3-3-25 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X
There is very little that’s more fun for a truly sick in the head baseball fan like me than Spring Training. Where else can you start a day complaining about who was in the lineup and finish it by getting way too excited about homeruns by players who probably won’t be here for a year or two, if ever?
I love it. None of it “matters”, but look at the faces of some of these kids like Konnor Griffin who just was sent to MiLB camp after yesterday’s contest. That kid wasn’t here thinking his hits didn’t matter.
Hell, look at Oneil Cruz joining Konnor in diving for baseballs in center field!
Yeah, I just love it.
Lets Go!
1. So…A “Big” Move is Still Coming?
Lets look at this a couple ways.
First, I’m not disputing the report that the Pirates intend to make a move before Spring ends to address the outfield spot they have open. I’ve heard the same for one thing, but they’ve since repeated it to more than just one (Dejan Kovacevic) reporter, and even more recently.
So it’s out there, they wanted it out there. I can take that as nothing other than these people are more than happy for us to see they want something, and hear they agree and plan fully to get something done.
OK. That’s step one.
Now, I have to be honest, I think Luis Robert Jr. is probably the highest profile outfielder that we know is available. Take all your pot shots out of the equation. He’s injured too much, he’ll cost too much, whatever popped into your head when you saw his name. He’s just a mile marker.
Now assume he’s the best version of himself. On paper that’s a 5 WAR player, and he’s done it 1 out of 5 MLB seasons. Bluntly, the talent is insane, the availability is too for a different reason.
He’d help, but how much? I mean, aside from that one season, he looks a lot more like Tommy Pham on the stat sheet than some super star worth 2 top 100 players in a deal.
I don’t want to spend too much time on one player, I just want to say, THIS is the top guy we all know is out there….
…and I have to be honest, I’ll pass.
I’m just not sure there’s enough benefit there, at least enough that I feel strongly will help.
Don’t get me wrong, if this club spends money or prospects in an effort to improve the club, I get it, and I’d appreciate the effort, I just don’t think I would with what I’m seeing out there.
Bluntly, the threshold they have to surpass to have this make sense for me is whomever they acquire has to be for sure a better bet than Jack Suwinski. If they cost 10X more than Jack and I can’t 100% say I’m going to get better from the new guy, yeah, I’m out.
There’s a big part of me that thinks this team needs another year of seeing what some of these kids turn into before panic filling a spot that might fill itself.
I know, Skenes….shut up Gary. Well, I’m sorry, this is my thoughts, not the thoughts everyone wants to hear. And while I know you can’t just pretend they avoid injury and get 6 straight years of Skenes to work with, you hope for it, but can’t pretend it’s assured. But they’ve built up a stable of horses to insulate that a bit. Might be ok to see if some seedlings turn into cash crops before doing something rash.
Like say you come out of 2025 feeling fairly sure you now have Davis, Endy and Jack to add to the lineup as locks, or hey, bare minimum, you feel about them like you do Gonzales, you definitely want to see more. Hey, what if Horwitz hits? I don’t trust them either, and I’m asking for a lot of luck here. Even so, some of those guys aren’t exactly bad bets.
Just sayin’.
2. Candid Conversation
I have to hand it to Pittsburgh SportsNet’s own Hannah Mears. Her in game interviews with players have been truly informative. She’s asking them really good questions about process or mindset, injury recovery, maintaining health, hell she’s even broached money with dudes.
The players are giving her great answers too, and it’s not just cause she’s a nice person, she’s framing these questions in such a clever way, with enough actual knowledge of what an honest answer might be from whomever the interview subject is that she’s forcing them to be more candid. Politely. Not by yelling for honesty or calling anyone out, just by actually possessing a level of curiosity, and teeing them up to avoid the trappings of normal cliche sports figure answers.
I’m impressed to say the least, and we fans are all the better for it.
I really appreciate it. Hearing a guy like Henry open up a bit more, speak directly to his issues, and candidly dish about the way he’s approached this offseason, listen, all I’m saying is I don’t expect this from a “sideline reporter”.
I’m just damn grateful we’re getting it.
MORE please! Maybe not in-game? Maybe have her do a half hour sit down in season with a different player each week? And preferably not while shoveling steak on a stone in his gullet?
The network has been far from perfect, but when I think they do good, I just want to make note of that too.
