

[SPEAKER_03]: The other guy that I think is interesting, and I don't know if it was a 24 pick or a 23, do scorsion.

[SPEAKER_03]: Scouts actually had some positive stuff to say about him.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he looks like a guy that could maybe be, it's probably more of a 45 profile, but the pirates haven't done a very good job of even producing those type of guys to get that kind of depth at the majorly level.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I do think there are some really positive developments for the hitting side of things, at least.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, prospect wise in the minor leagues in the farm system coming out at 2025, if you want to put on the rose color glasses a little bit, even if we remove Connor Griffin, there's some other good developments there and I think some things that pirates fans should be excited about and, you know, could ultimately really help this team in the coming years.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's where the hope will kill you and pirates fans.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a piece up at Baseball America, as this goes live, I wrote, I went, I was doing the research for this video in podcast.

[SPEAKER_02]: It kind of led down this road.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll say like, at this point where the pirate stand right now, and this sounds crazy to say it for a team that was we laid out, has four winning records in the last, winning seasons in the last 33 years.

[SPEAKER_02]: If the pirates don't have success over the remainder of the 2020s,

[SPEAKER_02]: it will be a truly disappointing failure.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because there's really kind of started with asking the question.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, Paul schemes is a star.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm using star, cut off a use for this on this study because you have to have some kind of cut off was, are you producing five war seasons?

[SPEAKER_02]: Use bang riffs for in this case.

[SPEAKER_02]: Five war seasons.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Paul schemes did that this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: Paul schemes, if you pro-rate out over a full season last year, did that.

[SPEAKER_02]: So he's at that level.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's a star.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think we both feel extremely comfortable.

[SPEAKER_02]: The expectation is, is that Connor Griffin's going to be a star.

[SPEAKER_02]: If Connor Griffin doesn't have five or seasons over the remainder of the 2020s, I'll be utterly disappointed.

[SPEAKER_02]: And not only will I say that, I'll say, if you say, well, why would you say that?

[SPEAKER_02]: He's the number one prospect in baseball.

[SPEAKER_02]: The number one prospect in baseball in almost every case has those kinds of seasons.

[SPEAKER_02]: went back and did the work on this.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you go back to 2010 and we say 2010 through 2023, number one picks, because you got to have a couple of years in the big leagues to get to that five worst status.

[SPEAKER_02]: Those are guys who almost without fail.

[SPEAKER_02]: There are three over that time who have not reached a five or a season.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's like, Jürich's some pro-fars had a four win season, but he hasn't had a five.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Andrew Bennett, 10, he had a four win season, didn't have a five.

[SPEAKER_02]: Those are the misses, basically.

[SPEAKER_02]: But when you talk about guys like Ronald Acunian, you talk about guys like Vladimir Guryo Jr., and you talk about, and we could just go down the list, Corey Sieger, Chris Bryant, a lot of these guys who produce multiple five or six months.

[SPEAKER_02]: You talk about number two prospects in the game.

[SPEAKER_02]: Those guys also do it.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's what you're talking about, show you Otani, and Mike Trout, and all these, like you say,

[SPEAKER_02]: Likelyhood, if you look at past history, is that because, finally, Connor Griffin, when we say he's a number one prospect in the game, there are years that we've had number one prospects you're like,

[SPEAKER_02]: This isn't the best year.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then you have other years where it's like, well, we have Ronald Acunia and Shoei Otani and Fernando Tati's Jr. And we think all of them are basically number one level prospects.

[SPEAKER_02]: You have the year where you have Corbin Carroll and Adley Rushman, or you have, you know, where you're like, these are all great.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was Corbin and Gunnar, and then it was Julio Rodriguez, Bobby Witt Jr. and Adley.

[SPEAKER_02]: And all of those have been five or players.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I would say that we are, at this point,

[SPEAKER_02]: So the question I then let that led to is, is, okay, can a team have two stars and fail?

[SPEAKER_02]: And the general answer is, it's really hard to looking at every team who had two five war players in the same season, from 2010 to present, and we threw 2020 out of this, because it was 60 game season.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's like 14% of those teams had losing records.

