Lets PURGE the Pittsburgh PIRATES Roster!

Lets PURGE the Pittsburgh PIRATES Roster!

It’s Halloween in Pittsburgh and I can’t think of a better time to purge this roster than right now. Let’s do it on Locked on Pirates. [Music] You are Locked On Pirates, your daily Pittsburgh Pirates podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Welcome to Locked On Pirates, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Pirates. I’m your host, Ghoulie Morgan, and today we’re diving into a spooky special. It’s Halloween, and we’re bringing you three segments with eerie overtones, speculative trades, and some organizational recognition that might just raise the dead. Let’s get into it. But first, today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the app today. So, the first thing I’m going to do is an AMA. I’m going to start with a really good one I had yesterday. And it’s basically Dylan Cruz struggled last year. Do you think there’s any chance that the Washington Nationals would potentially trade him to the Pittsburgh Pirates and reunite him and Paul Sches? They they went on to suggest that Thomas Harrington, Xander Muth, Thompson, and then Giwan Bay and Alexander Canario as toss-ins. Would that be enough to convince Washington to maybe think about moving on from Dylan Cruz? I mean, bad year, yeah, not the best thing for him. Hit 208. 10 home runs. That 10 home runs is probably shows more potential than a lot of um guys that have been picked up or certainly guys who have gotten their first or second year in the league. OPS of only 631, 27 RBI’s, 17 stolen bases at one. probably not going to see the Nationals give up on him that quickly, especially when they still need offense pretty badly. So, I would think he’s probably not in the the realm of possibilities for guys that they’d be looking to move. That said, if they don’t manage to retain McKenzie Gore, they’re probably going to have some struggles getting a pitching staff together that can really win for them. Even though they have taken some strides offensively, they do have James Wood, you know, it’s not like they don’t have other offensive solutions that they could fall back on. That said, I I think it’s a stretch to expect them to trade him that quickly. Um, I like where your head’s at, though. It’s a certainly a guy that still needs a little bit of work. Definitely has pedigree. somebody that you’d want to look into, but I think you’re probably reaching a little high, a little early. If you want a guy that has high pedigree and has already made the league, you might I think you want to look at Boston. I think they’ve got a couple outfielders that you could probably pry away. They’ve probably got a few more that are pretty sure things. And I think the Pirates need a sure thing. I guess I would turn this question around on you. Is Dylan Cruz a sure enough thing for you or just a a shot at it? I think that’s what I would ask because it’s hard for me to believe that you that you really think that he’s going to be ready next year to contribute to the Pirates in a much more meaningful way than he did with Washington. Defensively, he’s an upgrade. I don’t think they have a defender like him out in the outfield. He could certainly find himself offensively. I think that will come. I can’t say that they rushed him though. I I’m surprised actually by the way that he’s performed up here. And I know hitting’s hard and hitting was hard for everybody this year. So younger players in particular, I guess how could you be shocked? But didn’t you expect Dylan Cruz to maybe have a better season than like I don’t know Jackson Merrill did the year before? I mean, didn’t you at least think offensively he was in that category? I know most Pirates fans are completely cool with picking Paul Skins, especially now. We’re all going to pretend that that was the only choice we had. Going to get Paul Ske, right? Well, I remember it a little differently. I remember two weeks before the draft meeting with people from LSU who couldn’t tell me which one to pick, you know? So, I think maybe it’s fair to look back and kind of realize like that while it seems like such an obvious choice because of how it’s gone since the draft, it wasn’t quite as obvious a choice back then, but it’s it’s clear as day now. You’ve gotten two extra years of evidence. You know, they made the right choice. I’m not holding out any kind of like hard feelings that they made that choice. I think they made the right one. Dylan Cruz to me right now is just a name. He’s just a name that hasn’t done it yet. And I’m waiting for him to do it. I think he has the potential to do it. But man, I didn’t like what I saw in the couple times the Pirates played him this year. that that doesn’t mean like that he was always bad or he always looked down. I didn’t see an approach at the plate that