jay87shot

With the Priester trade what do we think our pitching looks like next year? I still think we end up trading Peralta next offseason (it has been the front office way to get something more back with 1 year). Keeping Peralta would go a long way towards have a strong rotation but for sake of the question I am going to assume we trade him. Obviously we have tons of potential arms with Myers, Patrick, Misi, Priester, Henderson, Ashby, Gasser, CarRod, Hall, Hunt, Wichrowski, and other who could be options. I really wouldn't mind going into the season with all those young guys duking it out but with our offense full of guys in their primes I really think we should find a couple solid veterans to add some stability. I would think maybe we can keep one of Woody, Nestor, Civale, or Quintana if they fit in well and don't end up being to expensive (or get us a comp pick). My hope is that Woody is solid and we can extend/re-work his deal, we owe him $10 million next year even if he leaves in FA so maybe we can work that into a deal mid season if he looks good. I doubt we sign a quality free agent so the other part would be to trade for a established pitcher with a favorable contract/control. I do think we could trade some of our pitching depth at the deadline potentially for a long term 1B/3B.

It's nice to see him throwing 95 average. If he can throw 95 over last year's 93 this becomes a better trade. There is no doubt we overplayed just based on the early season. Last year at the deadline his value was Nick Yorke who is the Pirates 5th prospect. Value wise he probably has more than Yophery but likely not as much as the 33rd pick. Looking at it I initially said it was a D grade, looking a bit more at Priester and some extra mph I will say C. Clearly it could go either way, especially with both the pieces being at least a couple years away from ready.

As mentioned he will start, he is a 5 pitch mix, the sinker and 4 seam averaged 93 mph last year. Sinker/Slider 30%-ish each, 4 seam, curve, change 13-15% each, 1% cutter (could be misreads or is developing). My guess is that we add that cutter and refine the breaking pitches to 1 more consistent pitch. The changeup could use some tweaking as it is 88 and only 5 mph behind the heater. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/quinn-priester-682990?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb He was a very promising prospect picked 18th in 2019, generally 60 grade fastball, 60 grade breaking ball as a prospect (top 50-100, most publications 21 and 22 seasons and start of 23 ). He averaged over a k per inning in the minors, but last year in the bigs 6.0 k/9 (better in AAA). My guess is that if our staff gets him right there is a quality #3 starter potential. Having control through at least 2030 (maybe more if more time spend in minors) and experience in the bigs he probably isn't to far away from realizing that potential. However there is a lot of DL Hall feel to him when I read about him, in that I read up to 96/97 and see some nice minor league stuff but when I look at his big league tape it is 92-94 and a contact orientated stats. My guess is he is Adrian Houser on the floor and maybe like Chris Bassitt on the higher end. If we can get an mph or 2 on the fastball(s), make small tweaks to the breaking pitches and change they stuff is good enough to get that to that prospect ceiling quickly. If that happens this is a decent trade, if he follows the DL Hall inconsistency path it could be real bad.

No, the 3 million for a comp A pick is some real world saving but I would assume the prospect cost of that pick is way more valuable.

I am in the same place as most of you, Yoph, a comp A, and PTBNL seems like to much, Priester has some upside and as others have mentioned young controllable pitching is hard to come by. For me that comp A pick (3 million slot) is a borderline top 100 prospect, maybe not right away but at some point I expect someone drafted 32 or so to be a top 100 prospect. I give this like a D, if the ptbnl isn't anyone noteworthy (my guess is since it is a ptbnl or cash it isn't a valuable prospect option). My biggest issue is that I don't see him being notably better than Misi, Henderson, CarRod, Patrick, Gasser, Ashby, or Hall and we gave up to big upside pieces. On Priester, the groundball rate is impressive but taking a deep look at the rest it is kind of meh. It really looks similar to Carlos Rodriguez repitiore with 5 pitches, 93 mpg average fastball (maybe developing a 6th/cutter). It is weird to me that he gets a decent chase rate (72nd percentile) but only strikes out 14.9% (2nd percentile), probably getting a lot of grounders out of the zone. I can see him being a guy our organization can improve a bunch if we can add a mph or 2 and tweak small parts of his pitch repertoire there is good upside but it seems like a panic move for a guy who like likely be back in the minors in a month when our rotation is back to near full strength.

He walks to many sure but no body in AAA can hit him, 26.1 ip 8 hits (1 hit in 8.2 this year). For a 2-3 start stint he is the best option with his results, especially like I said in my last post I would piggyback him with CarRod or Henderson and probably max innings at 4ish. He isn't ready to be up all year and just be a guy to hand the ball to every 5th day and pitch 6 innings, but he can be ready if used right.

As much as our pitching is hurting look on the bright side we have absolutely amazing depth. Quintana and Mears should be back in a week, Myers maybe Civale the week or two after that then Woody and Ashby around May. If anything this let's out front office take a look at some depth and figure out somethings for the young guys next year. We should dump Connor Thomas now for Misi and bring up Henderson and CarRod for ERod and Anderson. I like the way they did it the other night and had Misi and Henderson piggyback. Freddy, CarRod, Alexander, Patrick, Misi/Henderson... That isn't perfect but better than 5-6 other rotations around the league. Quintana takes CarRods spot then, Myers and Civale replace there worse performing of the rest. Followed by Woody and Nestor. The young guy should be fine to keep us at/around .500 and the vets will kind of be rested a little better than the rest of the league late in the season (baring no re-injuries).