[SPEAKER_02]: well over half are winning 90 plus games.

[SPEAKER_02]: By the way, the pirates only had three years that they've done it.

[SPEAKER_02]: You could probably guess those year, 13, 14, and 15.

[SPEAKER_02]: By the way, they had winning records all those years, but cutch in Russell Martin and Garrett Cole.

[SPEAKER_02]: They had all three of those guys produced five overseas in 2015.

[SPEAKER_02]: They won 98 games.

[SPEAKER_02]: So even if it's just Paul schemes remains a

[SPEAKER_02]: if you are semi-competent around that, that should get you to winning records and even postseason appearances.

[SPEAKER_02]: But what you hit on here, then if you said, hey, between Boba Chandler and Jared Jones and Edwin Florentino,

[SPEAKER_02]: And Tomar Johnson and maybe a resurrected O'Neill cruise or maybe, you know, we, again, we could go through a number of these guys and you say, hey,

[SPEAKER_02]: can someone else here?

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, you don't really have to have another one of those guys become a five or a player.

[SPEAKER_02]: But let's say that a couple of those become three war players as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: But especially if one of those becomes a five or a player, there is no team since 2010 that's had three five war players in a season and had a losing record.

[SPEAKER_02]: You almost can't get there.

[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, yes, before anyone's, I know that you comments, I know I can see them right now, you're writing it, what about the angels?

[SPEAKER_02]: And this is the kind of challenging part of this, which is, but you have to sync it up.

[SPEAKER_02]: Mike Trout was the best player in baseball from, for the 2010s.

[SPEAKER_02]: Mike Trout was every year of the 20, from the time he got up basically, it was like, you could expect a five-war season time after time after time, after time.

[SPEAKER_02]: He did it eight years in a row.

[SPEAKER_02]: But there's a problem.

[SPEAKER_02]: Mike Trout's last had one five war season in the 2020s and show Yotani's greatness really kind of started around 2021 post 2020.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so they didn't sync up.

[SPEAKER_02]: They only had one year where they were both five war players before show Yotani left.

[SPEAKER_02]: Mike Trout's injury.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's, this is where this could go wrong, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Is Paul schemes could get hurt.

[SPEAKER_02]: Connor Griffin takes longer to develop than we thought.

[SPEAKER_02]: Things like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: There are

[SPEAKER_02]: But I do think, Jeff, as we look at this, there has to be a paradigm shift.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this is where ownership comes into this too.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is where the fault absolutely could be that if Bob nothing's ownership group, doesn't want to be shown to be one of the worst and baseball.

[SPEAKER_02]: It needs to in the next few years,

[SPEAKER_02]: actually turn this into success.

[SPEAKER_02]: And what does that mean that does not mean that all of a sudden you're going to be outbitting the Yankees and the Dodgers for the best free agent in the market.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not talking about that in the meds.

[SPEAKER_02]: But this is a team that does need to start building with the understanding.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say that 2026, a winning record is a very realistic,

[SPEAKER_02]: and should be the goal for 2026.

[SPEAKER_02]: A team that has Paul schemes, Jared Jones, Bubba Chandler, Mitch Keller, again, Carmen Liziski, Braxton Ashcraft, Mike Burroughs, with we just laid it all out.

[SPEAKER_02]: All these guys should be able to get to a winning record.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the idea should be that you're getting to the winning record in 26, so that you can be a playoff contender in 27, because by 27, it's not crazy to think that Connor Griffin could be a very good big league player by 27.

[SPEAKER_02]: But give them time to get settled in in 26, 27, and then by the way, if you're not a playoff team in 28 and not, and you have an catastrophic injury,

[SPEAKER_02]: Am I, have I just taken crazy pills there?

[SPEAKER_02]: Have I gone off the wall by saying that I think that this pirate's team should be a playoff team the next few years?

[SPEAKER_03]: No, I mean, like if we could sit here in two years and be talking about one of the best young physician players in baseball, a guy that, you know, you're going to want to tune in to watch all the time.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I don't know if he's

[SPEAKER_03]: It's funny because like I would say like I think he's just as exciting as like an LED La Cruz.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's way more polished than an LED La Cruz.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe there's certain things because I always height that he's not going to do.