looked like it was moving towards that generational player that we all thought he might be. Thought he was for sure. Let’s just let’s not even let’s not even play the might be game. Let’s let’s talk about how serious we were. We thought Dylan Cruz was going to be the dude and and we we thought, yeah, the Pirates might pick skins, but the next team is going to be really happy that they got Dylan Cruz. Just hasn’t worked out that way. I don’t think they rushed him. I felt like his his progression through the system was pretty normal. I don’t feel like they ignored any red red flags. just think, you know, he hasn’t stayed tremendously healthy and really when he’s been in there, he just hasn’t taken a good approach at the plate. And maybe, you know, there’s it’s a guy like that that kind of gets spoiled in college and everything’s going his way and he’s not having any problems. He’s hitting home runs just about every time he comes up. He’s really not running into any issues at all. And then all of a sudden, he gets into professional baseball and hey, that’s going okay, too. moving through that system. All right. Then you get to the bigs and you realize, damn, this is a different game. It’s harder up here. This is tough. I I think it’s too early to give up on Dylan Cruz. If the roles were reversed, I probably wouldn’t be telling you the Pirates should trade Dylan Cruz. I think what we’re looking at is a guy that got drafted and got moved up before anybody really got a chance to learn anything more about him than they knew before the draft, you know, and and sometimes that’s dangerous. Like we’re talking about Connor Griffin being up here next year. Well, Dylan Cruz is a cautionary tale. You you you can’t be a much more highprofile hitting prospect than Dylan Cruz was coming out of college. And Connor Griffin of course did not have that same tout and look at what he’s done, right? But you still got to get up here and you still got to get it done at the major league level. That’s the part I think we often forget. Dylan Cruz is an interesting player. You’re certainly not going to get him for the collection of trinkets that you named, sir. Xandermouth is a good pitcher, but he’s young. He’s far away. I’m not sure that’s what you’d be looking for if you’re Washington. Harrington maybe, but the other guys, you know, Giwan Bay, Alexander Canario, well, when we get into the Purge a little bit later in this episode, I think you’re going to see why. I just don’t think there’s a whole lot there. Um, no. And I don’t think that uh Skins and Crews played together long enough for them to have some kind of lasting bond that they have to make sure they get back together either. At least that’s not what I’ve heard. And the couple times we’ve played Washington, it didn’t even seem to be a big deal necessarily that the two of them were talking except for the fact that they had an at bat or two against each other. And yeah, I guess we paid a little more attention for those. But right now, Dylan Cruz is just so inferior to Paul Ske, it’s really hard to to go back and and play any of those histrionics games, isn’t it? Let’s come back. Let’s talk about the Pirates um honors for their organization this year. Um they’ve awarded them throughout the system and I think it’s cool to talk about. Let’s do it. This episode is brought to you by Prize Picks. You and I make decisions every day, but on Prize Picks, being right can get you paid. Don’t miss any of the excitement of this sports season. Whether you’re following the NFL, NBA, or both, there’s no better time to jump in on the action. If you haven’t tried it yet, prize picks is the simplest way to play. Just pick more or less on at least two player stats, and if you get them right, you win. It takes less than 60 seconds to make your lineup, and you can play anywhere. Prize Picks operates, including California, Texas, and Georgia. The new stacks feature is a game changer. You can now pick more on Steph’s points, threes, and assists. It’s the same lineup. Plus, if one of your players leaves early with an injury, the injury reboot saves your lineup from a loss. Download the Prize Picks app today and use code locked on MLB to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That’s code locked on MLB for $50 in lineups after your first $5 lineup. Prize picks. It’s good to be right. Hey, welcome back to Locked On Pirates. Make sure you hit that subscribe button, smash like, if only because you have no idea how hard it is to wear a rubber mask while you do an entire podcast episode. Just saying. Just saying. So, the Pirates awarded their organizational awards here. And these are always minor legal uh minor league things and and we just need to make sure that we understand that’s why they’re not naming anybody from the major league level. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the major league level stinks, but it happens to be true at the same time. Honest Wagner player of the year goes to, no surprise here, Connor Griffin. He slashed 333, 415, 527 with 21 home runs and 94 RBI and 65 stolen bases across three levels. The first teenager since Vlad Jr. to hit 333 in a full MLB season. So pretty clearly that was a correct answer there. One we all knew would happen. The Bob Friend pitcher of the year is Bubba Chandler. 5-6, 405 ERA, 121ks and 100 innings pitched at Triple A. 4-1, 402 ERA, 31ks and 31.1 innings pitched in his major league debut. Uh, Bill Mazeroski, defender of the year, Connor Griffin again, 89 games at shortstop with just seven errors and a perfect fielding percentage in center field. That’s interesting. Um, and I think notable, we should probably spend a little bit more time on this one. The shortstop thing with Connor Griffin has gone so much better than I think anybody, even internally thought it might. He’s really really not just kind of shown he can, he’s kind of shown that he’s pretty damn good at it, too. And boy, that’s hard to do. I mean, you’re talking athletes, special athletes that can pick up a position like shortstop out of the blue. Never tried it before. Come in and just do it. You’re talking about a guy like Mookie Betts, you know, like that’s a special kind of athlete that you’re that you start talking about. Mookie Betts, one of those guys that could have played basketball, bowling, you know, he could have done just about anything he wanted to do. He he was a supreme athlete and he shows it on the baseball field by moving from the outfield to shortstop and not just manning shortstop, he becomes a gold glove finalist at shortstop. In fact, I think he’s going to win it. Mookie Betts, unbelievable player. Well, Connor Griffin kind of moving into that territory with just the ability to bounce around the field seamlessly. And this isn’t an an effort to turn him into a utility player. It’s just an effort to make sure he can get on the field with no resistance whatsoever. Soon as he’s ready, he’s showing he’s ready. The way he played shortstop last year was impressive. Now, he had seven errors. I happened to personally see three of them. So, my impression of him at shortstop, probably not as good as National Pundits. I’m just going to say I happen to see three things that I didn’t like. I one of them he he made a bad decision and didn’t charge a ball he should have charged. Again, I kind of feel that comes with time. One was a bad feed. the second that I guess postumously after looking back on it I probably could blame the second baseman for being out of position and the other one was just a bad throw that honestly Nick Camilillo probably comes up with nine times out of 10. So I I don’t have any problem necessarily with with the way he’s fielding shorts stop and it certainly is valuable to have that ability. I I’m happy. Good award. I think he’s the best defender for real. Omar Moreno, base runner of the year. This one goes to Deuce Gorson, 275, 37439 with 31 stolen bases, 10 homers, and 38 RBI. So, your first question is probably, well, why wouldn’t Connor Griffin win that, too, since he had so many more stolen bases? Honestly, what’s the best way to put this? Don’t you kind of get sick of giving all the awards to one guy? It’s like when we do Pirates awards, what happens every time you talk about best pitcher, best player, but Paul Skins, right? Paul Skins, Paul Skins, Paul Ske. You want to hear me say his name 50 times? No. So, I’m going to get creative and I’m going to come up with names that aren’t Paul Skins to win certain awards, right? Well, I think that’s all that’s happening here. But Deuce Gorson, ninth round pick, kind of came out of nowhere. And man, this one again, I did get to see in person. He has absolutely no fear to steal bases. None. If he gets a semidecent jump, he’s gone. I mean, this is one of the faster dudes I’ve ever seen. And the thing is he it it came with a certain awareness where he really does know how to get a good jump off. Don’t see that all the time. You know, Giwan Bay probably faster than him. At least he used to be. I don’t know if he is anymore. But Gwan Bay is scared to death to take off. Deuce Gorson, not so much. Deuce Gorson will just run and you know he’ll make it most of the time. Griffin, too. I think Griffin only got thrown out once this year. I mean, they don’t miss. And yeah, it’s it’s fast, okay, but you got to know when to do it. You got to be able to read a pitcher. The other thing, too, I’d say just because I want to temper expectations slightly, even for guys like Griffin or Duce Gorson when it comes to this base stealing thing. As much as we worry about these base runners learning how to get jumps, you have to understand that in double A, there