2-24-25 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X
Early Spring baseball is awesome. First, it’s been so long everything looks great. Second, it takes hypothetical conversation and starts putting things into real world observation. For everyone really.
Things guys have been working on, finally get tested. Guys who had expectation for reaching a certain level get to look around the room and do the math.
Things change, and all season long, so will this team.
Lets Go!
1. They Better Not Think He’s Good Enough!!!
The silliest thing that happens in Spring Training, or even into the season for that matter is this sentiment that certain players have no “right” to make the team. Or, giving at bats to someone you’ve deemed not to be a potential star is a waste of time.
Recently, I saw this crop up with Matt Gorski. And what was really funny, the batshit went in both directions with him.
See, Matt is 27 years old. He’s struck out too much in the minors to ever really get a good look and bluntly, he’s done nothing to indicate that aspect of his game is about to take a major jump.
In the Pirates Spring opener against Baltimore he hit two homeruns, one a grand slam, and it was good for 6 RBI. Neither were wind aided blasts, or, it’s probably more safe to say they’d have been homeruns in any ballpark a professional plays in.
He’s got massive power, and really, always has.
Immediately I saw proclamations that he should absolutely make the team, followed quickly by declarations that the team better not be so stupid as to bring him north.
I already described some reasons Gorski is the type of player who gets this treatment. He’s 27, and in baseball, having not debuted yet, he might as well be 37. He strikes out a lot, and always has, this history is well documented and contributes to the belief that “we’ve seen all we need to see” or “if he hasn’t gotten it by now…”.
This is accurate, and 99% of the time, it’s going to be entirely correct.
Here’s the thing though, it does happen. Guys do finally have things come together late. Sometimes the needs of the big club line up perfectly with a player and they finally get that shot.
The real problem here is for the most part, when fans make up their mind about a guy, it’s over. There’s nothing that can be done to sway them, short of being called up and proving them wrong, and even then, it’ll be seen as a shaky player to hang your hat on beyond that year. It could be a 1 year aberration after all. You wouldn’t want to be w—w—-wr—-wr-oong.
At this stage, Gorski is no different than an NRI. Except he’s familiar to us. All of the frustrations you have with his development, other teams have had with some of the NRIs the Pirates currently have in camp. AND, he’s got just as much a chance to make it as they do.
The beauty and downside of Spring is watching guys try to achieve their dream. For some, they’re here too early and their expected timeline isn’t threatened. For others, they’re here too late and fans have long since moved on.
Bottom line, when you get answers, if you get answers, you won’t care where they came from, so you might as well be open to any and all comers.
Just last year everyone and their mother decided exactly what Bailey Falter was/is, and as I just illustrated, we enter this year wondering if he was an aberration. It’s just too early to admit we were wrong ya know?
2. New Swings & Pitches – It’s That Time of Year
I hesitate to get too excited about new pitches or swing changes for guys this time of year. For instance, Mitch Keller worked on and wants to use more often in 2025 a changeup.
He’s had one, but he rarely has used it, but it’s clear he could use something like that to help keep people off his heater and disrupt timing as most of his offerings live within 5 MPH of each other. So it was good to see him implement them, and good to see him use them in tough situations during the game too.
Thing is though, it’s one thing to try something like that in Spring. It doesn’t matter if a guy steals a base because you’re throwing changeups. It doesn’t matter if a guy hits one you hang while you try to dial it in. It’s just a pitch you’re working on after all right? Well, 5 weeks from now, it won’t be cute anymore. It won’t be a shrug if you threw one in a big spot and it got hammered. And if you can’t bring yourself to throw it in a big spot, chances are you just won’t throw it.
Swing changes aren’t much different. Henry Davis has changed his swing, reducing his follow through a lot like Joey Bart does. Ke’Bryan Hayes has changed to a 2 handed finish. Now, much like the pitcher adding a pitch, these guys have been working on it all offseason, and all the things that these changes were made to target, well, now they get to start seeing if they actually achieve results.
More than that, they get to see if it’s something they’re going to stick with, push through, believe in, when they face real pitchers who really want to get them out.
The point is, seeing this stuff in Spring is cool, but it won’t count as a change or addition really until we see it in the regular season. This is the time for trial and error, the regular season is the time for guys who get paid to be their best do what they really believe in the most.
It matters, it just isn’t set in stone.
3. Early Reactions to Young Performers
In no way am I telling you to not get excited about youngsters doing things. Be excited Konnor Griffin singled in his first Spring AB. Be thrilled Termarr Johnson sharply singled to keep the inning going late in the contest yesterday.
Hell, be excited Gorski hit those two homers the other day.
But do keep in mind, early in Spring, the latter half of these games will be largely prospect on prospect warfare.