3. The Indianapolis Indians…
My goodness, if you like minor league baseball, it’s shaping up to be a very good year for the Indianapolis Indians. I’m not trying to placate all you disappointed Pirates fans with this post. In no way am I pretending it’s more important than the big club, but this has a chance to be a historically good AAA starting rotation.
They could very well have Bubba Chandler, Thomas Harrington, Braxton Ashcraft, Carmen Mlodzinski, Mike Burrows, Johan Oviedo, Sean Sullivan and Po-Yu Chen as possibilities, at least at different times as guys are called up/sent back.
And all this is backed by Anthony Solometo, and Hunter Barco in AA.
This team should probably be in the top of the league and they’re going to get trickle down bats too. The Pirates may not have done much this offseason, but they sure do have a lot of borderline MLB, soon to be MLB, Quad A type players who should make for a fairly solid offensive attack.
You figure there’s a good shot Nick Yorke, Billy Cook, Matt Gorski, Henry Davis or Endy Rodriguez, maybe both, Valdez or Triolo, maybe even Peguero. Jack or Palacios, maybe both. Bae is actually a good AAA player.
Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and re-up my MiLB App subscription.
That’s a fair ballpark too, plays like a big league park. Gonna be a blast to watch and if you want winning culture, well, it wouldn’t hurt to have an infusion of guys who just won start making the Bigs.
4. Looking Woozy So Far
It’s early to start crowing about anyone being good or bad, but there are some guys who really needed to show something early on here in their opportunities and so far, not so much.
Jared Triolo really doesn’t look in sync. In fact, he looks like he did the vast majority of last year before catching on toward the end of the season. He looks fine defensively, just like he always does, unfortunately for Jared, I think he has real competition for his roster spot. He has a leg up because of how good he is at 3B and Hayes always needing rest, but the stick can’t be nothing or a guy like Yorke is going to take his job. So far he looks like he’s swinging a pool cue.
Liover Peguero always talks a great game. You hear him interviewed and you think to yourself, man this team could use a dude like this for the energy boost, but he’s quite frankly had a disastrous start to the Spring. Making errors at THE position that would be his main reason for making the team, SS. Doing very little with the bat, and I don’t mean the results as much as the general lack of impact from his contact early on. I don’t know, I’ve been impressed with Peggy at times, just not this Spring.
There are others, but none that I feel are losing a spot. They either never were going to have one, or were going to have one regardless of how they looked this Spring. These two guys in particular, in my mind they needed to show some things in particular and they’ve both largely done no such thing.
5. The Funny Thing is…
The Pirates will spend all Spring running all over the bases. Guys like Reynolds will take off here and there. Guys who you just know can’t run anymore will take off. The team will use the younger players they sub in and keep it going into the later innings.
To the untrained eye it might look like they’re building an identity of being aggressive on the basepaths. Led by all these youngsters, hungry for a roster spot with fresh legs and reckless abandon.
And then…
The Pirates will open the season with just about none of those young energetic kids. They’ll lead off most games with IKF or Cutch, and they’ll start nursing some of these guys like Hayes, Reynolds and Cruz into pawns on the chessboard instead of the knights they advertised all Spring long. Stationary advances with the occasional aggressive taking of the extra base.
It’s funny, because once it’s gone, it stays gone. Even as you work these kids back in throughout the season, 1 at a time does not a team identity change. It really makes you wonder why they spend so much time taking about their intension to run, and showing your their intension to run all Spring only to turn around and abandon it when the season starts.
It’s like when the Steelers come out and throw the ball 65 times in a preseason game. Why are we practicing something you’ll quite literally never allow in the regular season?
I’d love to be wrong here, but first, I don’t see a speedy team coming out of camp. Just don’t. They aren’t all lead foots, but they don’t have any Vince Coleman’s either. Their most dangerous runner you really hope spends a lot more time trotting, ya know?
It’s just not going to happen, and if it’s so important that for 5 years running you’ve emphasized it in the offseason, showed it in Spring, why not actually sign someone who can help you execute it at least a little in the regular season? They don’t grow on trees, I get it, but you can’t get 1?
Did you put every chip you have on Ji Hwan Bae?
Listen, all I’m saying is, it’s either important, or it isn’t. And I’d just as soon play the game the way we intend to play the game, based on the capabilities they bring north.
Steel City Pirates 