aren’t a lot of pitchers that have a defined move to first base. There there aren’t a lot of pitchers that are particularly good at stopping the run, you know? I mean, their Steelers defense basically on the mound down there in double A. They can’t stop the run no matter what they do. And it’s a challenge because how do you train people to combat something that they’re not seeing? You know, how do you teach somebody to be a polished base steeler if what they’re facing in double A is nowhere near what they’re facing in the majors? How do you do that? I I I think about that a lot. Like how do we teach guys to lay off those curve balls that fall out of the bottom of the zone when they don’t see pitches like that really until they get to the majors. There’s a whole lot of different types of of approaches to pitching you’re never going to see until you get here. Kent Tulvi reliever of the year Brandon Bidois 8 and0.74 erra 69 Ks in 61 innings pitched across four levels didn’t allow a run in his final 21 and a3 innings pitched. Unreal. I think it would have been really cool if the Pirates would have gone ahead and put him on the 40man to bring him up and give him that cup of coffee this year. I think that could have been neat for everybody involved. Wish we would have seen it, but I definitely expect him to get protected on the 40man and I think he’s going to have every opportunity to win a spot out of spring. I don’t think he necessarily has to be a closer or anything right away. The most important thing with Brandon is just stay healthy. Definitely the reliever of the year though. He was incredible. Incredible. Unhitable. Um staff of the year. This one’s a little bit of a surprise, if only because I thought Bradton did a good job of getting guys ready quickly to go to Greensboro. But Greensboro Grasshoppers get the uh staff of the year. 88 wins, 165 home runs, 355 RA. South Atlantic League manager of the year was Blake Butler. Yeah, hard to argue. They definitely won the accolades. Greensboro Burough the problem is has been the heart of this team’s development approach for the past well four or five years. We’ve already gone through a cycle of the this the saviors from Greensboro coming up here. So I certainly don’t want to be looking at another round of saviors as it is. We’ve got them in Altuna right now. It is what it is. Those are the staff awards. I can’t disagree with any of them except maybe I wouldn’t have been so kind to Deuce Gorson and I probably would have given Connor Griffin the uh Omar Moreno award too. Hard to deny what he did on the base pass if you know what I mean. Who’s ready for the best part of the show? The purge. The NBA is back and there’s no better place to get in on the action than FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Even if you miss the start of the game or want to ride that hot hand, FanDuel has live bets on everything from who will score next to the fourth quarter big comeback. Plus, you can even combine your live bets into a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout. It keeps every game interesting, especially when your team’s making that late push. Right now, FanDuel is giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So, head to fandle.com and sign up and play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Hey, welcome back to Locked On Pirates. It’s time for the purge. Everybody ready for the purge? It’s going to be exciting. You guys keep telling me that you want me to talk about the guys that should be released from the 40man or will they have room to protect so and so and I guess I keep deflecting it because it’s not a problem to me. There are so many guys on this 40man that I have no issue getting rid of that I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s not scary. Pirates probably only need to protect two or three players and there’s plenty of room to maneuver. So don’t be afraid of the DFA ghosts. They’re just passing through. Let’s talk about it though. Let’s go through what we really think we can get rid of here pretty easily. Um, my first one is Jack Little. How many of you have heard of Jack Little? Jack Little, he’s a reliever. Got called up late September. Don’t remember a damn thing about him. He might be a great pitcher, but you just picked him up. That’s 40man fodder. Michael Daryl Hicks. Easy. We got a non-tender decision here with Johan Ramirez. Super simple decision for me. Cam Sanders. Remember Cam Sanders, the yo-yo pitcher? They kept bouncing back and forth. Probably not going to be here. Giwan Bay. Don’t you think we got to be done with Giwan Bay? I certainly hope so. Tommy Fam. I mean, are they gonna bring him back? I I can’t imagine they will. I really can’t. Will Robertson that they just picked up off waiverss to dump another guy they had just picked up off waivers? I see