Pirates To Recall Luis Ortiz
Pitching prospect Luis Ortiz is with the Pirates and is expected to start Tuesday’s game, reports Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He’s already on the 40-man roster but the club will need a corresponding move to get him onto the active roster. The club announced that he’s on the taxi squad today, meaning the move won’t be official until tomorrow.
The 24-year-old Ortiz wasn’t initially a highly-touted prospect, signing with the Pirates as an international amateur in 2018 for a modest bonus of just $25K. However, he’s vaulted himself onto the map with some strong work in recent years. He spent 2021 in Single-A, posting a 3.09 ERA in 87 1/3 innings that year. He struck out 30.1% of batters faced, walked just 7.4% and got grounders on 49.1% of balls in play.
Last year, Ortiz began the season at Double-A and tossed 114 1/3 innings with a 28.6% strikeout rate, 9.5% walk rate and 46.8% ground ball rate. He ran into some home run troubles, however, as 19 long balls inflated his ERA to 4.64 at that level. Nonetheless, he impressed enough to get bumped to Triple-A for a couple of starts and then got called to the majors, taking the ball four times at the end of last year with a 4.50 ERA. He flashed triple-digit velocity on his fastball and even got to 99 mph on his two-seamer while also throwing a slider and a changeup.
Based on that excellent year, he started to garner the attention of prospect evaluators. Baseball America ranked him the #74 prospect in baseball coming into this year and FanGraphs had him at #77. He was sent to Triple-A to begin this year and is doing very well so far with a 2.23 ERA through his first seven starts. His .214 batting average on balls in play and 82.2% strand rate suggest there’s a bit of good luck in there, but he’s getting grounders at a 54.1% clip while striking out 22.8% of opponents and walking 8.7%.
The Pirates have a need for another starter with Vince Velasquez recently landing on the 15-day injured list due to elbow inflammation. It’s still unclear how long he will be out of action, but it seems Ortiz will likely get a few turns through the rotation next to Mitch Keller, Rich Hill, Roansy Contreras and Johan Oviedo.
Ortiz got 23 days of service time during his call-up last year and there will be 146 days left in this year’s season when he is activated tomorrow. Even if he were to stay with the big league club the rest of the season, he would end up at 169 days of service, just shy of the 172 needed to get to the one-year mark. Even if he’s now up for good, he wouldn’t reach free agency until after the 2029 season, though he would be well positioned for reaching Super Two status after 2025. Some rookies can get a full year of service time even after a late call-up by placing high in Rookie of the Year voting, but it requires being on two out of the three top 100 prospect lists from Baseball America, ESPN and MLB Pipeline. Ortiz made it onto the BA list but not the other two, meaning he won’t qualify.
That may end up being a fairly moot point if Velasquez returns in a few weeks and Ortiz gets send back to the Triple-A. Then again, Oviedo and Contreras each have an option year remaining and have been struggling of late. Perhaps there’s some chance that Ortiz can pitch well enough that he sticks and one of the others is sent back to Indianapolis when Velasquez returns.
The Pirates started out scorching hot but have cooled off significantly by losing their last seven. They are still 20-15 on the season but the excitement around the club has dimmed a bit in the past week. If they end up falling out of contention, both Hill and Velasquez would make for sensible trade deadline candidates given that they are veterans on one-year deals. That could make some more room for all their young pitchers in the rotation as the season goes along, but it would be a different situation if they manage to stay in the playoff race.
For now, the club will get a look at one of their top prospects to see how he fares against big league hitters this time around and if he can cement himself as a future building block of their rotation.
Pirates Select Chris Owings
1:35pm: The Pirates announced that they’ve selected Owings’ contract and optioned Mathias to Triple-A.
10:36am: The Pirates are set to select the contract of veteran utilityman Chris Owings, reports Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He’s not on the 40-man roster, although the Pirates have an open spot after outrighting Drew Maggi over the weekend. They’ll still need to clear a spot on the 26-man roster.