He has been a bit shaky with command but I have faith. I am going a lot on last year on him being ahead of others. His stuff has looked relatively good, really after Peralta and Megill it is kind of up in the air. I could see anyone on my list up to Yoho at 12 being the 3rd most valuable.

I am going to say the qualification I'd best current pitcher in value of the big league team for this year. I am including everyone who will potentially pitch this year. 1. Freddy 2. Megill 3. Hudson 4. Woody 5. Myers 6. Nestor 7. Quintana 8. Civale 9. Uribe 10. Koenig 11. Ashby 12. Yoho 13. Payamps 14. Peguero 15. Mears 16. Alexander 17. Misi 18. Patrick 19. Hall 20. Elvin Rodriguez 21. Henderson 22. Carlos Rodriguez 23. Gasser 24. G Anderson 25. Wolfram 26. C Thomas (returned soon) 27. Middendorf 28. Liranzo 29. Jay 30. McWilliams I find it difficult to rank the starters after Freddy and the relievers after Megill and Hudson so I kind of lumped the tiers together for now. Just something fun to think about how great our depth is once we get healthy. Also it shows how much pitching we could trade if we are healthy and our prospects pitch well.

Are we ready to let Conner Thomas go? I know at this point we probably wait for Yoho to get to his extra year.

How worried should we be that our middle of the order bats have all been disappointing. Hoskins .158/.360/.158. 3 hits (0 xbh) Yeli .083/.267/.208 2 hits (1 xbh) Contreras .074/.242/.074 2 hits (0 xbh) I am sure they are pressing but having all 3 of our vet leaders starting out so poorly is worrisome. However to be 4-4 after that Yankees series is probably more impressive especially when those 3 guys start to hit.

Interesting to see Hall starting to get going, with him on the 60 Day, I thought he would have a couple more weeks until getting going. Woody threw a 51 pitch simulated game a couple days ago. The team said they hope he is back by May. I would think throwing 51 pitches and he could be back after 1 or 2 rehab starts which would seem to be a couple weeks. Are they just going to be extra cautious and give him more starts or is my math off.

Good to see all clubs in action. It seems to me that especially in the minors, it takes a couple weeks for the bats to get going. It is nice to see Manny Rodriguez with that outing, any notes on how hard he was throwing, his breaking pitch looked especially nasty and he seemed to add some good weight.

I like Alexander and as mentioned him to be a Bryse Wilson/Colin Rea style pitcher. However I don't think he will be here long. I can't see him surviving the 26 man when Woody, Quintana, Myers, Ashby, Civale, and Mears get back (not to mention Yoho and other AAA studs). There are so many teams needing pitching he will get picked up by someone in more depth need than us.

Awesome, it is great to have something like this to keep up to date with prospects. If Kruz Schoolcraft was there for us at 23, I would be over the moon. I love the 2 way aspect of his game, like Bryce Eldridge from SF but maybe more likely a pitcher at this point.

I like both but honestly but with all the guys on the IL we don't need them as bad. David Robertson isn't a Boras client but probably the best free agent. I would be fine letting Tyler Alexander go to get Kelly or Turnbull.

With Henderson starting today does that make it likely that CarRod starts for the Brewers tomorrow? I haven't heard anything but that seems to be logical.

At least they likely got Ragans out og the game after 5 (97 pitches I think). Hopefully Freddy can get us 2 more, I like our chances with Ragans out.

As much as I would love to see Misi, CarRod and Henderson are on the 40 man. I doubt our front office let's a player lose for a Misi spot start when there are other good options.

Pass, Logan Henderson and Carlos Rodriguez are on the 40 man and would be worth more than the couple Lynn starts we would need.

I forgot about Mears in all the injuried arms. Good to see him start off strong, what would be a reasonable mlb time frame 2/3 more AAA appearances like 2 weeks. It's good to see Durbin with a couple hits.

That win feels amazing just for me as a fan. I can't imagine how much stress it takes of for the team. Patrick definitely had a Tobias Myers feel to him tonight, lots of grit and fight. The Royals fought off a lot of pitches but Patrick kept hitting his spots. The bullpen finally feel in place and looked as it should. Getting Uribe back did really seem to make a difference. With Peralta tomorrow I like the rotation getting back on track. Any countdown on Yoho I think it was like 15 or more days into the season what do we think like 12-14 more days just to make it look a bit better?

Chourio should play like 155+ games this year. He needs to struggle for like 10 more games to get a day of break in my book. Yeli should sit like 1 game a week and then a game a week for either Sal or Mitchell in the OF (all likely ph or sub in later in the game). Murphy really needs to give Contreras a game or two a week DH'ing no matter how much he wants to catch every day.

Neuge had a couple minor league seasons where his bb per 9 was like 10 or higher, I think Misi is around 1/2 that. But anywhere you can sneak in a Nuege reference is a good post.

He still had 3 bb in 5 innings, which for me is manageable if he isn't hitting batters or having multiple walks in an inning. If he can have 1 more decent start I would really think hard about ditching on of the soft tossing lefties and at least piggyback him off of Quintana or Cortes as a multi inning reliever (or like a once through the lineup starter).