[SPEAKER_03]: But he could steal 40 bases and hit 30 home runs and bat 300.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, playing a plus short stop or a plus plus center field or maybe a little bit of both.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's just not a lot of guys on Earth that can do the sort of things that you can do.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's super versatile as a position player.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'd say the only more versatile player right now in the game that has the upside that he has, a show-aotani because he can pitch, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: I really do think that this is gonna be one of our great number one prospects.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is a really special player and it was a parent from the moment you saw him step on a baseball field in spring training.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was so much better than everybody else in the backfields and you're talking about guys.

[SPEAKER_03]: There was a AAA game next to me, and honestly, you should have been in that game, you know.

[SPEAKER_03]: Just sort of toying with guys, it was the same thing in AA, every single time he came up, he was phenomenal.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I think that, you know, overall, you sort of look at a player like that we talked about schemes being the best picture in the world.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, that combination should work.

[SPEAKER_03]: And there's enough around in the pitching staff.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's some interesting position prospects coming up if they can honestly just kind of fill this roster with a bunch of 50s and all those other roles.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think they they probably have something they can have 45s and 50s.

[SPEAKER_03]: And because they don't have that now, they have a lot of 30s and a lot of full time reps in Pittsburgh last year.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's where like if you say where like that's where you say like that ownership and all this like this is a team that currently has almost no financial obligations and by the way, I do think that you can get creative here right we talked about I think it's worth.

[SPEAKER_02]: You could be trading Mitch Keller this offseason, potentially, and not because the pirates are cheap and the pirates are idiots and the pirates just don't ever want to pay anybody.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's reasonable to say if we can term Mitch Keller into a regular position player who's a solid player, take your pitching depth and try to fix you have multiple holes.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like if we're saying right now, we just laid it out.

[SPEAKER_02]: you could argue.

[SPEAKER_02]: They have Davis, we talked about, they have Joy Bart, they have Indy Rodriguez, and they have Raphael Flores, they just acquired from the Yankees.

[SPEAKER_02]: For, to go back to the old NFL added, if you have four quarterbacks, you probably have no quarterbacks, they need to go from having four to like, we have a guy, or at least we have two, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, but let's just say that that's at least, there's enough candidates there that they're there at catcher.

[SPEAKER_02]: Spencer Horowitz, maybe he's their first basement.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe he's their DH, maybe he's a little bit more of a multi-position player.

[SPEAKER_02]: But that's the first base is a position they could upgrade.

[SPEAKER_02]: Second base, you kind of hope is going to be tomorrow, Johnson by 2027.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it's Nick and Zalis.

[SPEAKER_02]: Again, Jared Trello, if you wanted to could probably play on the steam, we're in the field.

[SPEAKER_02]: But like, okay, but these are all positions where you can say if the right moves out there, maybe you improve.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, short stop.

[SPEAKER_02]: Whoever you can put trio there at start of the year, but short stop is Connor Griffins.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say you don't want him in center.

[SPEAKER_02]: You want him at short stop more of an impact there, but whatever, Connor Griffins, let's just write that in third base could be triolo.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's good defensively again, not that you can't, this is not a five war player, but he's decent didn't.

[SPEAKER_02]: The outfield we don't know we don't with Brian Reynolds, and unfortunately looks like he's kind of a little bit in the decline phase of his career, but he's flying long term you're probably going to have him in one spot only a cruise.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think needs to go to a corner and say, okay, the defense, the tools do not match the defense that you're getting, but you're hopefully then you improve, you get an offensive improvement.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was maybe he's a guy who you challenged trade to somewhere.

[SPEAKER_02]: There needs to be some more positional, you know, I would say that they don't need to go out there and sign a lot of 35 year olds in the tail end of their career, but they could use a couple of

[SPEAKER_02]: player, like, I think that this is where it's time for the pirates also to be creative this way and say, like, look around baseball.