Owings, 31, is out to a strong start with the Pirates’ Triple-A affiliate in Indianapolis, batting .273/.360/.523 (121 wRC+) with a pair of homers, five doubles and a 10% walk rate (against a 26% strikeout rate) in his first 50 trips to the plate. The Pirates will be the seventh Major League team for which he’s played, and this will be the 11th season in which he’s logged at least some time on a big league roster. He’s played every position other than catcher and first base over the first decade of his big league career.
Owings hasn’t topped 68 plate appearances in a big league season since 2019 and hasn’t appeared in 100 games since the 2018 campaign. His versatility and strong Triple-A production — career .306/.347/.482 in eight seasons — regularly make him a popular depth piece on minor league contracts like the one he signed with the Pirates. Substantial playing time in the Majors has been tough to come by in recent years, however, in part due to injury but also due to substandard performance at the plate.
Though Owings was generally productive with the Rockies in 2020-21, thumb and hamstring injuries limited him to just 94 plate appearances in that time. His .298/.372/.536 batting line with Colorado was obviously quite strong, but it’s a small sample that looks like an outlier when compared to Owings’ broader track record. In nearly 2500 career trips to the plate, Owings is a .239/.287/.366 hitter — including just a .107/.254/.143 output in 68 plate appearances with the Orioles in 2022.
Presumably, Owings will take on a bench role with the Pirates, who already have a pair of righty-swinging infield/outfield pieces on the bench in Miguel Andujar and Mark Mathias. Andujar is out of minor league options, so he can’t be sent down without first clearing waivers — and even then, he’d have the right to reject the assignment in lieu of free agency due to the fact that he’s already been outrighted once in his career (earlier this year by Pittsburgh). Mathias does have one minor league option remaining, though he’s also sporting a solid .275/.370/.325 batting line in 46 plate appearances.
Pirates Place Vince Velasquez On IL, Outright Drew Maggi
The Pirates announced today that right-hander Vince Velasquez has been placed on the 15-day injured list with right elbow inflammation. His roster spot will go to fellow righty Chase De Jong, who has been reinstated from his own IL stint, which was due to a lumbar spine muscle sprain. Additionally, infielder Drew Maggi cleared waivers and was outrighted to Double-A Altoona. The club’s 40-man roster count is now down to 39.
Velasquez was removed from yesterday’s game after throwing just 54 pitches in three innings. During the broadcast, he could be seen grabbing at his throwing elbow, video courtesy Justice delos Santos of MLB.com. After the game, he spoke to Kevin Gorman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and didn’t seem especially worried. “I’m pretty optimistic about it,” Velasquez said. “I’ve been in situations like this before. I’m glad I stopped when I needed to. If I would’ve kept going it probably would’ve been more severe. I just have to be optimistic and then go from there.”
Despite that lack of concern, it seems the club will give him a chance to rest up, either out of an abundance of caution or because testing revealed a bit more severity than he expected. It’s still unclear what kind of absence the club is forecasting but they will proceed without Velasquez for at least a couple of weeks.
Velasquez has long been an intriguing pitcher with some strong strikeout numbers at times but he’s been fairly inconsistent and also had trouble with the long ball. For his career, he has a 4.84 ERA with a 25% strikeout rate, allowing home runs on 14.2% of fly balls. Signed by the Pirates to a one-year, $3.15MM deal this offseason, he’s had a good start to his 2023 with a 3.06 ERA after seven starts. There might be a bit of good luck in there, however, as his .250 batting average on balls in play and 82.4% strand rate are both on the fortunate side of average. His 4.10 FIP and 4.51 SIERA suggest he’s actually been closer to his norm than he might appear on first blush.
For as long as he’s out of action, the Bucs will likely need to find a fifth starter to join Mitch Keller, Roansy Contreras, Rich Hill and Johan Oviedo. They have a few off-days later in the month that will lessen the need, but they’ll likely need at least a spot starter or a bullpen game to get them through to their next day off on May 11.
