The Pirates announced that star prospect Konnor Griffin has been reassigned to the team’s minor league spring camp. Barring something surprising like a last-minute contract extension, the transaction seems to confirm that Griffin won’t be part of Pittsburgh’s Opening Day roster.
This was probably always the likeliest scenario, as Griffin is still just over a month away from his 20th birthday and has yet to even make his Triple-A debut. Though Griffin crushed Double-A pitching to the tune of a .337/.418/.542 slash line in 2025, those big numbers came in the relatively small sample size of 98 plate appearances over 21 games. In Spring Training action, Griffin showed some big power but not much else, hitting .184/.279/.526 over 43 PA and striking out 11 times.
If Griffin had dominated the Grapefruit League, the Pirates might’ve felt more compelled to immediately see what the shortstop could do at the Major League level. An Opening Day assignment would’ve also put the Pirates in line for a potential future bonus draft pick under the Prospect Promotion Incentive plan, though the temptation of an extra pick isn’t as important to the Bucs as Griffin’s continued development. For context, the Pirates also didn’t bring Paul Skenes up for his MLB debut until May of the 2024 season, even though Skenes’ immediate dominance indicated that he might well have been ready for the Show on Opening Day.
A pre-career extension might’ve also done the trick in getting Griffin to the Opening Day lineup, and last month, both Griffin and the Pirates had some interest in such a deal. Such an extension surely would’ve topped Jackson Chourio‘s eight-year, $82MM pact with the Brewers as the largest deal ever given to a player before his MLB debut, and the New York Post’s’ Jon Heyman writes “and some believe” the Pirates (never known for their big spending) are comfortable going to such record lengths in a nine-figure contract.
Griffin looks like the kind of special talent that merits this kind of investment. The ninth overall pick of the 2024 draft hit a combined .333/.415/.527 over 563 PA split between the A-ball, high-A, and Double-A levels in 2025, with 21 home runs and 65 steals (in 78 attempts). All of the major scouting outlets have Griffin atop their preseason top-100 prospect rankings, with scouting reports raving about his five-tool skills. Primarily a shortstop, Griffin has dabbled a bit in center field since his athleticism translates so well to either position, and whatever the spot, he looks like a future fixture in Pittsburgh’s lineup.
As dire as the last seven seasons have been for Pirates fans, Griffin’s impending arrival, Skenes’ presence, a bunch of other quality arms in the pipeline, and the fact that the Bucs spent some money on bats this winter are all signs that things could be turning around in the Steel City. Exciting as it would’ve been to have seen Griffin’s debut this week, the Pirates are okay in playing the slightly longer game, even if Griffin might still be in the Show before the All-Star break.
Another Skenes situation where he wins rookie of the year and the pirates still don’t get a draft pick. Smart.
Except this time pirates will wait so they get xtra yr of control. With skenes they brought him up too late to get ppi and too early for that 7th yr of control
If that’s the case, might as well keep him in the minors until he’s forced onto the 40 man roster and out of minor league options.
He certainly didn’t force his way onto the roster with his spring performance. He’s 19 and barely played at AA. I know fans are anxious, but be patient. He’s not ready.
@stym
Yep
He hit .171 with a .261 obp
Definitely not ready for the majors at this point
You can’t possibly know that based on a small sample of spring training at-bats against minor league pitchers and starters working on stuff. Spring stats mean nothing. Now, scouts and others can tell by watching but not based on numbers alone.
rememberthecoop
Spring stats mean nothing.
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He hasn’t lit it up in the minors either. He has a 122/50 K/W. When you have a talent like this, it pays to be patient. I’ve seen too many teams waste control years teaching top prospects stuff they should’ve learned in the minors.
He’s ready. Spring stats mean very little. It’s pure service time manipulation and nothing else. He’d be one of the best hitters in that lineup instantly.
Do you not realize how absurd it is to use small-sample batting averages? If he had gotten luckier and had, say, 3 more hits, his average would have been .244. It’s the worst stat to use over just a few games. It’s pretty much meaningless and really tells you nothing. As mlb1225 stated below, his batted-ball metrics were quite good. THAT is a much better indicator of his hitting ability right now.
What do you mean, saying he didn’t light it up in the minors? He hit .333/.415/.527 last year for a .941 OPS. What more do you want from him in his age 18 season? With 21 homers and 65 steals.
