10 Observations: Roster changes coming in the minors?
Could the Pirates be getting ready for some promotions?
Murphy—Putting aside the fact that this is his third year in Greensboro, what a start to the season for Sammy Siani. He’s 23 now, but you are starting to see some of why the Pirates drafted him so high.
The strikeout rate is down about 20% from last year. He’s hitting the ball in the air more often and pulling the ball less, which has led to a wRC+ of nearly 200 a little more than a month into the season.
Murphy—I'm not sure anyone had ‘Mitch Jebb hit three home runs in a two-game span’ on their minor league bingo card this year, and if you say you did, I will need the receipts.
Watching someone like Jebb this year makes you want to believe the whole ‘Pirates are telling these kids to swing for the fence’ whether it’s their game or not. The swing and miss have been way up for Jebb, who put up elite-level contact rates in Bradenton last year.
One of the home runs was an oppo, but it should be noted that all three were in Greensboro. The fly ball and line drive rates are up around 10% from last year’s numbers, so there could be some merit.
Murphy—With the jump that Jared Jones made this year, I feel like there are only two players in the system with the upside that Bubba Chandler has. He’s struggled with the fastball command somewhat this season, and the swinging strike rate is down from a year ago, but overall, it’s been a solid start to the season for Chandler.
Still, I watched him against Harrisburg on Tuesday, using what looks more along the lines of a cutter—along with some of the struggles with the breaking ball—and with a tad bit of a violent follow through, I wonder sometimes if he’s still just destined to be a reliever.
He’d be an elite closer, and that fastball/cutter would be an elite combo. At this point, I’m not sure if that’s enough to get major league hitters out multiple times through the order.
The change-up is potentially a plus pitch, but a righty-off-speed doesn’t have the same value as a left-handed one. Maybe he can start throwing it against righties, but I’m interested in the progress he makes with the breaking ball (remember, I was saying the same thing about Jones last year before he made the giant leap he did this season, so things can certainly still change, I’m just basing it off of what I see right now).
Note: I don’t always write them same day, but I do write these up throughout the week. So, I did find it funny I bring this up and then a few days later he’s pitching out the bullpen.
Murphy—Tyler Kennedy may have one of the nastiest curveballs in the system. This past Wednesday, he got six whiffs on six swings and has an overall miss rate of 80%.
The fastball whiff rate isn’t too shabby either, at 27.5%, reaching 98 mph. The issue is that he has seven wild pitches, five hit batters, and 10 walks in 8.2 innings.
Murphy—Most of the Altoona rotation has struggled to some extent, except Sean Sullivan, who threw another strong outing this past week. That makes three straight games of at least five innings pitched and one or fewer earned runs.
For good measure, he cranked up the strikeouts, recording five (he had totaled four in his previous two starts). Sullivan got beat around in major league spring training but is off to a good start.
It’s hard to make solid contact against him when he has the fastball command going. This may be his second tour of Double-A, but that was a very good Harrisburg lineup he kept quiet (outside of the Robert Hassell III home run).
WTM (5/2)—A guy to keep an eye on at Bradenton is Esmerlyn Valdez. He had a slow stretch for a while, but he’s on an 8-for-21 spell through Thursday. That includes four doubles. He’s only walked once and fanned seven times, so that’s not great. Valdez has generally had a good approach at the plate, not chasing as much as you usually see at this level, and he has some power. I’m not sure whether he will elevate the ball enough to hit a lot of home runs. He’s best suited for first base. He’s mainly playing the outfield right now, as the Marauders have been dividing first-base duty among him, Omar Alfonzo, and the now-injured Juan Jerez. Valdez’s flyball-tracking leaves a lot to be desired at this point.
Murphy (5/3)—I'm not into making excuses, but I wonder if Omar Alfonzo is hurting a little more than we are letting on. He left a game early against Clearwater last week, missed the next two, and then returned to the lineup.
Usually someone who isn’t going to strike out a bunch, Alfonzo has gone 2-21 since returning to the lineup with 15 strikeouts. Slumps happen, but this seems way out of character for him, and he did leave a game early right before this happened.
Another note: The struggles continued throughout the weekend as well, and the strikeout rate is now flirting with 30%.
Murphy (5/3)—Eddy Rodriguez was a player that I was really interested in seeing play this year in Bradenton. An injury slowed down his debut a bit, but he’s got off to a pretty good start.
Friday night, he picked up three hits—including two doubles—all of which hit at least 96 mph. Defensively, he played a ball fairly well off the wall in right field.
Those three batted balls pushed his hard-hit rate to 40% (as of Friday night), a good sign that he’s starting to make more consistent contact.
Murphy (5/5)—The irony in how things happen. After Bubba Chandler’s start at the beginning of the week, I added a part here on the possibility of him being a reliever long term.
Just a few days later on Sunday, he pitches out of the bullpen and picks up his first pro save.
Relax, he’s not making the move to the bullpen. Altoona has been rolling with a six-man rotation as they navigated around some rain outs. Now trying to get back on track, Sunday would have been his regular day to pitch, so it was to keep him on schedule.
He did look really sharp there, for what it’s worth, but even IF his future is in the bullpen, it’s way too early for them to pull the plug on him as a starter.
Murphy (5/5)—Last year the Pirates slid Thomas Harrington up a day in the rotation while with Bradenton as a precursor to him getting promoted to Bradenton. It was a way to get him started on a routine with one less day of rest.
Sunday the Marauders had Carlos Jimenez pitch an inning out of the bullpen, despite him being their Tuesday starter. That could mean they are trying to line things up for someone to move up a day, potentially to do like what they did with Harrington.
Carlson Reed would probably be the ideal candidate, being a college signing who is performing well in Bradenton. It could mean a lot of things.
It was brought up on Twitter about a mass shake-up that could be happening, especially with rumors on Paul Skenes making his way to Pittsburgh.
That could happen, there was some shuffling around at multiple levels, but there is also an explanation on a much smaller scale that could be the case. So, not sure if giant minor league roster shake-up is what we were seeing them prep for on Sunday.
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There are a lot of very young prospects making waves in the minors. This is great for the Pirates in the future. However, the Pirates currently have a very young team at the MLB level right now. What do we not have at the MLB Level? Starting Pitching (on the way in 2024), and a RH hitting CF, strong defensively, and who may be able to hit for power at the MLB level.
I started 2024 talking about Ceddanne Rafaela of Boston and Everson Pereira of the Yankees. Rafaela became the starting CF for the Red Sox and they signed him to a long term contract. Pereira was a $5 mil sign by the Yankees and is at AAA. He K's a lot, but hits for power and plays excellent D in CF. I'll add another - Alex Ramirez of the Mets who was signed for $2 mil is 21 and is now in AA doing well.
He could possibly be in AAA very soon. Our nearest good hitting CF with power is at least 2 to 3 years away. We paid $4 mil to get the dubious benefits of MAT for 2024?
I don't think Bubba would have went more then four or five innings on Sunday anyway if he would have started because I believe his pitch count hit 56 in his three innings. I was in the first base side field boxes so I couldn't see the ball movement but he struck out one guy with a change up at 90 and another with a couple of breaking pitches back to back at 82 and 83.