The Ohtani wave
More players could pitch and hit, including Pirates prospect Bubba Chandler.
John Baker isn’t afraid to admit it.
Whenever Baker checks MLB box scores from the previous night’s games, one of the first things he does is find out how the Los Angeles Angels fared, because he wants to check up on twoway star Shohei Ohtani.
“Is there anybody more fun in baseball than Ohtani?” said Baker, the Pirates director of player and coaching development. “To me, he’s one of the faces of the game.”
It’s hard to disagree with Baker, although the key element here isn’t so much Ohtani as it is what his success might spur.
Already in the Florida Complex League, the Pirates are allowing 2021 thirdround pick Bubba Chandler to pursue his two- way dreams, pitching and playing shortstop. After going 1 for 11 in his first four professional games, Chandler has started to break out and find his stroke.
The former Clemson commit for football homered in his fifth pro game. He doubled in his sixth. And while Chandler has plenty of room to grow — he has not yet pitched — he’s shown enough potential to where the Pirates are plenty intrigued.
“With every hit he gets, with every home run he hits, our pitching coordinator sheds one more tear,” Baker said with a laugh. “Bubba is a special, special talent.
“How this kid can control his body and move on the field, it’s exceptional; it stands out in an environment of standouts. We will explore the multi-positional thing until the game tells us otherwise.”
Based on what Baker and others have watched Ohtani do, it’s something that likely will happen more. In fact, it had Baker thinking about to his own playing career, when he’d watch Travis Wood shag fly balls and fare better than many of the Cubs actual outfielders.
A pitcher for five seasons in Chicago and eight overall, Wood tallied 11 homers and left a lasting impression on Baker — and not just because apparently also did back flips.
“Seeing Ohtani have the success that he’s had and being the best player in the American League, it makes me want to know, ‘Are there other guys out there?’ ” Baker said. “I think there probably are.”
Year-round throwing
Another topic Baker discussed relative to the development and maintenance of pitchers included how frequently they’re throwing. More specifically, how the Pirates are adjusting throwing programs to reduce periods of inactivity.
What they want to avoid, Baker said, is a hard shutdown at the end of the season. That ruins tissue adaptations that have been made throughout the year, so there’s been a greater emphasis placed on gradually scaling back.
The Pirates also want pitchers to maintain some semblance of readiness. Not necessarily like they could pitch in a game tomorrow, but being roughly 2 or 2 1/2 weeks away.
“You have to find a way to safely maintain those adaptations,” Baker said. “So all of our guys will move from the end of the season to a winter ball recovery recovery program.
“It doesn’t make sense as a professional athlete to go so far [into a period of inactivity]. It’s not the days of beer and cigarettes in the offseason, then using spring training to get in shape.”
For their own benefit, and also for the player, the Pirates would like to oversee more of pitchers’ ramp-ups to spring training than they currently do.
Perhaps it’s a little manipulative or controlling, Baker admitted, but he also made a valid point by explaining that the Pirates could control the volume of throwing programs while also treating anything that might pop up along the way.
“We want to have our hands on the strings as we approach the season next year, especially coming off of this season,” Baker said. “We don’t know how everyone is going to recover because we never had a year off before in baseball.” No minor things
Some (brief) accolades from the minor league system:
• Bradenton’s pitching staff leads the Low-A Southeast League with 1,169 strikeouts, a figure that ranked fourth in all of MiLB entering Tuesday’s games.
• At High-A Greensboro, Quinn Priester’s 35 strikeouts since Aug. 13 are tied for the second-most in MiLB during that time, while the right-hander has gone 3-0 with a 1.50 ERA and 0.96 WHIP in four starts.
• Grasshoppers outfielder Will Matthiessen led all MiLB hitters with 32 RBIs in August; that total was the most in a month by any player this season in the High-A East League.
• Teammate Nick Gonzales hit 10 home runs in August, which led the High-A East League and tied for fourth in MiLB.
• Marauders pitcher Adrian Florencio leads the Pirates organization and the Low-A Southeast League with 109 strikeouts.
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JmackeyPG.