Five Pirates Thoughts at Five – On Our Way to Bradenton!

3-11-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

Listen, I’m 47 years old and today I feel like a kid.

Tomorrow morning my wife and I will be jumping on a plane and heading to Spring Training in Bradenton and I could barely sleep two nights ago I’m so pumped.

On Tuesday I’ll see the Braves and Bucs duke it out at LECOM and then on Thursday the double header event, Orioles will visit the Pirates and then the Spring Breakout Showcase that evening at 7!

It’s been far too long.

I was scheduled to go down in 2020, in fact, Craig Toth who I’m also going to be with this week down there was at the game against Toronto when the league called it quits on the season, well, most of it anyway.

We had just launched this site, at the time called Inside the Bucs Basement just a couple weeks prior. Craig and I had mapped out a plan for coverage, things we thought you’d all like to hear about, and we had next to no audience, so believe me, it was little more than our best guess at what that might be.

Instead we were forced to either just shut this thing down or ride it out and try to put something out there to keep this little “building & loan” as we jokingly referred to it going. Top ten lists, historic looks back, daily updates on how dumb the world was because of COVID and particularly how it effected baseball.

This whole thing is going to feel like a full circle being completed for me.

That said, one more piece before I go, and here it is….

1. As Much as Things Change…

I just got done talking about how COVID derailed 2020, and what’s happening now isn’t on that scale, but there is an outbreak of “flu-like symptoms” going around the Pirates clubhouse at Spring Training.

No, I’m not trying to say it’s happening again, or anything silly like that, but I do think this revelation clears up quite a few questions about why some players aren’t playing as much as we’d hoped. Just yesterday Joshua Palacios who had just returned from a lower body concern that forced him into a late start, had to miss another contest as he was scratched due to illness. Oneil Cruz missed a couple days and then came back to belt two dingers on his next two at bats.

Paul Skenes missed an outing too, it’s going around and I guess all I’m saying is have this in the back of your mind when you ask why so and so hasn’t played much, it’s not always an injury or the coaching staff sending some message, playing favorites, getting a look at someone you didn’t expect, sometimes it’s just this.

I’d also add in here, expect Andrew McCutchen to miss time very shortly, even as he didn’t start out on time. His Wife Maria could go into labor anytime now, and while I’m sure the team will quickly announce it, it’s worth noting because by the end of Spring, Cutch could very well have as few as 20 at bats. His experience level will help him, just saying, everything that happens in Spring isn’t necessarily all about baseball.

I’d also add even injuries tend to be suspect in Spring. A guy might roll over his ankle jogging down to first, he’s probably ok, maybe a little sore, if it were the regular season the player probably just takes it a little easy on the bases, perhaps they DH him for a couple days instead of just sitting him. Well, in Spring, the guy is probably coming out of the game just because the coaches saw a grimace on his face, and then he’s sitting until such a time as the team is convinced the player is 100%. Something relatively simple can cause weeks of inactivity.

The other thing you don’t get to see or often hear about, even when someone isn’t playing in games, they often are working in the background. For instance, David Bednar just had his second day in a row of playing catch, reportedly with nothing abnormal. Apparently they are just being extra careful with the LAT tightness. Trying to stop a nagging injury from becoming a season long issue. Here’s what Derek Shelton had to say.

“Everything felt good, so we’ll just progress again on flat ground and kind of extend him out to a longer throwing program, to a longer distance,” Shelton said. “Once he passes that, then he’ll get off the slope.” 

The Bednar timing has me at least a little concerned he won’t be ready for opening day.

As with Spring stats, almost everything that happens in Spring needs a healthy grain of salt.

2. The Spring Breakout!

Let’s start with the Roster for the Pirates system.

Our 2024 Spring Breakout roster! pic.twitter.com/OOe89tNkey

— Young Bucs (@YoungBucsPIT) March 7, 2024

And now the Orioles…

Yeah, this is gonna be fun. We should get Skenes vs Holliday take 2 in this matchup. David Matoma the 18 year old Bucco farmhand from Uganda who can hit triple digits being on this roster is super cool too.

It’ll be my first time getting eyes on Axiel Plaz the 18 year old Catching prospect from Venezuela who prospect wonks have told me could be worthy of excitement.

And so much more.

It’s a first of it’s kind event and will be happening all over MLB camps, with this being the marquee matchup and it will be nationally televised on ESPN.

Here’s a list of all the matchups.

This has the potential to be a really neat and I hope it shines a brighter light on some guys who could help ballclubs beginning this year in some cases, and five years from now in others.

3. There Always Seems to Be a But…

A player with the ceiling Oneil Cruz doesn’t come along every day. One would think a fanbase that hasn’t seen the team develop a true league wide star since Andrew McCutchen would be keenly aware of this, but as much excitement as this player has generated, it’s brought just as many people who quite frankly just want to make sure everyone knows he’s a failure waiting to happen.

