Future also on hold
Pirates hopeful for prospect camp
A significant portion of the Pirates’ hope for the future rests on some of the youngest players in their organization.
Say what you will about their results at the major league level the past few years, but there have been strong additions made to the minor league system during that stretch, even if there could certainly be more.
The result has been some of the Pirates’ top prospects slowly working their way up the organizational ladder. For this year, that means third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, shortstop Oneil Cruz and outfielder Travis Swaggerty among others, will get a shot in either Pittsburgh with the main spring training 2.0 roster, or in Altoona with the taxi squad. Those players are essentially guaranteed development.
But four of the Pirates’ top eight prospects, as ranked by MLB Pipeline, are 19 years old: 2019 first-round pitcher Quinn Priester; the two players picked up in the Starling Marte trade, pitcher Brennan Malone and shortstop Liover Peguero; and outfielder Sammy Siani. And after the draft a few weeks ago, 2020 first-round pick Nick Gonzales can be thrown into that group, too.
The Pirates chose not to include any of this younger group of prospects on their taxi squad or on their 60man 2020 roster to start the season.
“I mean, there was a number of players, aside from Quinn and Nick, who we considered, and we just felt like that we remain hopeful that there will be an opportunity to get them in uniform at a facility in 2020 and if we can do that, that would be just a more productive way for them to continue their development,” general manager Ben Cherington said Sunday, after the 60-man roster was released. “In Quinn’s case — and, really, I would say Quinn and a number of younger pitchers who haven’t yet been at the full season level — we just felt like this wasn’t quite the time to include them in this group. We have an important group of young pitchers that haven’t been quite at full season yet. We remain hopeful there will be an opportunity to get them development and innings this year.
“And then in Nick’s case, and really with all of our draft picks, we just feel like there’s a more effective way for that particular group to get introduced to professional baseball and the Pirates, and we remain hopeful there will be a way to do that in 2020.”
That thought process does make sense. For as tempting as it would be to see what the young players can do as soon as possible, it can just as easily be destructive to move them along quicker than they should. Hurt confidence can be a young player’s worst nightmare.
The question, and not just one for the Pirates, is really if that young-player development that Cherington is hoping for will be a reality. The hope likely would be for all of the Pirates minor leaguers that aren’t on the 60-man spring training 2.0 roster to convene in Pirate City. That is likely the only place that has enough facilities to play host to that number of players, and it is likely safer amid the COVID-19 pandemic to operate any player development activities in one, centralized location. But Florida also has seen huge spikes in its coronavirus cases statewide, so maybe that plan won’t work.
So, while Cherington remains hopeful that there will be some sort of player development camp, he is still concerned that they will not be getting the sort of season they normally would.
“I am worried about it. It’s important for anybody — not just at that age, but really any level of baseball age — to be able to train, to compete, to test skills,” Cherington said. “All those guys you mentioned are training. We’re tracking that. I don’t think it’s so much a matter of physical activity, physical conditioning or even practicing skills because guys can throw off a mound, throw a bullpen, take BP ... but the game activity is missing. Until we can replicate that somehow, hopefully at least to some degree in 2020, that will be a concern. I do remain hopeful. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. There’s a fair amount of work still to be done to see if it can happen. Of course, we’re also fighting a virus that none of us can control completely.”
Until more is figured out, the players will have to continue to work on their own as best they can. The positive, if there is one for the Pirates, is that all teams across the league have to deal with this reality. Perhaps some will have better answers sooner than others, but for now, they are all in a bit of a holding pattern.
The future will have to wait a while.