10 Observations: Braylon Bishop bounceback, Jack Brannigan, Khristian Curtis

Observations from the past week in the Pirates' system

Murphy 4/30 - The statline was pretty ugly, but that was one of the better outings I’ve seen from Khristian Curtis, until the rails eventually fell off.

He got almost no help from the outfielders, as they misplayed several balls that don’t appear in the box score as errors.

Curtis hasn’t had the best start to the season, but there have been glimpses, which are usually followed by some bad defense around him. It’s made it hard to evaluate him. The stuff has looked good, and the defense hasn’t been great, but at the same time, he doesn’t do himself any favors at times.

Murphy 4/30 - Not sure you could ask for a better start to the week from Braylon Bishop. He got off to a really good start, hit a very hard wall, but seems to be working through it.

His season is almost exactly what you want to see from a young baseball player. Have success, opponents adjust, and then see the adjustment to the adjusting.

Murphy 4/30 - Konnor Griffin has been mashing fastballs, with a little struggle against breaking pitches. He showed some flashes, though, hitting a couple of sliders, the second of which was for a home run—his fifth of the season.

The home run was impressive, as he waited on the pitch and drove it the other way over the fence. Strong wrists, really great piece of hitting.

Of everything he’s done so far, that’s perhaps the most impressive, just because of what he has struggled with.

Nola 4/30 - Jack Brannigan is an intriguing prospect for a multitude of reasons. By week's end, he was batting .240 with three home runs and a .732 OPS. But what stood out the most was his defense. Anthony shared the clip on Twitter from Wednesday’s game, but Brannigan made a fantastic play ranging to his right to field a grounder, then showcased his big arm throwing the runner out just barely at first base. If you watch the full clip, you'll see that as the pitch is reaching home plate, he actually hops to his left, before taking off to his right. He's still able to quickly change his direction, reach the ball, and smoothly throw a bullet to first. There isn't anyone that's going to knock your socks off as of now, but the Pirates have a couple mid-level shortstops off to strong starts with Brannigan and Rivas.

Murphy 4/30 - It was going to be interesting to see how Jack Brannigan handled Double-A pitching, and if the power was going to hold at Altoona after playing two years in Greensboro.

The strikeouts are holding to where they were last year, and he continues to show signs of working things out with the bat. There’ll always be some swing and miss to his game, but he is making progress, and the power is starting to show.

Murphy 5/2 - Griffin has been impressive in 2025 with Bradenton, but Axiel Plaz hasn’t been too far behind. The contact is up, and while it wasn’t producing many extra-base hits early on, that’s starting to turn. The exit velocity numbers were always there, now he’s really starting to drive the ball where it’s doing damage.

Murphy 5/2 - It seemed that Yordany De Los Santos was destined to be more of a defense/contact/speed-oriented player. He was among the system leaders in stolen bases last year and is one of the better infield defenders in the system.

Seeing some of this in-game power is a welcome sight, as he’s struggled to make that kind of impact consistently.

Murphy 5/2 - He doesn’t miss a lot of bats, but Jake Shirk has perhaps been one of the more effective pitchers in the Marauders' bullpen. The stuff isn’t overpowering, but he hits all his spots, generating a lot of weak contact.

WTM 5/3 - Hoisted by his own petard — Ben Cherington thinks the Pirates’ woeful offense this year is the result of bad luck. Even if you believe that, though, it can’t possibly apply across the board. Two cases in point (data through games of May 2):

Tommy Pham — xwOBA: .249, xBA: .201, xSLG: .280. These figure rank in the third, fifth and third percentiles, respectively, so Pham actually sits in the “expected” rankings right around where he does with the more traditional numbers. Meaning he’s been horrible on a biblical scale.

Alexander Canario — xwOBA: .426, xBA: .276, xSLG: .670. Savant doesn’t give percentiles for Canario because his sample size falls below what they consider “qualified,” but if these expected numbers stay anywhere close to where they are, once he qualifies, he’ll be at or near the top of all of MLB in all three of them.

Obviously, Canario’s numbers are a SSS phantom at this point. He’s so wildly far ahead of Pham, though, that if Cherington believes his own luck argument (after all, everybody has an SSS at this point, yet Cherington still made the argument), Pham shouldn’t be reclaiming his senior discount starting role for a very, very long time.

Murphy 5/4 - Omar Alfonzo had one of the more frustrating games to watch on Sunday, in game one of the Greensboro doubleheader. He has shown some elite strike zone awareness at times, laying off some really close pitches, and it has shown in his walk rate being up this year.

At the same time, and often in the same at-bat, there have been some very ugly swing decisions as well. The plate discipline is there, I don’t know if he’s just pressing right now, but he’s at-bats that make 180 turns almost on a dime.

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