Luis Ortiz would be one option, as he’s on the 40-man roster and already made his major league debut last year. He has a 2.45 ERA through six Triple-A starts so far this year and is scheduled to start for Indianapolis tonight. The Bucs also now have an open 40-man spot and could turn to a non-roster option. Quinn Priester is one of their top prospects but he has a 5.96 ERA through his own six-start opening to the year for Indianapolis. He also started yesterday and won’t be an option for a few days.
The open roster spot comes via Maggi’s outright. The infielder became a feel-good story recently when the Pirates selected him a couple weeks ago. He had spent over a decade toiling away in the minors, having made his professional debut in Low-A back in 2010. He was with the Pirates at that time but subsequently bounced to the systems of the Angels, Dodgers, Cleveland, Twins and Phillies before finally making his MLB debut this year, just shy of his 34th birthday. He got into three games before being optioned to the minors last week.
Maggi actually has a previous outright in his career, as he was briefly on the Twins’ 40-man roster in 2021. That gives him the right to reject this assignment and elect free agency, though it’s not clear if he’s chosen to exercise that right or not.
Steven Brault Moving To Outfield With Atlantic League Club
Former Pirates and Cubs left-hander Steven Brault signed with the Atlantic League’s new Frederick club last week, and it seems he’ll do so as the hopeful first step down a new career path. Brault has already played left field for his new club, and MLBTR has learned that the 31-year-old plans to become a position player on a full-time basis. He’ll hope to use this opportunity in the Atlantic League to land a minor league deal with an affiliated club and eventually return to the Majors as an outfielder.
Brault may never have garnered as much attention as some of the other best-hitting pitchers in the National League, but he certainly qualifies among them. Back in college, Brault was a .397/.416/.554 hitter in 199 plate appearances. He batted .419/.419/.484 in 36 minor league plate appearances and is a career .258/.275/.337 hitter with a homer — a second-deck, 441-foot bomb — four doubles and just a 14.9% strikeout rate in 101 big league trips to the plate. He’s gone 1-for-8 to begin his season with Frederick. Baseball America’s scouting reports on Brault from his early days in the Orioles system note that he was a plus athlete and the first player in Rocky Mountain Conference history to earn all-conference first team honors as both a position player and a pitcher.
Brault’s move away from the mound comes on the heels of several injury-plagued seasons. Shoulder and lat strains regularly hampered Brault from 2019-22, limiting him to a combined 192 2/3 frames in the Majors over that four-year period. Most of those innings came in 2019, when he tossed a career-high 113 2/3 frames but also missed more than a month with a shoulder strain.
In his career on the mound, Brault at times looked like a viable starter and multi-inning reliever, but injuries derailed some otherwise promising stretches on more than one occasion. In all, he’s tallied 352 1/3 innings at the big league level with a 4.73 ERA, 18.8% strikeout rate, 11.3% walk rate, 0.97 HR/9 and 45.5% ground-ball rate.
Only time will tell whether Brault can successfully make the move to the other side of the ball at age 31, but it makes for an interesting subplot to keep an eye on throughout the season. His raw batting numbers in the Majors certainly don’t leap out relative to other full-time hitters, but it’s clear that Brault has more of a knack for handling the bat than the majority of now-former mound counterparts.
Blue Jays Acquire Tyler Heineman
As noted by Kevin Gorman of Tribune-Review Sports, the Pirates have traded catcher Tyler Heineman to the Blue Jays in exchange for minor league infielder Vinny Capra. Capra was assigned to Triple-A. Per The Athletic’s Kaitlyn McGrath, Toronto assigned Jordan Luplow outright to Triple-A to make room on the 40-man roster for Heineman, who was optioned to Triple-A. Heineman had been designated for assignment by the Pirates earlier this week.
This moves marks Heineman’s second stint with the Blue Jays. An eighth round pick by the Astros in the 2012 draft, Heineman was on his fourth organization by the time he made his major league debut with the Marlins in 2019. He then appeared in 15 games for the Giants during the shortened 2020 season before signing a minor league deal in Toronto ahead of the 2022 season. Heineman appeared in ten games with the Jays before the Pirates claimed him off waivers from the club last May.
