Morning Rundown: Jack Suwinski mentioned on MLB.com, Looking at the rotation, Andre Jackson
A look at news on the Pirates around the internet.
MLB.com released an article on Friday about 10 players who should steal more in 2024.
Thanks to the new rules, we saw a major increase in stolen bases around the league during 2023, with base runners taking advantage of the limitations pitchers have in keeping them in check.
Jack Suwinski was mentioned as someone who could have 20/20 upside if he decided to be a little more aggressive on the bases.
They cited his 28.6 ft/sec sprint speed (81st percentile) and his 86% steal conversion rate during 2023 as reasons why he should be more aggressive on the bases in 2024.
Of course, the Pirates look to Suwinski more for his power, but we saw the Diamondbacks make it to the World Series and finish second in baseball in stolen bases (the Rangers, who won it all, finished fourth from the bottom, so it’s not a perfect science).
The move has me playing catch-up with many things this weekend, but Alex Stumpf took the reigns for the Friday Insider on DKPittsburghSports, and there was a lot of talk about the rotation.
He mentioned Henry Davis saying that Quinn Priester "revamped how he wants to throw the ball.” I have an article saved on Priester that will come out on Tuesday.
There is a lot of good info, as always, from Alex here, so have a read through that if you haven’t already.
When the Pirates designated for assignment and eventually released Andre Jackson, we knew it was so he could play overseas.
He officially signed in Japan to play for the Yokohama BayStars.
In 12 games (seven starts) with the Pirates in 2023, Jackson had a 4.33 ERA in 43.2 innings pitched, striking out 41 batters while walking 19.
Next week, I will be a little more current as I am getting a little more settled; later today, Nola will have a feature on the ‘What IF’ mentality.
I want to give a shoutout to the other writers here for stepping up big for me this weekend, I sent an email out asking if they had any ideas and had some spare time to throw something together, it would really help out.
I made sure they knew there was no pressure to come up with anything, and they each stepped up with something to fill in a day feature-wise.
It made the move a lot easier, having a little less to worry about.
Every Monday during the offseason, we will be doing a mailbag article. Please send in your questions to have them answered! Either comment below with ‘mailbag’ entered in the message or email us at bucsondeckqa@gmail.com.
I look forward to answering what you guys have!
Never was much of a fan of DK, but he has put together an interesting site for all three of the professional teams in Pittsburgh, and Alex Stumph is an excellent writer.
Nice to see a plan for discussion regarding Quinn Priester and looking forward to your article on Tuesday. The positive about Priester's exposure to MLB in 2023 was his 3-3 record in 10 G, 50 IP, and the fact he did that while he was still only 22 years of age. The negative starts with the 7.74 ERA, and goes from there.
Little frustrated looking at the Michael Busch trade to the Cubs. The Pirates have been searching for what seems like forever for a long term 1b. Each of the last two offseasons they have jumped early into mediocre veteran 1b with warts one 1 year deals. Meanwhile the Cubs send a young long term lotto ticket to the Dodgers for a legit, young 1b who will be a thorn in our sides for several years. This trade would have been Mueth or maybe Kennedy from the Pirates. These are exactly the types of trades Cheringron should be looking at rather than jumping at mediocracy! Time to step up BC