Salem, 5 of his 7 hits were XBH, 4 of them HRs. In such small doses I’d be much more interested in the quality of the harder hit balls than the singles that dribbled thru the infield. He may not be ready but this performance reads more like a firm maybe to m than a definite no.
I didn’t see a single at bat from him this spring training. Are you saying he kind of sucked?
The Pirates have fans?
Griffin was looking at strikes and chasing balls out of the zone. He is not ready.
That happens in every game. Aaron Judge did that in the WBC
Griffin has been doing it for a while. It is one thing for a vet to be in a funk. A vet like Judge knows how to weather it and make adjustments at the Major League level. It is another for a 19 year old who has never been in the situation. That is why it is better to get him on a roll in AAA out of the spotlight before he makes his debut. .
If he wins RoY, he automatically receives a full year of service time. So to keep him down, the Pirates either:
– Will keep him down long enough to not win RoY, so probably July
– Hope when thery bring him up he isn’t good enough to win RoY
With the new PPI rule, there is basically no reason to not play MLB ready prospects. They either perform well enough to finish top 3 in RoY or the don’t and you send them down mid season to work on stuff.
The Pirates will keep him down long enough till he’s ready?!?! lol I wouldn’t hold your breath that he’s gonna win rookie of year. He’ll have a taste of the bigs probably in Aug or Sep. doesn’t make sense to rush him!
If he finishes 1st or 2nd in ROY he gets awarded a full year of service time regardless of when he is called up.
With Skenes they lost his extra year of control because he won the award, not because they brought him up too early. The Pirates lost out on an extra draft pick with Skenes since he wasn’t on the opening day roster.
So they could call up Griffin on June 1st and if he goes off for 4 months and places 1st or 2nd in ROY, he’ll get credited with a full year of service time and again they won’t receive an extra pick.
Unlike Skenes rookie year, there are serious ROY contenders on other teams
And hitters aren’t pitchers. The best pitchers can star very quickly. Very few hitters light it up immediately.
Nick Kurtz didn’t have much trouble lighting it up last year.
Who gives a it about the draft pick. It’s absolutely worthless vs a extra year of Skenes. In order to won ROY he had to pitch at what a historic level. Good for him he beat incredible odds. He couldn’t pitch an entire mlb season anyways so it was either call him up in May or shut him down in August. With everyone healthy to start season it made sense to have him start in minors.
That draft pick comes with an additional 3.3m of pool money to spend however a team sees fit. That’s not nothing.
Skeenes was by far the favorite to win the ROY based on pre-season odds:
mlb.com/stories/2024-rookie-of-the-year-award-bett…
Having him throw 27 innings in AAA to start the year was a poor gamble since the outcome wasn’t a surprise.
Draft pick nothing. Doing what’s best to protect and develop the player is all that matters. Draft pick is no guarantee. 1 injury and that draft pick is gone along with the extra year.
That extra year of control was a pipe dream calling Skenes up on May 11th after he absolutely destroyed AAA hitters .175/.238/.247 and striking out 43% of batters.
The only way the pitcher with the best stuff in the league from day 1 doesn’t end up 1st or 2nd in ROY being called up that early in the season is if he were to get hurt after being called up.
Winning only if he gets hurt seems like a lose-lose situation.
The Griffin situation is much more understandable since he’s not 20 yet. Personally I would have put him on the opening day roster and play him every day for a month and reevaluate if he could use a AAA reboot. 4 hr’s and 11 k’s in 44 PA’S in ST doesn’t scream “not ready” to me even if the batted ball luck hasn’t been there.
Griffin is the #1 prospect in baseball and the betting odds have him as the most likely ROY winner. Would be lame for a team like the Pirates to miss out on adding additional talent in the system if we get a repeat of the Skenes situation happens, which it very well might.
The Padres put Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill on their opening day rosters as 20 year olds, neither had played a game in AAA. Both were great and both later signed long-term deals and I think the decision to have them on the opening day roster was a benefit come extension time. An opening day assignment is one of the few goodwill things a team can offer to a young prospect to try to sway them on spending their careers with the team.
The M’s put Julio Rodriguez on their opening day roster without him seeing AAA as well. The Royals put Bobby Witt Jr on their opening day roster rather than trying to milk an extra year of control from him.
I think that means every pre-arb extension receivee that got 10+ year deals made their teams opening day roster.
If Griffin wins Roy so what. Just a late 1st early 2nd draft pick. Odds of being a yearly all star are slim. Odds of being a good player aren’t good. Odds of being a useful player is a coin flip at best. If they repeat this with every single blue chip prospect and just 1 out of what 5 or 10 doesn’t win ROY they make out. 1 year of prime Skenes is worth what? If KG is what you think whats 1 prime year with no huge multi year commitment worth. Worth 5 or 10 of those draft picks. If they went for draft pick ok thats fine. But odds wise they are doing the right thing. And Bubba could win ROY and get them a draft pick. You can only get one. If KG doesn’t absolutely dominate he could get them draft pick next season.
Why keep referring to 1 year of Skenes prime that A) they didn’t get, and B) when he was a heavy ROY favorite?
The change in rules was to incentivize teams to put their best players on the team from day 1 rather than play service time manipulation games.
In Skenes you had the top pitching prospect in baseball and in Griffin the top overall prospect in baseball. Precisely the kind of prospects that rule change had in mind.
Both guys entered their respective seasons as having the betting odds say they were the most likely ROY winners.
Rule change was something players union wanted and owners happily agreed as it didn’t change anything for them other than giving them more options.
Normally Pirates would have called up Bubba in May June but because rule change they waited until August to get draft pick potentially.
KG getting called up will depend on how good the Pirates are. In playoff race sooner. If another losing season and if he isn’t absolutely destroying the baseball and playing great defense he will get the Bubba treatment.
The not being able to get a lottery pick was to stop teams from not trying to win. Just irrelevant lil tid bit scraps the ownwers gave to union.
Draft pick is next to nothing. Call guy up in June and you either get a performance so good he contends wins ROY and you get the attendance pr marketing boost. Attendance was much higher Skenes starts. Have some t shirt and bobblehead sells outs next year. Lots of $. You think Nutting cares more about that draft pick than $. Or he doesn’t win ROY and you get an additional year of that player. Vs making opening day and having to be so good to beat out all the other rookies and having to stay healthy. Sure you can send him down if he is really bad but what if he is just average. You love that draft pick that’s fine. Pirates don’t share your opinion on it. They will take it if it makes sense. But not willing to mess with player health and development to get it.
Sometimes you get greedy and try to get 6.8 years of a player and end up getting them for 5.8 years.
To add salt to the wound you are also out a first round pick and an extra 3.3m in draft capital.
Hopefully for Pirates fans history doesn’t repeat itself.
It’s really nothing. Since kids can make $ playing ncaa you don’t get the kinda prospects that you used to where the 3.3m would be very valuable. It can happen just not like it used to and even then it was very hard. If they get a extra year or KG SH whoever no one but you is going to worry about that potential draft pick.
Damn dude, the Pirates have 1 winning season in the past decade (an 82 win season nonetheless). If one team shouldn’t turn their nose up to adding more talent to the organization it should be them.
Maybe you get lucky and get a guy like James Wood (62nd pick, 2.6m bonus).
Skenes was not used to the professional grind and they could easily limit his innings in AAA.
He barely pitched in the minor leagues the year before.
The Phillies on the other started the highly touted Painter on the first day in Spring Training three years ago and he essentially lost three years because of TJ surgery.
Who was the smarter organization?
Were the Pirates going to compete in 2024?
it’s not exactly like he tore the cover off of the ball in spring training
Let him mature in AAA before promoting him to the majors
Ironically his .317 ISO in spring training would have been 5th in baseball last year behind only: Judge (.357), Raleigh (.342), Ohtani (.340), and Schwarber (.322). The four MLB players who did so by hitting 50+ homeruns.
His 25.5% strikeout rate was lower than all those guys aside from Judge who was at 23.6%.
He was hitting against minor league pitchers and the major leaguers who were just getting ready for the season.
One thing that Cherington has been good at is figuring out when to call up the minor leaguer players.
Only one hitter has ever led a major league in hitting his rookie year.
Griffin still needs a couple of months in the minor leagues.
He’s not ready. The talent and skill set is there. Obviously.
Lots of elite prospects skipped AAA to make their debut on opening day. In 2019 Tatis hit .241/.317/.444 in spring training with 2 hr’s and 15 k’s in 54 PA’S. He was 3 months older than Griffin is now and he made the team. Both players topped out at AA the year prior. The fan base was ecstatic.
