Why do the Pirates suck so badly at home?

But the same thing happened last year. Then they weren't as good on the road as they have been this year, but their record was superious on the road...

They need sausage races in Pittsburgh.

why race sausages when you can race pierogis?

http://pittsburghdish.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/race_1.jpg

Snell 3rd in NL pitching VORP, Gorzelanny 5th.

Problem is (as always), every hitter except Jason Bay (& maybe Doumit?) has a negative VORP.

I hope I'm exaggerating.

Yeah, don't worry, you are:

1. Jason Bay 12.8
2. Jose Bautista 12.0
3. Ryan Doumit (138PA) 12.0
4. Xavier Nady 11.6
5. Freddy Sanchez 4.0
6. Chris Duffy 2.0
7. Jack Wilson -0.2
8. Adam Laroche -2.2
9. Ronny Paulino -5.4

/bored

the defending batting champion (barely).

Isn't Jose Bautista the guy Jim Tracy finds ways to NOT play (the yin to the Torre / Cairo yang)?

Snell just burned his finger grilling chicken and will miss a start. Bet VORP didn't see that one coming.

no Grill Factor

At least he didn't burn his foot grilling bacon. On a George Foreman grill.

I think Dwight's got a concussion.

Breaking!

Jun 20 Snell says he didn't burn finger on his pitching hand while cooking chicken - he did it while cleaning the stove. "I was done cooking. I was cleaning the edge of the burner," Snell, a husband and father of one said Tuesday.

Advice: The injury caused Snell to miss his scheduled start against the Seattle Mariners. Snell burned his right index finger after preparing a grilled chicken salad last week. The resulting blister on the inside of the finger had a bandage covering it after Snell completed a long bullpen session Tuesday. Snell will start Saturday at the Los Angeles Angels instead.

drudgelights.gif

God I hate being a Pirates fan.

http://www.post-gazette.com/images4/20070701jhPIRATES08_230.jpg

Some Bucs fans, but not too many, leave their seats in protest

this really worked in baltimore...

Pirates CEO Kevin McClatchy to step down at the end of the 2007 season

victory!

Littlefield has been fired.

but they had a winning August!

that's what you get for doing your job!

Apparently of all the GM jobs this is considered the plum one (good market, non-interfering owner, nice ballpark.) It'll be interesting to see how the offseason plays out.

It has been fun revisiting all of the terrible trades he made (or McClatchy made him make).

"We are going to utilize several objective measures of player performance to evaluate and develop players. We'll rely on the more traditional objective evaluations: OPS (on base percentage plus slugging percentage), WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched), Runs Created, ERC (Component ERA), GB/FB (groundball to flyball ratio), K/9 (strikeouts per nine innings), K/BB (strikeouts to walks ratio), walk percentage, etc., but we'll also look to rely on some of the more recent variations: VORP (value over replacement player), Relative Performance, EqA (equivalent average), EqOBP (equivalent on-base percentage), EqSLG (equivalent slugging percentage), BIP% (balls put into play percentage), wOBA (weighted on base average), Range Factor, PMR (probabilistic model of range) and Zone Rating."

--new Pirates GM Neal Huntington, on what statistical markers his organization will be looking at. (MLB.com)

You should have applied for the job Morbsies!

apparently i once played softball with nü pirate president frank coonelly. probably i threw the ball over his head at least once (he was playing first)

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5484947&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

not sure what people are expecting them to do with that extra $30M that would make them competetive, they're probably 2 good pitchers and 2 good position players away from even having a winning season

looking forward to a braidless mccutchen in pinstripes!

Pirates president Frank Coonelly said the team spends its revenue-sharing money in several ways designed to create a winner: scouting; amateur draft choices; a new Dominican Republic academy that cost more than $5 million; player development; and, an expensive new computer system used in player evaluation.

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/80s-tech-3.jpg

in all sincerity wtf is he alluding to? how much could an mlb enterprise level bloomberg subscription cost? $75K-$150K a year? plus the cost of the talent to run it?

mlb is pissed, can't blame em: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/sports/baseball/24pirates.html?_r=1&ref=pittsburghpirates

thanks leaker!

the pirates really aren't a good target for finger-pointing here anyway, since the ownership change in 2007 they've actually spent the most of any team in baseball on the draft. they're clearly trying to build a team now, the problem is casual fans can't really tell the difference between 'rebuilding' and 'not trying' and after 15 years of the latter it's hard to appease people that this time it's being done the right way.

oh no doubt. it actually paints a pretty good picture of management. would much prefer Loria's dirty laundry aired.

to ciderpress' point, via Neyer:

http://www.slate.com/id/2265068/pagenum/all/

This has been pretty eye-opening w/r/t the dark side of the corporatization/true moneyball of the game... when teams stop caring about winning and only about the bottom line. hopefully the fans will respond by boycotting their team(s).

I've kinda suspected this was the case with Oakland/BBeane over the past 7 years as well. The management stops caring about winning, their fans, the city they come from (idle threats iirc)... just living fat off the yankees/mets/bosox payroll penalties.

i don't think it's "we don't care about winning at all" so much as "we aren't willing to take a loss to increase our chances of winning, so let's just play the rebuilding game as best we can and hope to hit it lucky one of these years"

At least Morton got his ERA back under 10 today...

Got a Pittsburgh puzzle for Christmas and my favorite part is that the Pirates are losing 12-0 pic.twitter.com/s2Ex9w2kW7

— karlykauf (@karlykauf) January 2, 2025

https://dkpittsburghsports.com/team/pirates/feed?page=0&content=pirates-losing-money-bob-nutting-investigation-mlb-dk

seems nutting is operating the pirates at a slight loss actually

a) then maybe he should sell the team; current valuation is $1.32 billion
b) or maybe making even slight investments in the team's future might create value and increased revenue
b) d3jan k0vac3v1c is an incredible asshole (and exactly the kind of guy who googles himself); i doubt he's *lying* about anything but nor do i really trust him, particularly about financial matters that are hardly in his wheelhouse