[SPEAKER_02]: Where is there someone who either is young early in their big league career, but not like a prospect who's three years away, but like, okay, can we find a guy who fits what we need, who we can get at a reasonable cost, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: I know you mentioned, I think we were talking before, like, that maybe sign a sign Josh Nailer as a free agent, for example.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was the top of their market.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know how much money he's going to get, but it's still a first basement.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's 29 like I can't imagine it's going to break the bank like does he get a hundred million dollars.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I'd have to look at what the projections are that Ellie put out, but, you know, I think that's, and you're also spending so little, like, I think that's sort of decent money.

[SPEAKER_03]: You've also need some guys like that or kind of fiery that want to win.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, he's going to be productive.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's a really good bass runner and addition to being able to hit.

[SPEAKER_03]: be able to play the field, you can pop them into a corner out field spot if you really need to, but probably don't want to, but he's a finite birthplace.

[SPEAKER_03]: You then kind of move Spencer Horowitz, who is a decent bat to DH.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can fill in it first base sometimes, you can fill in in a corner out field spot where he's okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like,

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that makes, you know, Horowitz a little bit more attractive even like within that line up and like, okay, he's not like our every day for his basement, we can move him around and using a little bit more situationally, I think they sort of have to attack it from from that angle, I think somebody who can stabilize their outfield defense to.

[SPEAKER_03]: where you can put them in center field, move O'Neill crews out to left field because you just hasn't been a very strong outfielder and then Reynolds patrols right and that's fine.

[SPEAKER_03]: That would make a big difference.

[SPEAKER_03]: There were a lot of balls that got dropped in that outfield last year that shouldn't have just talked with pirates fans watching a couple of the games.

[SPEAKER_03]: The game that I was there, the outfield defense was

[SPEAKER_03]: terrible throughout that game and that was just one snap shot in September.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's a bit of an issue.

[SPEAKER_03]: The infield defense could be a little bit better as well, especially with the pitching behind them just kind of improving those areas in the margin finding like good run prevention, which is something that they haven't spent a lot of time and recent years.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that sort of stuff could go a long way as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're not asking me to break the bank and bring in a bunch of sluggers of doing any of that stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think just all around ball players that can contribute little bits and all sides of the ball base running defense, you know, getting on base and hitting

[SPEAKER_03]: for a little bit of power, think all that stuff would go a long way.

[SPEAKER_03]: They don't have to go out and sign pylons on all sort of things.

[SPEAKER_03]: Those are unrealistic expectations.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think some of these mid-tier free agents sort of make sense, and it's the right time for them to do it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'll say this too, just last thing I'll throw out.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is a town where we see how the fan base comes out for the Steelers.

[SPEAKER_03]: We've seen how they've come out for the penguins over the years.

[SPEAKER_03]: When I was in Al tuna, which isn't too far away, a couple of hours, but kind of that general Pittsburgh area, that fan base was, that place was packed for a play-on, that you don't necessarily see a lot of double-aid, even play-off games that are packed like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's all fans and pirate stuff, skiing stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: You saw that throughout the ballpark.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's a fan base that if they tap into it more,

[SPEAKER_03]: They're going to get better attendance numbers, they'll make more money.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what all the economics are of it, but even for a small market team, I think they could be more of a mid-market team if they really wanted to put some money into the product, because we've seen that town come out for other teams and support other teams and have a lot of success.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think it's crazy to think that they could spend a little bit more.

[SPEAKER_03]: And with some of the talent, they have a really good run of like three to four years

[SPEAKER_02]: I think again, other names I will throw out there, like a Willy Castro who is going to be kind of a second to third tier free agent, but has multi-dimensional versatility and can hit a little bit.

[SPEAKER_02]: Or, you know, again, maybe they're the landing spot for Luis O'Rise.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think that there's a whole lot of landing spots out there for Luis O'Rise.

[SPEAKER_02]: He is only 29 still and in this lineup, if he could just hit and play bait solid defensive

[SPEAKER_02]: he would be an improvement.

[SPEAKER_02]: He would be like, you don't need him to hit for power.

[SPEAKER_02]: You will hope he could do a little bit more than you did last year, but you don't need him to.

[SPEAKER_02]: You've got other guys to do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: They don't have like, again, we don't want cutches great.

[SPEAKER_02]: Andrew McCutchins incredible.

