The Pirates Had to Cross This Bridge…and it Was Never Going to be Smooth

8-6-23 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

Way back in the off season, long before the Pirates rekindled their relationship with Andrew McCutchen. Before the Bryan Reynolds trade request saga. Predating all those starting pitchers going down with season ending arm injuries, I had one main question.

Pretty simple actually.

How the hell is this team going to navigate introducing all of these prospects to MLB?

Now, on the surface, it’s easy, call them up of course. But more specifically what I wanted to understand was how were they possibly going to go through all these kids efficiently, and effectively.

Unfortunately, I’d have to say it’s been answered, and just as unfortunately, I’d have to say it’s been answered with a big thud.

Some guys bounced all over the field, some were called up, placed on the bench and unceremoniously send back down before recording an at bat.

Some were “protected” and attempts were made to ensure they were getting favorable matchups, others were tossed in the deep end and seemingly couldn’t struggle enough to get anyone to pull back on the effort.

Have a great game at the plate, its a damn near guarantee you’ll have butt splinters tomorrow.

The best way to describe what this team did with youngsters all year is inconsistency. I guess you could give them benefit of doubt and claim what appears to be inconsistent is simply what they refer to as player centric.

I’ll also add in here, with all the 40-man decisions this club is going to face this December, I can hardly say they didn’t legitimately need to make sure they saw as many as possible.

This process is always hard though, and it’s primarily why I found it the most important and interesting question entering the season. Think about it, if they were really good, zero chance we see all these kids, they’d have been forced to keep most of the vets they brought in, and probably would have had to acquire more.

The post April fall off created an environment that made the youth movement the easy choice.

Now that most of the kids we hoped to see in 2023 are here, in fact, some have already been sent back down for some work, I’d just like to remind everyone development doesn’t stop once you reach MLB.

I mean, it may here, but it shouldn’t if they’re doing it right. That said, I keep hearing things like “Send Quinn Priester Down, he stinks, he’s not ready!”. He likely will wind up being sent down at some point, but if you remember, I mentioned before he was even called up, he was going to be a guy that needed to learn from what his stuff did in MLB, so he knows what to fine tune. Quinn has to be a pitcher, not a thrower, and that takes time.

If you want to keep a kid like that in AAA until he’s “ready”, trade him now, cause it simply won’t happen without this step, the one we’re watching now. Maybe more than once.

That’s one guy.

Want more examples? OK, Henry Davis. “He’s not a Right Fielder, he’s killing us out there!”, “If he’s a catcher, let him catch!”

Henry and Endy for that matter are always going to have to be well versed at another position on the diamond. At least for the first half decade of their careers. Henry’s bat was ready, nothing else was really battle tested. As a catcher, he has a lot to work on, internally they feel this, nationally, scouts think this, visually it’s so apparent from his 2 innings of work I’m not sure how you concoct conspiracy theories about why it isn’t happening more.

He has work to do in Right Field too, but he can’t create as much negativity in RF as Catching.

So, why’s he here then? Sounds like he needs “developed” and that should completely happen in AAA right? Sure, if you want him up in 2025, and even then, guess what, he’ll have MLB only lessons to learn.

The point of all of this, Kids don’t come to MLB as locked on superstars all that often. That takes time to develop, and that development most often takes place at the MLB level.

Now when you’re watching a team that has 10-15 guys like this in the field and on the mound, it’s not going to be seamless.

This is where the whole “they don’t care” thing to me loses it’s teeth. I’m not sure what other direction you could go once you’ve worked your way into the situation. The team had a ton of kids on schedule to debut this year, fueled by stinking, making moves, drafting high and COVID smashing them together.

They could have brought in better free agents, probably had a better record, and just as likely not debuted 5 or 6 guys who we’ve seen this year.

Some teams would absolutely do that, maybe the Pirates should have too, but the truth is, this process, what we’re watching right this second on this team is exactly what they intended.

To promote and play as many kids as possible. To have an ide of what holes they can reasonably fill internally this Winter, and which holes they have to address outside. 2024 will be different.

We’ll see more debuts for sure, but not on this scale, and we’ll see a better record too. Oneil Cruz if healthy and productive will get most of the credit but I have a feeling when we sit back next June and think about our baseball team, we’ll be able to credit these last two months of baseball and affording all these kids amble room to learn at the top level of their craft.

Nobody smart is going to tell Pirates fans to be patient, but in 2023 with all these kids, you really have little choice, well, you could change the channel too.