DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: The Horwitz skepticism

23 comments

1. DK keeps talking about Ortiz like he was Cy Young. He was a borderline SP5. He did a good job for us last year, but is a reasonable price to pay for a guy who showed he can hit last year. As for the age thing, Ortiz is able to keep developing but Horwitz can't? DK just doesn't want to admit that Cherrington might have pulled off a good trade because he has a vendetta against him.

2. Whats comical about this is our egghead GM who's job is on the line thinks this is a logical and smart move. Fi
   Yinzers will love and accept anyone if they are average or better and embrace the city. Someone tell egghead this move is another nail in thr coffin he's oblivious

3. I don’t hate the move but I don’t love it. Guess we’ll see

4. This trade is not going to panout! The guy can only hit Righties! Has under average bat speed but can walk! This team is littered with this type of player. Sell the team Bob!!!

5. He played mostly second base

6. Cherington is so prefictable. New hitting coach..from Toronto.
   New 1Bman from Toronto, through Cleveland.

   He must think his time with the Blue Jays, he found all the magic peces. Lol.

7. If he's a platoon player that's fine as he'll be getting 500 ab's and if he can hit 15 to 20 hr's along with a high on base percentage and strike out under 20% of the time something we don't have in our lineup I'll take it. If Horowitz and Cooke give us 25 to 30 HR and 75+ rbi as a platoon that's a win. Please enough of the Ortiz talk as if he was the next Nolan Ryan. You got Burrows, Ashcraft, Chandler, Harrington and Oviedo ready to make the rotation so losing Ortiz who's had one decent year isn't that big of loss. Spend some money and get an everyday right fielder and with a new hitting coach we can win this division.

8. I thought the Pirates were all about analytics? Then we make these decisions!?

9. How does this trade even happen?

10. Pretty simple to me…guy makes $800K a year…I am sure that was the biggest appeal to the pirates

11. Horwitz played for the Blue Jays last year, not the Guardians, DK. If he turns out to be a platoon piece at first base, the trade will be a big miss, much worse than an over pay.

12. In 1974, the Dodgers moved a mid-20's, 5'10" infielder who had shown little power to firstbase……Were as, Steve Garvey was born. Great once every 50 years it works. Good luck Mr. Horwitz.

13. I’m surprised by the major mistake in this episode. Horwitz didn’t even play one minute or have one at bat with Cleveland. He played for Toronto. This was essentially a three team swap. Second Law decided to pick and chose the analytics. No question that Horwitz is not a power hitter in the traditional sense and doesn’t have Oneil Cruz exit velocity. On the other hand no mention was made of him having an elite sweet spot/barrel rate. Assuming last season as his home run numbers, if he repeated the 16 home runs he hit at AAA and with Toronto last year, it would be the most by a Pirate first baseman this decade.

    Ortiz had an excellent year, but the Pirates have depth at starting pitching. They needed one of their young prospects or Oviedo to have pushed Ortiz back to the bullpen (if he had remained). If you are going to look at analytics you would realize Ortiz is due for a regression. He doesn’t miss bats or get ground outs. The analytics suggest he was somewhat lucky in 2024. The analytics do not suggest that Horwitz was lucky. So the issue is what is more valuable to this team: a first baseman who can consistently get on base and produce ops numbers at a similar clip to Reynolds, or a swing starter who hopefully would be pushed out of the rotation by either a high end prospect or Oviedo (who showed more in 2023 than Ortiz did last season)
    .
    I would also point out that one thing that can’t be measured by statistics is that the Pirates allowed their new hitting coach to hand pick his prized pupil to be the Pirates first baseman. If we want to improve on hitting over the debacle that was Andy Haines, we have to trust Hague. This trade was a big step in that direction. Personally I would like to see the Horwitz approach rub off on players like Suwinski, Davis, Hayes and Gonzales. If that happened the team could actually be competitive despite Cherrington and Shelton.

14. Is there a position that Ben cherington is actually good at scouting? Outfield? NO 1B? NO. Anything?!?!

15. I don't agree the pirates will spend up to 100mil. I think they're going to stay right where they're at.

16. Cherrington is horrible. Period.

17. Maybe we’re approaching the “sell the team” campaign all wrong. Bob will never sell the team. But he just might trade the team to a 27 year old Slippery Rock grad with a degree in business and a C+ average.

18. If he is good he'll be traded by the all star break for a player to be named later.

19. I own the trademark on Horrorwitz, yet another bargain basement Bucco.

20. this guy did hit 12 homeruns in partime duty so who knows maybe he can it between 25 and 30 homeruns playing full time and if bryan delacruz can hit like he did in the AL we might just have ourselves a couple power hitters well three because i fogot about oneil cruz

21. I'm done with this organization. Boycott PiratesFest , Boycott pnc park. Bob Nutting needs to feel & see the displeasure of fans 🤦‍♂️💩🤬🤡☠️

22. I do not have any faith in GMBC to evaluate talent and on the face of this, feels like an overpay. I hope I am wrong.

23. i watch a Cleveland podcast and they couldn't believe the Pirates were dumb enough to give up anything for Horwitz. I called it BC's worst trade and I got heat from a lot of Pirate fans online. I think Billy Cook would be better at first.