Heineman played in 52 games for the Pirates, by far the longest stint in the majors of his career. During that time, he slashed just .211/.277/.254 over 158 plate appearances. Following the 2023 campaign, Heineman was non-tendered by the Pirates but re-signed with the club on a minor league deal. He was selected to the roster early in the season and appeared in three games for the club before being DFA’d, a move which opened the door for his return to Toronto. Heineman figures to serve as catching depth for the Blue Jays in Triple-A. Prior to the addition of Heineman, the Blue Jays had no catchers on the 40-man roster besides their current tandem of Alejandro Kirk and Danny Jansen.
Going the other way is Capra, a 26-year-old who made his MLB debut one year ago tomorrow. While he slashed just .200/.429/.200 in eight games with the Blue Jays last year, Capra has a solid .263/.347/.393 slash line over five seasons in the minors. Capra also brings versatility to the table, with considerable time in the outfield corners in addition to regular work at shortstop, second base, and third base. Capra was non-tendered by Toronto back in November, but re-signed with the club on a minor league deal just days later.
As for Luplow, the 29-year-old outfielder is in his seventh season in the big leagues. Toronto claimed him off waivers from the Braves earlier this season, but he struggled in a four game stint with the club, striking out four times and drawing a walk but recording no hits during that time. Luplow has since been optioned to Triple-A, and will now need to be re-added to the 40-man roster before he can return to big leagues with the Blue Jays. Despite his struggles this season, Luplow has been a solid bat in the past, with a career wRC+ of 101 including a 123 mark from 2019-2021.
Can These Five Players Sustain Their Strong Starts?
We’re about a month into the 2023 baseball season, and as is always the case there are teams that are over-performing (that’s you, Pittsburgh) and under-performing. It’s not just on the team side either, certain players are off to better than expected starts, and while a month of play isn’t enough to make a definitive judgement on one’s season, it’s certainly enough of a sample size to have a conversation about whether a player has turned a corner.
Let’s take a look at five players who are have performed better than expectations over the first month, and try and predict whether they’ll be able to sustain their strong start. (All stats are up to date entering Saturday’s matches)
Joey Gallo: .265/.368/.796 with seven home runs
The poster boy of the three true outcome hitter, Gallo has frustrated fans from Texas to New York to LA in recent years with his tantalizing power but sky high strikeouts and sub-optimal batting averages. Last year was one of Gallo’s worst, as he posted just a .160/.280/.357 line with a strikeout rate a touch shy of 40% between the Yankees and Dodgers and hit free agency without much fanfare. The Twins brought him in on a one-year, $11MM deal and it already seems to be paying off. Gallo’s shaved almost ten percentage points off his strikeout rate and is still walking at his usual solid clip.
Gallo appears to have a really good feel for the zone at the moment, swinging at more pitches in the zone and taking fewer called strikes. I spoke with Betsy Helfand, Twins beat reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, on the MLBTR Podcast this week and she detailed some changes Gallo had made in his stance over the off-season. Perhaps also he’s benefitting from the shift changes. Gallo is pulling the ball more than in recent years, perhaps freed up to play more of his natural style with teams unable to shift quite so aggressively against him.
In any case, there’s a lot to like about Gallo’s start to the season in Minnesota. It’s probably unlikely he continues to hit a home run every seven at bats, but there’s every chance the Twins have themselves a much better version of Gallo than we’ve seen recently.
Yusei Kikuchi: Five starts, 27 IP, 3.00 ERA, 9.3 SO/9, 2.0 BB/9
Kikuchi came into the season clinging onto the final rotation spot in Toronto, but he’s been a really solid arm for them over the first month. Last season Kikuchi posted a 5.25 ERA in 20 starts for the Blue Jays and wound up out of the rotation by the end of the season. A big reason for his turnaround this year is a significant drop in his walk rate. Last season, Kikuchi was handing out free passes 12.8% of the time. This season? Just 5.7%. He’s also tweaked his pitch mix a bit, leaning less often on his fastball and bumping up the usage of his slider and splitter.
Yet a peak under the hood of Kikuchi’s performance does raise some red flags. He is still giving up far too many home runs, conceding about two every nine innings, much the same as his rate last year. He’s also carrying a sky high 97.2% left on base percentage, which is bound to drop some.
All in all, I’m skeptical Kikuchi holds on to the sort of numbers he’s putting up over his first five starts and expect a decent amount of regression. Maybe that still results in an improvement on last year and provides the Jays with enough to feel comfortable running him out every fifth day, but I still think he ends up with an ERA somewhere in the fours rather than the threes.
Cody Bellinger: .298/.475/.560 with five home runs
After winning the NL MVP in 2019 with the Dodgers, Bellinger has descended into a below average hitter since, putting up a wRC+ of just 78 between 2020-22. That led the Dodgers to non-tender him at the end of last season, and he latched on with the Cubs on a one-year, $17.5MM deal. It looked like an expensive gamble at the time for Chicago, but it appears to be paying off.
Bellinger has almost halved his strikeout rate from a year prior, bumped up his walk rate but still isn’t hitting the ball nearly as hard as he was during his MVP season. In fact his HardHit% is at 31 this year, and was as high as 45.6 in 2019 and 38.1 last year. The huge drop in strikeouts really is the most impressive aspect though, as that’s where Bellinger had come undone in recent years. In 2019 his K rate was just 16.9%, but it rocketed up into the 27% range over the past few seasons, so to bring it back down to an elite rate is a firm indication of some meaningful change in Bellinger’s performance.
So with all that considered perhaps he’s sort of back? Mostly back? Or maybe on the way to being back? Either way, it’s still a hugely productive player for the Cubs and the signs are there that even if he’s not peak-Bellinger he’s still very much turned a corner.
Johan Oviedo: Five starts, 29 2/3 IP, 3.03 ERA, 8.8 SO/9, 3.3 BB/9
Little was made of the return the Pirates received for Jose Quintana when they dealt him to the Cardinals at the deadline last summer. Yet in Oviedo, with a few changes, they may have unearthed a really solid mid-rotation arm. Oviedo had been a ho-hum arm in the Cardinals system getting mixed results and it didn’t appear as though his departure would really change much in St Louis.
Yet since coming over the Pirates, Oviedo has blossomed, and I’ll borrow from my colleague Steve Adams’ analysis in a broader Front Office piece on Pittsburgh’s impressive start to the season, which includes this on Oviedo:
Oviedo has upped his fastball velocity, doubled his curveball usage and morphed from a fringey swingman to what looks like a legitimate Major League starter. He’s not an ace, but the tangible changes here and immediate results are intriguing.
Oviedo’s fastball velocity may be up to 96.6 mph on average, but he’s throwing the pitch at a career-low 33.7% clip, instead heavily favoring his slider and curveball, both of which have a 34% whiff rate in 2023, per Statcast. Fewer fastballs and more breaking pitches have led to a stark increase in ground-ball rate – a well above-average 55.7% in 2023 – and a glut of weak contact. He’s yielded just an 85.6 mph average exit velocity and a paltry 31.1% hard-hit rate.
Steve’s piece is well worth a read, but the key here is that Oviedo and the Pirates coaching staff have made meaningful change to his pitching repertoire and are seeing results. With that in mind, it’s hard not buy this start from Oviedo. Perhaps there’s a bit of regression from the 3.03 ERA, but even if the Bucs have landed themselves a solid third or fourth starter who gives them a chance to win each time he takes the mound, it’s a huge win.
Jarred Kelenic: .325/.380/.663 with seven home runs
Is it finally happening? Kelenic has been one of the game’s top prospects for a number of years now but has failed to make an impact at the highest level. That may be changing. Kelenic has been one of the best hitters on a struggling Seattle team to start 2023, and could be blossoming into the sort of player the team dreamed on when they acquired him from the Mets.