[SPEAKER_02]: But Andrew McCutchins should not be your best pure hitter in your lineup when he's 37.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's kind of been the case in a lot of times.

[SPEAKER_02]: They can get creative here potentially.

[SPEAKER_02]: They have pitching depth.

[SPEAKER_02]: They can get creative here in some ways if they want because they do have prospects.

[SPEAKER_02]: Although again, I don't want to trade a whole lot of prospects for big leaders yet on this team because they're still, I think that you need to start bringing in some veterans now to help set the stage.

[SPEAKER_02]: But this is a team that really, the ingredients are there for them to pop in 27 in 2028.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's only, and it go, we're going into 2026.

[SPEAKER_02]: With that to be said, I think there's a lot here to dive into.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think there's actual reasons to be optimistic.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think it could largely be summarized as if you have one of the best pictures in baseball, which Paul Skins is, and you have the best prospect in baseball, who's going to be in the Big League's in 2020, six-barring injury.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's hard to not have that turn into something.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's the pirates, we'll see, but Jeff, like, what do you think?

[SPEAKER_02]: True Serum being pumped through you is this team of playoff team in the next three years.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I think like the foundation is there so I want to say yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: I just have such a low

[SPEAKER_03]: amount of confidence and the ownership of doing the right things to make all that come to fruition.

[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, I think it's better than 50% just based on skiing some of the pitching that they have.

[SPEAKER_03]: Conor Griffin and a couple other guys and just maybe a couple of lucky things just break in guys that got enough playing time over these last couple years coming through.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think, you know, I'd like to see them operate a little bit differently, be a little bit more aggressive on the waiver wire doing some of those things that we saw from

[SPEAKER_03]: you know, teams like the Orioles as they kind of made that jump from a really bad run a year's top draft picks talent in the farm system.

[SPEAKER_03]: Those guys matriculate and they were able to kind of backfill and and find some pieces that work even a guy like Ryan a hern.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like they sort of need to find some players like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: They need to sign some minor league free agents and develop them and guys that turn into decent pieces like a Bernie Clement or or Nathan Lucas, you know, somebody like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: I will throw out a version of that, they actually just did.

[SPEAKER_02]: Dugan Darnell, who they just picked up from Wavers from the Rockies.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm treating arm.

[SPEAKER_02]: I like that arm.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think this is the guy who actually was in the big leagues for the Rockies last year.

[SPEAKER_02]: Don't know I was waved.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was waved at the time when the Rockies didn't have a pobo.

[SPEAKER_02]: But that's again.

[SPEAKER_02]: Good name.

[SPEAKER_02]: Good.

[SPEAKER_02]: Those are the kind of moves that the pirates should be making.

[SPEAKER_02]: We were trying to keep this to 20 minutes, 25 minutes.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's ended up being 45 because there's a lot here.

[SPEAKER_02]: But yes, we have actual reason for optimism.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I would say, I expect the pirates to make the playoffs in the next three seasons.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's not a, for most teams that would be a pretty modest wish because there are a lot more playoffs spots now.

[SPEAKER_02]: But next three seasons, pirates back in the playoffs.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I would say without a doubt,

[SPEAKER_02]: Next three seasons we're going to see winning records of Pirate.

[SPEAKER_02]: If they don't, it will be an other failure because you've got Paul schemes.

[SPEAKER_02]: You've got Jared Jones, Bubba Chandler, and you got the number one prospect in baseball.

[SPEAKER_02]: And again, like you said, Jeff, if Connor Griffin, like look at what Bobby Witt Jr's done for the for the royal.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the way I would put it.

[SPEAKER_02]: He raised the sea level of that royal team.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's a royal team that went to the playoffs last two years ago.

[SPEAKER_02]: They

[SPEAKER_02]: But when you have that kind of like we're just writing in our short stop in the middle of the line up who we expected produce seven eight war in a normal year.

[SPEAKER_02]: It makes everything else so much better.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what that's what the pirates could have coming for long.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hope you enjoyed this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Do like and subscribe.

[SPEAKER_02]: Leave comments and we will try to respond to them for Jeff.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm JJ so long.

[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody.