Episode 964

This week on the show, David Laurila welcomes long-time Pittsburgh scribe and former Baseball Prospectus colleague John Perrotto to the program.

Perrotto has been covering baseball long enough to remember the last labor stoppage, and he shares his perspective on the current lockout and how it compares to 1994. After that, we get anecdotes about a number of Pirates legends, including what it was like to get to know Jim Leyland, and that one time Brian Giles took batting practice in his birthday suit. We also hear about Perrotto’s clubhouse relationship with Barry Bonds, how impressive of an interview he could be when he wanted to be, and what it took to earn the slugger’s respect.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximate 43 minute play time.)

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Nick Gonzales hasn’t changed much as a hitter since he was selected seventh overall out of New Mexico State University by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 2020 draft. That’s good news for a rebuilding Bucs club badly in need of some offensive oomph. The 22-year-old infielder logged a .399/.502/.747 slash line as a collegian, and while his numbers weren’t nearly as gaudy in his first professional season, he nonetheless continued to square up baseballs. Playing for the High-A Greensboro Grasshoppers, Gonzales slashed .303/.385/.565 with 18 home runs in 369 plate appearances, and he followed that up with a 1.032 OPS in the Arizona Fall League.

Again, not much has changed.

“I’m mostly the same guy [mechanically],” Gonzales said prior to playing in last November’s Fall Stars Game. “I think my leg started lifting a little higher during the COVID summer, and it was kind of that way earlier in the season, but now it’s probably back to where it was during college. At least it’s pretty similar.” Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the second year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the numbered prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Job Title: Research and Development Fellow/Intern, Baseball Informatics

Reporting To: Leadership in R&D

We are seeking individuals who are excited about the opportunity to be part of a collaborative and passionate environment, and to use their quantitative skills to work on projects that make an impact on field and in the front office.

In this role, you will utilize your problem solving and analytical skills to design, code, and implement focused solutions that enable Baseball Operations personnel to make great decisions in the acquisition, development, and deployment of players. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Batters

The offensive projections are kind of bleak, but they also represent the 2022 highlight for the Pirates, at least if ZiPS is correct. The offense basically consists of three highly interesting (in a good way) players.

When all is said and done, Oneil Cruz may end up having the best career of the three. The team’s sixth-ranked prospect entering 2021, Cruz destroyed minor league pitching on his return to Double-A. In a week for Triple-A Indianapolis, Cruz went 11-for-21 with five homers in six games, resulting in him getting a call-up for the final weekend of the season. Cruz is a physical anomaly, a 6-foot-7 player who can credibly play shortstop and run the bases very well. While there will naturally always be whispers about a shortstop that big staying at the position — and Cruz has gained about 30 pounds since his early prospect days — the Pirates aren’t in a position that should preclude them from letting him play there as long as he can. It’s what the O’s should have done with Manny Machado years ago, but they instead prioritized J.J. Hardy. The projection is even more exciting when you realize how few games ZiPS is projecting for Cruz due to various injuries and the missing COVID season. Read the rest of this entry »

Within the span of a few hours on Tuesday, the last two free-agent catchers projected to produce over 1 WAR next season came off the market. The Cubs landed Yan Gomes, as reported by Craig Mish of SportsGrid, for two years and $13 million with a $6 million option for a third year and some games played incentives worth up to $1 million per year. The Pirates, on the other hand, quickly filled a hole of their own making after trading Jacob Stallings to the Marlins on Monday afternoon by landing Roberto Pérez, the former Guardians catcher, as reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan. The deal was later specified to be worth $5 million over one year by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Jason Mackey.

As discussed by Devan Fink a couple of weeks ago, the catcher market this offseason is particularly dire, and the signing of Pérez and Gomes means that there are essentially no more starting caliber options left at the position. Let’s take a closer look at each player and how they fit with their new team before seeing what further implication these moves might have around the league. Read the rest of this entry »

The Marlins have one of the most intriguing starting rotations in baseball. They just signed Sandy Alcantara to a five-year extension after his phenomenal 2021 season. Trevor Rogers just finished second behind Jonathan India in the National League Rookie of the Year voting. Behind those two, Pablo López, Jesús Luzardo, Sixto Sánchez, Elieser Hernandez, Edward Cabrera, and Max Meyer provide tons more talent to dream on. The only thing missing was a catcher to help guide and maximize those young arms.