Having Griffin at SS over Nick Gonzales could easily add a win to the ledger early in the season with a decisive homerun or with his speed on the base paths. Sometimes the difference in making the playoffs comes down to a single win.
Always put your best opening day roster on the field. He would be replacing a guy who has put up a .2 bWAR over 225 games with an 87 OPS+.
If the Pirates were the Nats or Rockies and had close to 0% chance of making the playoffs that would be one thing. The Pirates made some nice moves this off-season to help the offense a good deal but the lineup drops off in a hurry right where Gonzales is pegged to hit.
I wonder how soon they’ll be willing to call him up? Are they going to risk him getting a full year of service time for a partial season? If I was a Pirates fan I’d be worried him not making the team means he’s not going to be up for several months to avoid any deja vu.
Maybe he could get them an extra win.
Maybe he could bust at 19 because of the pressure.
They are wise in planning for the future.
All that’s nice. He didn’t look ready the few games I watched. The highlights tho? Oh more than ready. Gonna side with the manager on this one. But also well aware that they will manipulate his service time the best they can as well. As they should all things considered
A+ assignment
Not hitting well this spring and no time in AAA. Maybe getting a little ahead psychologically. Hopefully he will see this as it is – development time. The last teenager that I can recall that played at MLB (and I am quite confident there have been others since) was Robin Yount. Different baseball world then.
I recall Manny Machado was 19. I’m sure there’s been at least one since his debut, but I’m not sure who. I think Miggy might have been 19 when he debuted, too, prior to Manny.
He could play at mlb now. He’s as good as a few players who will make opening day roster. But he isn’t significantly better so why lose a year of service time. Still things he can work on at the minor league level.
Trout
But he isn’t significantly better so why lose a year of service time.
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That’s my view. You can have a year of service now, and he’ll be good, while sorting out some selection issues. Or you can choose to have an age 26 service year. I’d rather have the age 26 year, rather than the age 20 year.
Juan Soto
Juan Soto
Recently, Soto was only age 19 as a debut with the nasty Nats.
You’re right, he hasnt hit well this spring, but he was on the bus daily, barely played any games in Bradenton. I think the Bucs wanted him to struggle, either to initially send him down and/or to knock down the $number of a potential extension. Because we/they all know the kid is super-talented and is going to be great, maybe not Skenes-level, but just a notch below.
A-rod, Harper, etc debuted as teenagers
Exactly, just like they screwed up Chandler last year.
Chandler is still a rookie and a front runner for rookie of the year.
Good move by the Bucs. He had the home runs but not much else. He needs to settle into the season and once he gets consistent at the plate and hitting like he has in the past consistently, the bring him up to play.
Yes and those HRs came early against so so pitching. Kelley said the kid was pressing and I’m thinking that was only natural given the hype for a 19 year old. I totally disagree with the naysayers who say the Pirates will screw up with this kid like they did with Skenes. First off, Skenes turned out just fine with the way they handled him. With Griffin if he shows he can hit at AAA he will be up pretty quickly. If he doesn’t hit then the move is spot on for his long term development. Don’t mess him up like they did with Davis moving quickly, throwing him into a strange position and tinkering with his game.
“Star prospect” is something that should not exist.
Can we please wait til these guys accomplish anything in the major leagues before we crown them and bend the knee to them?
they didn’t bend the knee, they sent him to the minors
but I get what you’re saying.
the guy might turn down a $100MM contract extension right now. no, he hasn’t done anything in the bigs yet, obviously, but one of the best prospects the game has had in years is significant. I think calling him a star prospect fits pretty well.
Well then the star prospect label would not be appropriate. It would then be star rookie like Nick Kurtz.
Did anyone really think this isn’t what the Pirates would do?
About all other 29 teams would do the same with Griffin having no AAA time. The cynics here are of course saying it’s service time manipulation.
Leo De Vries has decimated spring training pitching at 19 years of age, has no AAA experience, yet he’s not on the A’s OD roster…it happens…
Booooooooo
Indianapolis Indians are loaded
Hitting less than .200 against spring pitching. Even taking into account small sample size, given he has had no AAA bats either, hard to say he’s ready.
Hitting less than .200 against spring pitching. Hard to criticize giving him time to adjust to pitching better than AA level.
Griffin was ripping the cover off the ball in ST. His batting average doesn’t reflect how good he was really doing, but this still isn’t totally unexpected, even if I was in denial of it happening. The only problem is now shortstop is up to Nick Gonzales and Alika Williams.