Sure, Kelenic will see some regression from the .385 BABIP he holds right now, but the guy is hitting the ball and hitting it hard. He’s already barreled up ten balls and his HardHit% sits at 57.6%, a full 22 percentage points higher than last year and his exit velocity has shot up from the previous two campaigns.
As Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic details, Kelenic spent the winter in Arizona revamping his swing with Tim Laker, a former Mariners hitting coach and the results are clear. A career .168/.251/338 hitter in the big leagues, Kelenic looks to have finally broken out in 2023. Even if his strikeout and walk rates are largely in line with his previous numbers the fact that he can do more – a lot more – with the contact that he is making is the difference.
Pirates Recall Miguel Andujar
The Pirates have recalled Miguel Andujar to the team, Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic reports. The Pirates had outrighted him off the roster in January, but he’ll return after a month in Triple-A. Wil Crowe has been transferred to the 60-day IL while Drew Maggi has been optioned to the minors, but will stay with the team as the 27th man for today’s double header in Washington.
Andujar has made a solid start to the season at Triple-A Indianapolis, slashing .284/.364/.500 through his first 99 plate appearances. The former AL Rookie of the Year runner up is earning $1.53MM this year as an arbitration-eligible player. He came over to the Pirates from the Yankees last season, but hit just .250/.275/.389 in 40 plate appearances down the stretch. Andujar will likely provide cover off the bench as an option to play first and third base as well as corner outfield. He’s in the lineup for today’s game, batting sixth and starting in right.
Maggi, 34 next month, was one of the feel good stories of the season after getting his first big league callup following 13 seasons in the minor leagues. Drafted in the 15th round of the 2010 draft, Maggi had toiled away in the Pirates system ever since but was finally rewarded with a big league call. He only tallied four plate appearances across two games, failing to notch a big league hit and striking out once. He may well get one more chance at that, with Maggi sticking around to serve as the team’s 27th man for the double header against the Nationals today.
As for Crowe, he landed on the IL with shoulder discomfort during the week but the fact that the team has quickly transferred him to the 60-day indicates that the issue may well be more serious than first thought. Crowe had worked to a 4.66 ERA across 9 2/3 innings out of the Bucs’ bullpen this season.
Pirates Could Pursue More Contract Extensions
The Pirates’ extension of Bryan Reynolds — seven years and $100MM on top of his current $6.75MM salary — put an end to a long-running saga of trade rumors swirling around the All-Star outfielder. It’s the first nine-figure contract in franchise history and the second long-term deal with a hopeful core player of the past 14 months; Pittsburgh also signed third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes to an eight-year, $70MM deal prior to the 2022 season. Speaking at yesterday’s press conference to announce the Reynolds extension, Pirates owner Bob Nutting suggested that he hopes to work out long-term deals with additional core players (link via Kevin Gorman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review).
Nutting noted that “to a great degree, we’re just getting started,” going on to call Reynolds’ new contract “a huge step forward for the franchise” before adding that he’s “confident we’ll have future steps as we go forward.” Pirates fans, in particular, will want to check out Gorman’s full piece for comments not only from Nutting but also from Reynolds himself and from general manager Ben Cherington.
On the one hand, it’s fairly common for owners and baseball operations leaders to offer up what’s essentially boilerplate executive-speak about wanting to extend core players on a young club. On the other, Nutting has kept a notoriously tight budget and small payroll for the Pirates. The extensions for Hayes and especially for Reynolds mark a definitive change in course for the club, and with fresh off guaranteeing his top player an additional $100MM in guaranteed money, Nutting’s words perhaps carry a bit of extra credence.
If the Bucs do plan to explore — or already have explored — long-term pacts with additional players, there are a handful of logical candidates for such a deal. In the rotation, right-handers Roansy Contreras and Mitch Keller both increasingly look like solid building blocks, though they’re at very different stages of their careers. The 23-year-old Contreras doesn’t yet have a full season of Major League service time, putting his earning power on an extension considerably south of Keller. The Reds just locked up righty Hunter Greene, who was controllable for five more seasons, on a six-year, $53MM contract. Contreras is even further removed from free agency and would presumably come with a lower price tag.
