10 Observations: Speed in the lower levels, Matt Gorski, Josh Hartle, Roinny Aguiar

A look around the Pirates' system over the last week

Murphy 8/27—The Pirates have a lot of speed in the lower levels, especially at the complex right now. I saw Estuar Suero leg out a triple when I was in Florida, and once he gets moving, he can go.

Konnor Griffin is every bit of the 70-grade speed he’s generally given by national outlets. Seeing them both go first to third was so fun, and they have the potential to be dynamic players on the field.

If both break camp with Bradenton, that’ll make for an entertaining lineup.

If you can’t outslug your opponent, the next best thing is putting pressure on their defense with speed. We saw that with the Arizona Diamondbacks when they made the World Series last year.

Murphy 8/27—I saw a very brief outing from Josh Hartle in the Bridge League this past week. It was just an inning, and he didn’t throw many pitches.

It looked like it was fastball, cutter, slider, change-up, but it was hard to tell.

Hartle came into the college season as the top-ranked pitching prospect by Baseball America and MLB Pipeline, so there is some pedigree there.

The little bit I saw there, all of his pitches tunneled well off each other and were all thrown at the bottom of the strike zone.

He’s a floor-over-ceiling prospect, but maybe the Pirates can cook something up to get more out of him.

NolaJeffy 8/27 — While watching complex league and bridge league games, we became rather infatuated with Carlos Caro. There was also another small infielder who began to pique interest in Venezuelan Roinny Aguiar. A 19-year-old listed at 5’7” and 160 lbs, Roinny has squared up some balls and shown a bit of packing a punch in his small frame. Playing at the FCL Phillies, he pulled a 96 mph three-run HR and then roped a 94 mph double down the left-field line. About a week later, at home once again against the FCL Phillies, he had an 86 mph and then a 98 mph single.

Murphy 8/27—After hitting for the cycle, Jhonny Severino has struggled a bit at the plate. There’s always been some swing and miss to his game, which has been coming through the middle games of the series.

There is a lot to like, between his power and speed combo, but I would exercise some caution, because there is some underlying numbers that aren’t doing him any favors.

Murphy 8/28—The fastball/change-up combination is so deadly from Bubba Chandler that lefties will have a hard time hitting him, even in the majors.

There was a specific sequence in his last start where he threw the change-up and fastball for swinging strikes to get a strikeout. He started with the off-speed at 89 mph before dialing the fastball up to 99 for the punch out. That’s a 10 mph differential, plus around 500 rpm in spin difference and the vertical drop over 20”. Both pitches look the same when he throws them, and the arm speed stays the same.

It's hard to hit either of them, let alone back-to-back like that.

Murphy 8/28—Omar Alfonzo got off to a good start hitting, going deep his first at-bat with Greensboro. He’s been finding his way since then, but when it comes to throwing out base runners, it’s been an easy transition.

Alfonzo has thrown out five of 12 would-be base stealers through Friday's games. It's a smaller sample size, yes, but that’s a notable jump from what he was doing in Bradenton (27%).

So, it will be interesting to see just how much he will be able to maintain that.

Murphy 8/29—Connor Wietgrefe has been fantastic so far, and it’s easy to think he’s been the best of the draft picks to make their debuts. Duce Gourson has made it to Greensboro already, but Wietgrefe has done well out of the bullpen, even starting the last few weeks.

He will be hard to hit in the lower levels, especially if he continues mixing that change-up.

NolaJeffy 8/29 — The short and sweet is on Thursday, Matt Gorski connected on his 20th HR of the season, which would be his third straight season with 20 or more HRs. Rosters were expanded, and the Pirates added two relievers coming off of rehab. Oneil Cruz is the presumed starting CF moving forward, but it would've been fun to give Gorski a late-season run at some big league OF time. Oh well.

Murphy 8/30—I’ll be taking a deeper dive on him eventually, but the early looks on Matt McShane have been intriguing. He has gotten up to the 94 mph range with his fastball, which has good life, and mixes in a slider and curveball.

A later-round pick who only profiles as a reliever, so take it for what it’s worth, but the stuff itself is at least interesting.

WTM 9/1 — The notion of trading Mitch Keller is surfacing again, but realistic ideas about what that might accomplish don’t seem to be in great supply. There are some considerations worth keeping in mind.

First, the basic goal seems to be getting a good hitter and freeing up payroll. There’s zero chance of both of these things happening. Any trade that gets rid of Keller’s contract will bring back somebody with a contract more or less equal to Keller’s. That’s how teams do these things now.

Second, while the Pirates might — although I doubt it — be able to get a good, inexpensive hitter in return by picking up most of Keller’s contract, what are the odds of Bob Nutting doing that?

Third, if you start with the idea, “We have to trade Keller,” you’ve already blown it. Once it gets around that Cherington is shopping Keller, the other 29 GMs will figure he has to clear payroll, which, in fact, is exactly the argument we’re getting here. At that point, the expected return drops sharply.

And fourth, even if the Pirates somehow free up payroll, they won’t spend it on talent. They’ve never done it that way under Nutting and never will. At best, we’ll get the old Frank Coonelly shell game about how they need the money to cover salary increases for guys already on the roster. And even if they DO get money to spend, consider that the guy who’ll be spending it thinks Bryan De La Cruz is “a bat.”

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