Francisco Liriano and the Qualifying Offer

On Monday, the deadline passed and 12 players received 1 yr Qualifying Offers valued at $15.3M for 2015.  The Detroit Tigers tendered two players (Victor Martinez and Max Scherzer) and your Pittsburgh Pirates were the only other team to have multiple offers (Russell Martin and Francisco Liriano).

The Pirates are willing to take the gamble that if Martin and Liriano accept the QO, they will be paying $30.6M to just two players next year.  But in reality, it's not a gamble at all.  Martin is in high demand and will easily command a 4 or 5 year deal worth at least $50M total.  Some members of the Pittsburgh media (and, to be fair, the national media) feel that Liriano could be the first player in the history of offering QO's to accept it.

There is absolutely no way he will.  Liriano will pitch 2015 in his age-31 season.  Even though he's pitched just 160 innings in both 2013 and 2014, he's pitched as a #2 starter caliber pitcher.  The combination of his age and his skill level, especially from the left side, will make him a highly sought after commodity in the second tier of pitchers, after Lester/Scherzer/Shields.

Liriano will get a 3 year deal quite easily for probably $14M/year.  There's a possibility that a team may even go 4 years.  I'd love to see the Pirates re-sign him for a 3 year/$36M deal, but he's probably going to get into the $40M+ range rather easily.  Liriano would be the perfect #2 behind Cole this year and act as a good bridge when Jameson Taillon comes up later in 2015.

Liriano is probably going to wait until the big 3 pitchers sign their deals.  I hope that by early December the Pirates know if he'll on the bump for them in PNC Park for 2015 and beyond.

Taking Delight in the Brewers' Collapse

Coming into the season, I thought Milwaukee would win between 73 and 78 games.  They were atrocious last year, due to key injuries, but they had some declining players anyway.  Their big offseason move was to sign injury-prone, under-achieving Matt Garza to a 4 year/$50M deal.  How would Ryan Braun fare now that he (hopefully) wasn't juicing anymore?  I didn't see a playoff contender.

Imagine my surprise when at the end of April the Brewers were 20-8 and far, far ahead of the pack in the National League.  I was telling everyone who asked that the Brewers' return trip to Earth would be coming soon, but they didn't really flinch until July.  At the start of July, they lost 10 out of 11.  Their record on July 12 was still 52-43 and they were still tied for 1st place, albeit after they were comfortably leading by 6.5 games at the start of the month.  The rest of the NL landscape was forgiving, as well, with most of the teams just treading water.  Maybe this was the start of the end?

Fast forward to August 25th.  The Brewers had rebounded to playing strong playoff-contender baseball again.  I was still baffled.  Their record was a robust 73-58 and they were 1.5 games up on the Cardinals in the division.  Barring a soul-crushing collapse, the Brew seemed destined for a playoff spot of some sort.

Enter the soul-crushing collapse.  From that day forward, the Brewers have lost (and are still in the midst of it) 13 of 14 games.  Their record is now 74-71 and they are not only 6 games behind the Cards for the division, they are 1.5 games out of the playoffs altogether -- behind the Pirates, which makes it even sweeter.

Is this just the law of averages adjusting with unblinking fury all at the same time?  Have injuries revealed their absolute lack of depth, both in the majors and minors?

Ryan Braun, still one year away from his extended extension of 5 year/$105M kicking in, is having a poor season and now his thumb pain is leading to his whole hand maybe needing surgery.  Shades of Jason Kendall's thumb injury, which was the real reason for Kendall's collapse as a hitter, are echoing.

Carlos Gomez is a terrible human being, so he's also easy to cheer against, even though he's having a good campaign.  I would love to have Jonathan Lucroy, especially with that ultra-friendly contract extension, but he's really the only Brewer I would rescue.  The rest of them all deserve each other.

Hopefully the Brewers continue to collapse, much like the 2012 Pirates did.  The only difference is that the Brewers don't have a wave of talent on the horizon (or a solid, young talent base in the majors) to give them hope for the future.

It couldn't happen to a better franchise.

If the Pirates don't make the playoffs, it's still a good season

The Pirates didn't improve at all at the July non-waiver deadline.  That's all right -- they were still in the thick of both the division race and the wild card chase.

Things took a decided turn for the worse on August 2nd when the neanderthal Diamondbacks retaliated for Paul Goldschmidt by plunking Andrew McCutchen in the back, which may or may not have been an aggravating factor in McCutchen tearing rib cartilage on a swing the next day.  This was on the heels of Neil Walker's back flaring up on August 1st, in the midst of his best season.

And just for added sport, Pedro Alvarez picked this time frame to become completely worthless by letting his mental weakness overcome his ability to throw from 3B to 1B.  Plus his bat has been less than stellar this year, too.

As of this writing, the Pirates are 62-55 and just lost their annual series to the Padres.  They're in possession of the 2nd wild card, but it's hard to see them fending off the Giants (and perhaps the Braves and/or Reds) without McCutchen for an extended period of time.  Getting Walker back too is vital if they want to be a legit contender.

Without getting healthy AND getting some reinforcements to the bullpen and bench, I fear that the Pirates will just miss the playoffs this year.  Perhaps by as little as one game, which will lead to an entire offseason of second guessing Huntington and Hurdle's decisions, plus lamenting all of the blown games.

If the Pirates do miss the playoffs, it's not time to rend garments and gnash teeth, though.  The Pirates will have had their 2nd winning season in a row and their outlook for 2015 is incredibly bright with more prospects headlined by Kingham and Taillon on the way.  It will be a huge disappointment if they miss, but isn't the alternative of watching a losing season even worse?

(Who am I kidding?  It would suck huge if they missed the playoffs by one game.)