Keller, meanwhile, is earning $2.4375MM in 2023 with just two more seasons of club control remaining beyond the current campaign. The 2014 second-rounder ranked as one of the game’s top pitching prospects prior to his debut in 2019, and while it’s taken some time for him to get there, Keller has begun to solidify himself as a quality starter.
Dating back to last May, when he added a sinker to his repertoire and began to rely less heavily on his four-seamer, the 27-year-old sports a 3.28 ERA with a 21.9% strikeout rate, 8.6% strikeout rate and 48.1% ground-ball rate in 159 1/3 innings. That includes an impressive six-inning, two-run, 10-strikeout performance against the Dodgers today. If he were to continue at this pace, he’d have a strong case in extension talks. For some context, Keller will be in the same service class following the 2023 season that Kyle Freeland (five years, $64.5MM) and Pablo Lopez (four years, $73.5MM) were when they signed their own extensions. The Bucs could try to pursue something sooner, but regardless, much of Keller’s breakout looks sustainable.
Elsewhere on the roster, closer David Bednar is a local product who’s emerged as a fan favorite and as one of the game’s better relievers. Since coming over from the Padres as part of the return for Joe Musgrove, he’s pitched to a 2.26 ERA with a 32.6% strikeout rate, 7.3% walk rate, 30 saves and 17 holds. His 2023 campaign has been particularly impressive, as Bednar has yielded just one run in 12 innings with a 15-to-1 K/BB ratio.
That said, relievers are notoriously volatile on a year-to-year basis, and Bednar is already 28 years old. The Pirates control him through his age-31 season and might find some risk in locking him into an extension that would effectively be buying his age-32 campaign and perhaps a season or two thereafter.
In the lineup, the Pirates have some interesting candidates. Shortstop Oneil Cruz is currently out while recovering from a fractured ankle but has displayed some of the most tantalizing tools in all of baseball when healthy. His development is still a work in progress, particularly with regard to his approach at the plate, but few players can match his combination of power, speed and athleticism. Meanwhile, outfielder Jack Suwinski has quickly become a Statcast darling, with eye-popping exit velocity, barrel rates and sprint speed. Both young hitters are controllable through the 2028 season at present.
The Bucs have plenty of young talent beyond that grouping — some of it yet to debut in the Majors. Catchers Endy Rodriguez and Henry Davis are among the most highly regarded in the sport at their position. Right-handers Luis Ortiz and Quinn Priester are both considered potential rotation pieces in the long term. Infielder Nick Gonzales just hit the minor league injured list with a shoulder strain today but is in Triple-A and could potentially make his debut later this year if the issue proves minor.
Broadly speaking, the Pirates have a deep and talented system, with plenty of interesting long-term pieces already on the roster and also on the cusp of debuting while biding their time in the upper minors. There’s always risk for a low-payroll club like this to lock players up so early, as the margin for error is thinner than with a deep-pocketed rival. That said, hitting a home run on an early extension can also be key in allowing teams in this payroll sphere to spend a bit more in free agency, if their core players are locked in at affordable rates. Only time will tell whether Nutting’s comments were merely lip service or the beginning of a welcome trend for Bucs fans, but regardless of which is true, the organization’s future looks increasingly bright.
Pirates’ Mike Burrows Undergoes Tommy John Surgery
Pirates pitching prospect Mike Burrows underwent Tommy John surgery yesterday and is expected to be sidelined for the next 14 to 16 months, the team announced to reporters (Twitter link via Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic). Burrows hit the minor league injured list earlier this month with a UCL sprain and sought multiple opinions before undergoing surgery.
The Pirates selected Burrows in the 11th round of the 2018 draft and lured him away from a college commitment to Connecticut with a hefty $500K signing bonus — effectively late-third or early-fourth round money. He’s dealt with shoulder and oblique injuries in his minor league career but has sharp numbers overall, with a 3.34 ERA, 27.1% strikeout rate and 9.0% walk rate in 207 2/3 professional innings.