him being dumped the first time they have any kind of painful thought of a decision. Jack Sinsky, got to make a decision on him. He’s a non-tender guy, but that’s an easy 40man solution right there for me, too. How about Emanuel Valdez? Do you even remember Emanuel Valdez? Played first base for a while. Probably the Pirates hottest hitter for about three or four days before getting hurt. How about Ronnie Simone? Ronnie Simone, who had the meltdown in Miami that got him released, that got him brought to Pittsburgh where he was given an opportunity. And then he did go all out, but he also tore his shoulder up sliding. I don’t know what to make of him. I don’t see a spot for him to play. So, that seems easy. How about Joey Bart? You got Raphael Flores, you got Henry Davis, you got Andy Rodriguez floating around. You going to keep Joey Bart, too? That’s a tender decision as well. I just named off, let’s see, one, two, three, four, five, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 players on the 40man that I honestly think that they could jettison to the side and nobody would care. So, the reason I don’t want to keep discussing the 40man situation and all the guys that they have to protect is because first, there’s not anywhere near as many guys that need protected as you think. They have to they have to protect um Esmer Valdez. They have to protect Brandon Bidois. Those are the two they have to protect. I mean, after that, I’m just not all that concerned. Are you? I don’t think they have anybody else that I’m all that worried about getting poached. I I really don’t. I mean, there might be a guy here or there. Eddie Yeen’s, I guess, a questionable one if you really think he’s got a future in the majors, but I’m not sure he had the type of season that would make you feel that. But I just again I just told you what 11 guys if you want to add Eddie Yeen add Eddie Yeen. What this really should tell you is that they’ve got plenty of room to add from outside without a lot of pain. If you make a trade where you trade a prospect for two guys on the 40man, it shouldn’t be a problem for you. You get what I mean? I just think that this is a subject that in the past I’ve probably made a bigger deal about for a couple reasons. It’s it’s fun to talk about who gets protected in the role five draft and and that’s usually what spawns most of the 40man decisions that have to come. It’s fun to discuss that stuff. It’s also more fun to discuss that stuff when you actually think that your team needs it to be on the major league roster. And I think this team needs to be looking elsewhere to fill some of the holes they have on the major league roster. So, it’s hard for me to care as much about that. I don’t think they have as many decisions to make. I don’t think they have any painful choices really in the 40man discussion. Like even G1 Bay would give me no no no cause for delay. I I mean I’d be more than happy to move on from him. Jack Sinsky by you know I didn’t name a single person on that list that I would even twinge. And I’ll say I’ll say this too. If I name them on that list, stop selling them to me as trade pieces. They’re not. They’re not. We’re probably gonna move on from a bunch of these guys. That’s just reality. None of these should bother you. None of these should scare you. Fill up the roster yourself. Like honestly, go out and like start finding guys you you want to target. That’s what we’re going to do on this show next week. We’ve purged the roster and next week we’re going to start populating it. Even if it’s stupid stuff we know they’re not going to do. I’m going to try three ways. I’m going to do the way I would do it, the way I think they might be able to do it, and then the way I think they will do it. And they’re all three going to be different because that’s the reality of being a Pittsburgh Pirates fan. We root for them, but we don’t always think they’re smart. In fact, most of the time we know they’re not. So, I’m going to tell you the three different ways they could do it. That’s what we’re going to do next week. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Not as much fun as this, but you’ll be able to hear me better because I won’t be, you know, a skeleton. I really hope you all enjoyed the purge of this roster. It was a lot of fun for me to do this. And honestly, I’m having a hard time breathing and I’m sweating a lot right now and under my mask. So, let’s go ahead and end the show on a good note before I pass out. We’re serious about Pirates baseball because somebody has to be. Let’s go, Bucks.

A Halloween-themed episode of Locked On Pirates featuring spooky trade speculation around Dylan Crews, a haunted awards ceremony for the Pirates’ top performers, and a reassuring look at the 40-man roster purge.

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