There are morons who still think he killed people in a drunk driving accident in the Dominican Republic. Yes, people died, but they were driving without headlights and he wasn’t drunk. Charges cleared.

Some have decided to clamp on hard to this insane “he can’t slide” garbage. I don’t even know where to begin here, suffice to say, he knows how to slide.

Some just can’t imagine him as anything other than the position they yelled and screamed about back before he even debuted. It’s not that he can’t or won’t ever move from SS, it’s not even that he has been flawless or close to it, it’s more that the team is committed to him there and making a change is simply not going to happen in season, no matter how much you remind the general public that you in your infinite baseball wisdom said back in 2019 he’d never make it as a short stop.

Thing is, you might be right. I might even feel it too. But right here, this is where I harken back to the exact same thing I said entering 2023. Two things actually. First, no other player, even given an entire year to do so has shown the ability to take the position from him, even not being flawless or close to it as I mentioned, he’s still better all around than what has presented itself. Second, just like last year, the team wants to see him do it for a full season.

Everything that was last offseason with Cruz, is with Cruz this offseason. The valid concerns remain, the unfounded worries piled on by new ones.

He gets repeated chances with the glove because of what he can do, meaning the raw abilities, nobody else can. He’ll have errors, but he’ll also get outs others wouldn’t. He’ll start double plays that had no business being double plays, he’ll use that canon to get an out at first base he had no business getting. The hope is that after a full season the good will outweigh the bad.

They could be wrong, we could finish this season and there’s just no way to move forward with Cruz being this team’s short stop. But “we” could be wrong too.

Next you have the “he can’t hit lefties” people, and while I don’t ever think he’ll hit them as well as he does righties, he’s making progress. 2022 he absolutely struggled in this department, and he had so few at bats in 2023 there just isn’t anything you can really take from it. Too few at bats to pronounce this a decided matter.

How about the he strikes out too much folks? Almost 35% in 2022 which stinks, but in 2023 again, not enough to go on. Sure it started out looking better, but you just can’t base any kind of trending on 9 games. Guess what? Yup, need to see a season to gather what’s going on in this department.

Every concern you can bring up, ok, a lot of the concerns you can bring up are founded, but the answer is the same as it was last year. We just have to see more.

In the meantime, try not to miss what he already has shown you, and continues to show, because even if he doesn’t become an unstoppable juggernaut who the baseball world has no answer for, the chances are he’s still going to be better than many of the hare brained predictions of doom and gloom I’m seeing out there. His ceiling is sky high, his floor probably still makes him a very valuable player. Calm down and enjoy a fun and unique player, and open your mind, because uniqueness requires it for appreciation. Worry about what he can’t do when he’s shown you enough to know it. Until then enjoy what he undoubtedly can.

4. They Can’t All be Starters

Nobody knows more than I how hard it is to see a prospect and convince yourself they have a future only to find out in the coming years it just isn’t going to turn into what you’d hoped.

That’s the way it is when you really get into that side of the game. Some of these kids you could start watching when they’re 16 or 17 and the skills make themselves apparent immediately. As they move up and face other players who have many of those same skills you get to learn more about their place in this game, if indeed they have one.

One player I really camped onto was Rodolfo Castro and I did so when he was a very young player. The Pirates obviously agreed, and they promoted him accordingly. All the skills were there, all of them, but the thing is he never had it translate to the Bigs, not all the way anyhow. He’s now been traded to the Phillies for Bailey Falter and it’s very likely neither are MLB players long term.

That’s how this rolls. You win some, and you lose far more than that. If it didn’t work that way the hit rate on prospects would be much higher than it is. Careers would be shorter to make room for the constant flow of successful prospects. Starting rotations would be so overloaded that free agent starters like Lance Lynn would be working in an accounting firm by now.

That’s just not how it works.

I say this because as you watch guys play, you should keep in mind, getting to the league and becoming a player team’s want to keep is one of the hardest things to do in sports, becoming a starter, even harder, a star, oh yeah, not many of those really, superstar, you can count them and keep one sock on.

It’s a hell of a sport. So if your first round pick becomes a bench player, you might just have to find a way to remind yourself it isn’t ideal, it’s not what you or the team hoped, but it’s still an MLB player and that in and of itself isn’t guaranteed.

Connor Joe was a first round selection. 39th overall, a Comp pick by your Pittsburgh Pirates back in 2014. He was traded more than a couple times, battled health issues and issues learning how to play against better competition. He fought through for a taste in 2019, missed all of 2020 like so many, and finally fought his way back to MLB in 2021 with Colorado.

A couple pedestrian seasons there led the Pirates to reacquire him from the Rockies for a pitching prospect and he’s since shown himself to be a capable and versatile bench player for the Pirates.