Those injuries and the canceled minor league season in 2020 slowed Burrows’ development, but he looked like a viable option to make his big league debut in 2023, prior to the revelation of the damaged ligament and subsequent surgery. Burrows turned in a 2.94 ERA in 52 innings at the Double-A level last year and earned his first bump to the Triple-A level. He was tagged for a 5.31 ERA in 42 1/3 Triple-A frames but showed a promising 42-to-12 K/BB ratio and kept the ball in the yard (1.06 HR/9). Burrows had a solid spring training this year (two runs in five innings) and opened the season with just two runs in 6 2/3 frames in a return to Triple-A.
Each of Baseball America (No. 9), MLB.com (No. 9), FanGraphs (No. 7) and Keith Law of The Athletic (No. 7) rank Burrows within the Pirates’ top ten prospects. He’s praised for a plus fastball, high-spin curveball and improved and more oft-used changeup, with enough command to profile as a potential big league starter. There’s a good chance that Burrows might’ve gotten that opportunity at some point this season were it not for the unfortunate injury, but he’ll now see his big league debut pushed off until late in the 2024 season, at the earliest.
Burrows is on the Pirates’ 40-man roster, so it’s possible he’ll eventually be placed on the Major League 60-day injured list, should the Pirates need a 40-man roster spot. In that scenario, he’d accrue big league service time and Major League pay while rehabbing the injury.
Dick Groat Passes Away
Former National League MVP and eight-time All-Star Dick Groat has passed away at the age of 92, the Pirates announced this morning.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of such a beloved member of the Pirates family and Pittsburgh community,” Pirates owner Bob Nutting said in a statement announcing the news. “The National League MVP and World Series Champion in 1960, Dick remained a very active and cherished member of our Alumni Association. We were honored to have just recently informed Dick and his family that he had been selected to the Pirates Hall of Fame. He was a great player and an even better person. Our thoughts go out to his three daughters, eleven grandchildren and the entire Groat family. His was a life well lived. He will be missed.”
A Pittsburgh-area native and one of the best two-sport athletes ever, Groat not only played in MLB but also had a brief stint in the NBA on the heels of a historic basketball career at Duke University, where his number is retired. Groat was the third overall pick in the 1952 NBA draft but wound up playing in just one season after enlisting in the Army and focusing on his baseball career following his discharge.
Groat jumped right from his career at Duke into Major League Baseball, bypassing the minor leagues entirely. He batted .284/.319/.313 and finished third in 1952 NL Rookie of the Year voting before the previously mentioned two years of military service. Upon returning in 1955, he posted similar numbers for his next two seasons and took a step forward in 1957, the first of four seasons in which Groat would receive MVP votes.
From 1957-64, Groat batted a combined .299/.340/.393, regularly making the All-Star team along the way and four times garnering some level of MVP consideration. That includes a 1960 season in which he won a batting title and batted .325/.371/.394 on his way to being named the National League MVP. He also finished as the MVP runner-up to Sandy Koufax in 1963 — Groat’s first season with the Cardinals after being sent to St. Louis in a trade that brought pitcher Don Cardwell and infielder Julio Gotay back to Pittsburgh.
In all, Groat played in parts of 14 Major League seasons: nine with the Pirates, three with the Cardinals, two with the Phillies and one partial season with the Giants. He retired as a lifetime .286/.330/.366 batter with 2138 hits, 39 home runs, 352 doubles, 67 triples, 829 runs scored and 707 runs batted in. He won World Series rings with the Pirates in 1960 and with the Cardinals in 1964, helping both clubs topple the Yankees in the Fall Classic.
Following his playing days, Groat spent 40 years as a broadcaster for the University of Pittsburgh’s men’s basketball team, further endearing himself to hometown fans and further establishing his legacy in his native city’s sporting lore.
Groat will be remembered as one of the greatest two-sport talents we’ve ever seen, a World Series champion in both Pittsburgh and St. Louis, and a beloved broadcaster in his hometown. We at MLBTR extend our condolences to his family, friends, loved ones and the countless fans he accumulated over the course of a remarkable career.