Okay, so I guess it’ll be up to Gonzales because Williams is going to Triple-A.
If they would have kept Williams, then I’d have trouble with this. He’s peaked, and all of baseball knows this.
The biggest thing that sucks is that the Pirates likely lose out on the extra draft pick, and will be without a 3-WAR player for the first month of the season. Griffin doesn’t even have to be a fantastic hitter to provide the Pirates with a ton of value. He puts up a legaue average-ish 95-105 wRC+ and he’ll be a 3-4 WAR shortstop because of how good he is defensively and on the basepaths.
No he wasn’t.
He wasn’t ripping the cover off the ball? He had 10 batted balls at 100+ MPH and 18.5% barrel rate.
BOOOOOOO! Hate this move, but more for the couple of fantasy teams I drafted him to, lol. I will wait, he’ll be up soon enough.
Truth be told, he was always going to be sent down. Service time manipulation was gonna happen and they were willing to give up a potential extra draft pick for it. Considering he struggled this spring, it’s prob for the best for him
I do not think that he was ready for the MLs and all the hype did not help him.
Skenes was 23 when he came up not 19.
The Pirates will be a better team with or without him but does anyone really think that they are good enough to get into the NLCS?
His development is the most important subject especially inasmuch as the Pirates are not exactly aces at doing so for hitters.
I am curious as to whether he will start the year in AA or AAA.
AAA obviously
As I suspected it wasn’t so obvious.
Griffin and Johnson are the double play combination at Altoona in AA.
If Johnson hits they will move up possibly together to AAA in about three weeks.
If Griffin passes the muster he will be up to the Pirates before the all star break.
If Johnson hits well in AAA this year he will be up in 2027.
I’m going with 80-83 wins this year
I’m happy with the moves they made this off season
And I think the NL Central will be a bit more competitive
But I don’t think they added enough to contend for the division championship. And they are relying greatly on young starting pitching
As for Griffin, yeah, I agree that he likely needs to refine his play on the farm. I’m a bit more perplexed that they sent Garcia down. Jeez. The kid lit it up this spring
I think that they want both these guys to show something in AAA before they come up.Password would not start for the Pirates but he will in AAA.
I am waiting to say my number to see if they can pull Parades out of the hat.
I watched several Bucs games this spring. Other than a cannon for an arm, Griffin did not look like he was ready for the bigs. Kevin McGonigal, who also hasn’t played AAA yet, but has an extra year of experience, does look ready for The Show.
Let the team develop him as they see fit. It won’t hurt for him to start in the minors and get hot, and come up in a month or two. It would be great to get the extra year of control, but I’d rather them make that irrelevant with an 8-10 year deal but not super optimistic on that.
He will be up before memorial day
I am sure most are butt hurt but he did not force the issue, he obviously needs some time in AAA maybe not long, hopefully they do get a long term deal worked out
Let him earn his way up. More disappointing that Garcia was sent down, because if it’s possible to earn a promotion through spring performance, he’s the guy that did it. Griffin showed promise for sure, but gave them a reason to keep him in the minors.
This was the right move absent a preseason extension.
Even if he gets the call up after he loses a year of service time it would be an uphill battle for ROTY to gain back that year of service time.
Winning baseball games is the only thing the pirates don’t care about.
You got that right. Guess they think that lousy Nick Gonzales is better.
What would you say about any other prospect, any team, who never played AAA, comes to mlb camp, strikes out 31% of the time and hits .180, and isn’t on the roster? Would you be shocked and yelling “service time manipulation” or would you believe he needs time in AAA? Personally I’m for the latter.
No surprise. I was hoping he would push for a spot but the default for me is AA with a good chance of AAA out of spring. Definitely crazy talent and ability but has to work on those strikeouts.
Pirates will still get draft pick compensation cause Bubba is gonna win Rookie of the Year.
Always amazes me when posters complain about service time manipulation. Why would you not want your team to maximize the time they have young talent? With one exception, I would be suspicious of the competence of any organization that did not try to manipulate service time. The only reason for an organization not to be concerned about service time is if they have tons of revenue to sign free agents, especially those that come up early as their service time was not manipulated.
He was the still the best option at SS among all the other possibilities.
Agreed, but he sort of failed at his first chance hitting MLB pitchers.
AAA is where he needs to prove himself before graduating.