Ever since J.T. Realmuto was traded away after the 2018 season, the Marlins had been rather aimless behind the plate. In the three seasons since, their catchers have accumulated just 1.3 WAR, the sixth worst mark in baseball over that stretch. In 2021, Jorge Alfaro, Sandy León, and a few other backup catchers combined for -0.1 WAR. Things got so bad with Alfaro that they tried playing him at first base and in the outfield after Miami acquired Alex Jackson at the trade deadline.

On Monday, though, the Marlins got their man: Miami acquired catcher Jacob Stallings from the Pirates in exchange for right-handed pitcher Zach Thompson and two prospects, Kyle Nicolas and Connor Scott. (Alfaro was traded to the Padres a day later for a player to be named later or cash considerations.) Read the rest of this entry »

Job Title: Software Developer, Baseball Informatics

Reporting To: Senior Director, Informatics

We are seeking an individual who is excited about the opportunity to be part of a collaborative environment with coworkers who are passionate about baseball, and to work on software projects that make an impact on-field and in the front office.

In this role you will utilize your problem solving and coding skills to design, code, and maintain software solutions that allow Baseball Operations personnel to translate information into actionable insights used by decision makers. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of a series concerning the 2022 Golden Days Era Committee ballot, covering managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 5. For an introduction to this year’s ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com, Baseball Prospectus, and Futility Infielder. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Danny Murtaugh

“Danny was just a flat-out good manager. He knew the game, he made decisions with guts, he was a fine evaluator of talent, and a good teacher. He had rapport with players, old and young alike, and just about anybody else he came across. his death took some of the sunshine out of the baseball scene, because he would have been a pressroom star among the scouts for twenty more years if he had lived.” — Leonard Koppett, The Man in the Dugout, 1993.

Danny Murtaugh is one of just 22 managers to win multiple AL-NL World Series, only four of whom finished with a career winning percentage of .500 or better and aren’t already in the Hall of Fame. As the manager of the Pirates for 12 full seasons and three partial ones from 1957 to ’76, he gained a reputation as a players’ manager: laid back in appearance but stern, good at unifying divided clubhouses and at overseeing the development of younger players. Hall of Famer Willie Stargell, who debuted with the team under Murtaugh in September 1962 and then had his ups and downs the following season, called him “the perfect manager” for a rookie breaking in, due to his patience.

Murtaugh oversaw substantial portions of the careers of Stargell and fellow Hall of Famers Roberto Clemente and Bill Mazeroski. The latter’s walk-off home run agains the Yankees in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series gave him his first championship, and the one-two punch of Clemente and Stargell helped him win his second in 1971. Additionally, Murtaugh managed the Pirates to three more division titles and a total of five seasons of 92 wins or better.

Ongoing health problems led to his on-again, off-again role as Pittsburgh’s manager. He served four separate stints in the dugout, the most with a single team this side of Billy Martin and the Yankees, albeit with far less drama. Each time he stepped away, general manager Joe L. Brown — who shares responsibility for the Pirates’ success during this era — retained him via a scouting or front office role with the team. Murtaugh once said, “Managing a ballclub is like getting malaria. Once you’re bitten by the bug, it’s difficult to get it out of your bloodstream.” Just two months after stepping down following the 1976 season, he suffered a stroke and died at age 59.
Read the rest of this entry »

Edouard Julien has a unique profile, and potentially a bright future. A native of Quebec City who attended Auburn University, the 22-year-old Minnesota Twins prospect is coming off a season where he drew 110 free passes, the most of any player in the minors. Moreover, he augmented his patient approach with power and speed. In 514 plate appearances split between Low-A Fort Myers and High-A Cedar Rapids, Julien went deep 18 times and swiped 34 bases in 39 tries. His slash line was an OBP-heavy .266/.434/.480.

His English-language skills were on the light side when he began taking classes at Auburn. An International Business major, Julien was regularly referring to a French-English dictionary throughout his first semester. By and large, he learned English as a college freshman.

“Where I’m from, we only speak French,” explained Julien, whose hometown is more than 150 miles (and 250 kilometers) northeast of Montreal. “I knew a little bit of English — we took classes — but it’s like people in the United States who take Spanish classes; they learn, but then they forget because they don’t practice it. I played for [travel ball] teams in Georgia, and for the Junior National team where it’s only English, so I knew some, but I wasn’t very good. I’ll say that.”

Julien now speaks three languages — French, English, and Spanish — and contrary to what was once said about the legendary Moe Berg, he can hit in all of them. That he did so less-impressively than usual in his sophomore season impacted his appeal to MLB scouts. Julien backslid statistically after a stellar freshman year, and as a result fell to the 18th round of the 2019 draft.

The fact that he was draft-eligible is another story. Read the rest of this entry »