Not always, I mean when the Pirates are “on the road” this Spring, you’ll see some of these youngsters get to face actual planned 26-man members from the competition, but late in that game, you’re talking travel squad players, probably already in MiLB camp facing other prospects who are themselves a year or two away from threatening a roster.
Grain of salt with every stat you see.
And keep in mind, stats are not what the coaches, or GM are looking for. They’re looking for things you aren’t even thinking about.
Does that pitcher challenge left handers inside? How does he handle getting out of this jam? Does he get frustrated when things start going poorly or does he grow in resolve? They could get positive answers for all these questions while the guy gives up 4 runs. No lie.
At the end of the day, if I come out of a Spring game with 3 or 4 statements pointing to things I think mattered, it was a good day.
Saturday for instance, I got that Mike Burrows attacks left handed hitting with inside fastballs. Just fearlessly. I saw that Henry Davis looked very capable behind the dish and his new swing hasn’t sapped his power. Finally I saw that Matt Gorski is at the very least a Quad A player.
Not much, but without stretching for takeaways, this is all I really have to take from that game.
4. Don’t Panic Too Much About Who Makes it and Who Doesn’t
This is a different year for the Pirates.
The Pirates roster is largely fleshed out. They have room for a surprise here or there, but only 1 or 2.
Essentially, guys who look like they could legitimately be better players than what comes North are going to be sent to the minors.
I’m saying this now because the team’s situation isn’t what it once was. They still need these kids to break through and ultimately grab hold of a spot on the roster, but they don’t need to force it at all.
Bubba Chandler is probably good enough to start out of camp. But the team if it stays healthy, isn’t in need of a rotation member. Much like Skenes last year, Chandler could easily prove it’s real and earn a call early in the year. Liover Peguero might not have a spot because the Pirates signed Adam Frazier.
They have a young roster, with a lot of kids right there, ready to step up and step in and we’ll watch it happen all season long.
162 games is a long time, and we’ll see these guys impact the team as it plays out. It’s not the end of the world when they don’t make the team out of camp, but it could be a big deal they have so many qualified guys who they have to call on when they feel a need or want to see a change.
This doesn’t mean you need to be excited that Braxton Ashcraft, or Mike Burrows or whomever is starting in AAA, but it’s not a death sentence, it’s an opportunity to play, keep getting better and hopefully be more ready when they do get the call.
For all the bluster of this offseason, the roster is better, deeper and will undergo a season long metamorphosis that moves it even younger.
But now it’s about who can help right now, not who might help the most for years to come. It isn’t 2021 anymore, and thank God they seem to understand that too.
In other words, if the 5 guys they start out with in the rotation perform and for whatever reason they don’t feel the need to call up any rookie reinforcements, well, doesn’t that mean these 5 guys did good and stayed healthy?
I’ll tell you what, it means that a hell of a lot more than it means they’re screwing Bubba over.
Let it play out without expectation of who is or isn’t here, I think you’ll be rewarded with new faces a lot as it plays out.
5. Are the Pirates Being Cautious with Recovering Players?
I don’t know, honestly, I think they’re doing just about what I expected with all of them. Johan Oviedo will almost assuredly start in AAA on a rehab assignment, Dauri Moreta is already on the 60-day IL, Hunter Stratton will enter the season on the IL and Endy Rodriguez is being restricted to Catching to control the types of throws he makes, at least for a while.
If anything, fans tend to just look at injury timelines and pretend those figures point to when they come back at the top of their game, ready to be everything they are. That’s very often not the same timeline.
I’ve warned you all offseason about putting too much on the plate for any of these guys and this is why.
Oviedo for one, had a really nice 2023 for the Pirates, but he suffered his UCL in part because he was stretched out too much in that same year and they’ll err on the side of cautiousness with him now. Not to mention, right now there isn’t a spot for him in the rotation, so, what’s the rush? Make sure he’s 100% right, and if it goes on too long, find a way to work him into the mix in the pen.
He’ll be limited all year, this fact isn’t going anywhere.
Endy is simply going to have to show his bat is as ready to play as his personality is to impress everyone who deals with him. Easier said than done, especially as a catcher only, he’s not going to get starting reps here, and that isn’t going to do much good for his reacclimating.
Again, the minors aren’t a tragedy for these guys. They’re still promising members of the team who could, and probably should be expected to contribute this year to the big club’s efforts, but taking your time here isn’t a bad thing either.
Not even in 2013, 2014 or 2015 did the Pirates have this much talent on the doorstep while also having a fairly full of MLB level players roster. It’s going to look and feel different for us, if only because we haven’t seen it.
I implore you to understand this isn’t the same thing it was when a kid didn’t make it in 2022, because today the reasons they don’t start here are different, foreign to us even.
There is urgency to win, but that doesn’t equal making all the moves you’d make right this second.
Steel City Pirates 