Kevin Gorman

Yeah, well, I mean, as you mentioned, I completely agree with your takes that if the Pirates wanted Suarez, they had to offer either longer term or more money.

And it seems like they were willing to match.

But that is a ballpark that is more conducive, great American ballpark, to a right-handed bat than PNC Park.

PNC Park is where right-handed hummers go to die in that cavernous left field, especially the north side notch.

It's been a source of frustration for

for Pirates right-handed hitters, especially last year.

You heard a lot of complaints from Andrew McCutcheon and Isaiah Canofalefa and guys like that.

Some of the guys, the right-handed hitters told me some of them were refusing to take batting practice outdoors because they felt like it was demoralizing.

And there was talk that they should move the fence in or at least eliminate the notch.

So I can see where a guy who had the bulk of the success of his career was in Cincinnati.

that suarez would choose the reds who were a playoff team last year and also have great starting pitching i mean that that's one of the underrated things that that's the pirates they added to it in this office for certain but i mean they've got one of the top 10 pitchers in baseball and hunter green and they've got some depth behind that uh especially with the rookie chase burns who was touching triple digits so you know the reds may look more appealing now they have key brian hayes at their base so suarez isn't going to be playing third base for the reds he's most likely going to be

probably playing first base or dh and i would imagine it's mostly dh i don't know that the pirates wanted to spend 15 million dollars on strictly a dh they've taken care of first base between ryan o'hearn and spencer horwitz and here's my take and this is simply what the way i looked at it was suarez is not a good defender so you're defensively downgrading a third base but you're upgrading in a major way in terms of home runs and rbis um

he also strikes out a lot and he's a guy who after being traded last year i think he batted below the mendoza line and had a you know sub 300 on base percentage so there are some trade-offs but i i also agree with you guys you know 15 million dollars on a one-year deal is worth the payoff if he's going to produce at that level the question is is he going to hit 49 home runs or even 40 home runs

Uh, at PNC park, he may be able to do a better job of that in Cincinnati at the great American ballpark.

I don't know if PNC park, it's definitely built more toward the left-handed power hitters.

Well, I think the Pirates, I agree with you, Bob, but I think the Pirates really need to generate power from a place where they didn't get enough of it last year.

And these are two guys that have the ability to produce better than they did last year is O'Neal Cruz and Brian Reynolds.

They combine, you talk about combining for fewer home runs than Suarez.

they combined for 36 homers with crews having 20 and reynolds 16 that the pirates adding o'hearn and lao should help protect those guys especially and i'm not suggesting this is going to be the lineup but there's a potential based on history here that you could go cruise lao reynolds o'hearn and that's a pretty good top four if everybody is producing and especially if reynolds is playing like an all-star which he's been two times

And, and Cruz performs at the level of potential that he's shown, which last year he shined on the all-star stage, albeit in the home run Derby.