It took 5 years for him to get a shot, 7 to stick and now he’s eligible for 3 more years of arbitration, meaning he won’t reach free agency until 2028 when he’ll be 35 years old.

He’ll never be a star in this league, in fact, he’ll probably have to fight for a spot on whatever team he plays for every Spring for the rest of his career.

In no way is he a failure though. Why just looking through this franchise’s last couple decades of top picks it should be pretty easy to see what failure looks like.

Carmen Mlodzinski is also a Comp pick 1st rounder, one that was drafted as an oft injured college starter with very little experience even at that level, so to see him shoving as a rookie 3 years since being selected even as a reliever is again, not a failure.

Remember these examples as you watch this team take shape while it moves forward. Braxton Ashcraft or Jared Jones could wind up in the pen or flat out not succeed. Nick Gonzales could be a bench player. Ji-hwan Bae could be a player that someone finds a way to unlock someday, maybe even not here.

At any one time there are 780 active MLB roster spots. 1,200 40-man spots, and while that sounds like an awful lot it’s a very exclusive club. Think about this Pirates team as it currently is, there are probably 10-15 players on the roster who could be on it for the next 2 or 3 years at least. That doesn’t exactly make it easy to crack the roster does it? Certainly harder than it would have been in 2020. The Dodgers might have room for what 5 or 6 debuts this year? Maybe room for one to stick?

These jobs don’t grow on trees, and in case you haven’t been watching the last 5 spots on any given roster aren’t exactly filled with superstars. In fact at some point in a successful career, most superstars who hold on a bit longer than they should become one of those last 5 spots themselves.

Use the word Bust with a bit more care.

5. Spring Numbers & Storylines

When you write or talk about baseball during Spring Training, there are certain realities you simply can’t avoid. No matter what you write about, someone is going to comment that Spring Numbers don’t matter, well, unless it supports the vision of truth they already had.

Talk about a battle for a spot and they’ll tell you there is no reason to pretend it’s a battle, everything is predetermined dontchaknow.

Listen, there’s a bit of truth in that of course, both of them, unfortunately they’re far too rigidly applied.

When a player goes off in Spring Training it’s a given that you have to see it in the regular season. But, there are times where it matters. For instance, the Pirates second base position battle.

All young players, nobody who is predetermined to win it, nobody in danger of losing their 40-man spot if they don’t win it, nobody that costs more than another. Nobody with a vast amount of experience the others don’t have.

In other words, there are no factors to consider aside from how they perform in the only way a player could, on the field.

Now, that doesn’t mean say Peguero hitting .340 in Spring would carry over to regular season success, but if everything else is equal like I just outlined, it sure wouldn’t hurt his chances of winning the job.

Henry Davis is not likely to stay on pace to hit 50+ homeruns once the regular season hits, but he entered Spring with questions about his ability to catch and hit, so while he’s doing well and hasn’t laid a ton of track, it’s certainly encouraging. Do we really need to make sure we hit everyone who talks about him looking like a catcher get’s smacked in the dome with a hammer?

When I write about this stuff, I try very hard to make sure I show you both sides of this fence. It’s important to recognize what you see in March often isn’t sustainable, but I also try to make sure I’m clearly seeing the competition the player has faced.

Hunter Stratton is a good example this Spring. He’s faced 24 batters this Spring racking up a WHIP of 1.000, 9 strike outs, and an ERA of 0.00. On the surface, this has all the signs of a guy having a great Spring, maybe even an NRI who could play his way into a 40-man spot and a shot to help the big club.

He certainly could do all that, and this could be very very real. If you actually saw or heard the level of competition he was facing though, it might give you pause. See, by the time Hunter is coming into these ballgames, quite often changes have been made and guys with no names on their backs are at the dish.

It’s still impressive, and as a big leaguer last year, only 8 games mind you, he pitched 12 innings, 2.25 ERA and a 1.000 WHIP.

His Spring numbers are at least partially supported by his MLB numbers, but we’ll still need to see him do more against guys who will be on the big stage.

Hedge your bet, you’re smart to do so, but not every number is nothing, just like not every stat means what you hope.

Shutting down conversation with these familiar tropes though, man it robs you of talking deeper like I just did with Hunter.

Had I just read you his numbers and told you he should make the opening day roster, a lot of you would buy it entirely, some of you would simply dismiss it with the familiar “it’s Spring” comment. I’d much prefer to discuss both sides of these performances, understand the circumstances surrounding the performance and even then, you almost always need to see more.

Termarr Johnson hits two rockets off MLB pitchers, hell yeah it means more than it would had he done so off an MiLB camper, but even then you have to factor in that there is next to no book to work with for these pitchers.

Everything this time of year has value, you’re right to point out the ways in which they can be misleading, but you should probably recognize at the same time sometimes they actually point right at the answer.