The first week of Spring Training was mostly the same stuff over and over. Throwing programs, bullpen sessions, fielding practice, and batting practice. Today offered a change of pace, as it was the first full-squad workout. The position players in camp also allowed for plenty of live batting practice. I included some videos below that I posted to the site’s Instagram account today. I upload content all throughout the day on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and of course the video features on YouTube. Be sure that you’re subscribed to all of those sites to follow everything we upload (there is different content for each social media site).
Here are the updates from this afternoon.
Jameson Taillon’s Bullpen Session
Most of the pitchers today were throwing live batting practice. Jameson Taillon was limited to just a bullpen session. He is still only throwing bullpens on Tuesday and Friday, as the Pirates take a conservative approach with him this Spring. One good sign was that he was using all of his pitches today in the pen, including his curveball. The quick video below shows a nice curve on the second pitch.
When Taillon first started throwing bullpens a month ago, he was only throwing the curve off flat ground, from 60 feet away. He was also just starting to mix in his changeup at the end of his sessions. The fact that he was throwing all three today shows his progression, although don’t expect the Pirates to speed him up. Taillon will most likely spend the entire Spring at Pirate City, with the extent of his work being live batting practice, minor league games, and anything else where the Pirates will have absolute control over his pitch count.
Tyler Glasnow and Nick Kingham
Here are some quick videos of Tyler Glasnow and Nick Kingham throwing in the bullpen (a little dark, since it was overcast at this point). Glasnow is throwing to Reese McGuire, and Kingham is throwing to Jin-De Jhang.
Most of the pitchers today threw live batting practice, getting two innings of work each. That’s a progression from the last week, where pitchers would only throw a bullpen session that consistent of up to 35 pitches. Today each pitcher warmed up with a bullpen session, followed by the two innings of work, with a break in between.
Chris Stewart was one of the guys who went up against Glasnow. Afterwards, he commented about how after facing the right-hander, everyone else was easy.
As I mentioned yesterday, the Pirates will get everyone to three innings and 50 pitches, at which point they will determine which players will move forward as starters, and which will fall back to being relievers.
Video of Glasnow and McGuire #Pirates
A video posted by Pirates Prospects (@piratesprospects) on
Jung-ho Kang Batting Practice
The Korean media was out in full force today, and were very interested in Jung-ho Kang’s time in the cage, especially during his live batting practice. Below is a video of Kang getting a hit off a Casey Sadler sinkerball.
Tim started Pirates Prospects in 2009 from his home in Virginia, which was 40 minutes from where Pedro Alvarez made his pro debut in Lynchburg. That year, the Lynchburg Hillcats won the Carolina League championship, and Pirates Prospects was born from Tim's reporting along the way. The site has grown over the years to include many more writers, and Tim has gone on to become a credentialed MLB reporter, producing Pirates Prospects each year, and will publish his 11th Prospect Guide this offseason. He has also served as the Pittsburgh Pirates correspondent for Baseball America since 2019. Behind the scenes, Tim is an avid music lover, and most of the money he gets paid to run this site goes to vinyl records.
Kingham looks the sharpest to me out of the 3 pitchers we see here. Obviously Taillon’s coming back from TJS. Glasnow lloks a bit off but he’s a bigger lankier guy that probably has to shake some rust off. Kingham is always going to have that command and consistency though. He just doesn’t have the Glasnow or Taillon stuff. I still hope Kingham can consistently live in the 93-95 mph range. I am a huge fan of Taillon. I think he is still the best of the bunch. I think he has Jordan Zimmerman written all over him. He has power and finesse. I hope to see him throw his 4 seam 95-97mph and his 2 seam 93-95. With a very good Change and hard curve.
Jin-De Jhang is the king of positive reinforcement. Every pitch he either points at the pitcher or nods his head at them.
Tim
Anything to the reports on local Pgh radio that Kang appears cocky and disrupted a Hurdle press conference by singing?
Could be just 93.7 hosts stirring up trouble?
He came by and said something during the press conference. It was at the end, the majority of the people left were Korean media, and Hurdle (who has a very loud voice) was talking about him and talking about all of the Korean media being welcome, to the Korean media. My guess is Kang heard all of that and made a comment.
I didn’t think much of it. A lot of people laughed, including Hurdle. If he did that for every press conference, it would be different. But not in this circumstance.
Thanks, Tim. I appreciate you giving context to the comment made by Kang at the press conference. I encourage you and your readers to take a listen to this podcast with Dan Zangrilli of 93.7 where I find his claims about Kang being a distraction and annoying his teammates to be very irresponsible reporting:
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/audio/starkey-mueller/
It has already been refuted by Huntington and others inside and outside the organization that Kang’s statements about Mercer were taken out of context and reported incorrectly due to translation issues. It’s also ridiculous that Zangrilli and some others have reported that Kang called out Chapman when he just said he looks forward to facing him because he wants to see how he does against an elite pitcher.
It would be great if you can do an article about this at some point to debunk these myths. I find it hard to believe that his teammates are upset with him and rolling their eyes at him for his supposed antics. In my opinion, Zangrilli is a horrible pregame host and one of the most awkward and amateurish broadcasters I’ve ever heard in a major market. His reporting has been even worse than his broadcasting skills. I hope someone from the Pirates gets wind of these reports he’s making with no credible sources to back up his claims and confronts him about his irresponsible journalism.
I’ll first say that Dan is a friend and someone I’ve known for several years. He originally credentialed me when he worked for Altoona, back before this site went full-time. So leave the personal comments out of here.
As for the topic, I have no interest in an article on this, because it’s not a story. I’d rather write about Jameson Taillon’s rehab process, or Tyler Glasnow’s progression in camp and his off-speed stuff, or Josh Bell’s transition to first base. Those are all articles you will see on the site this week, and they’re all things that actually matter.
The absolute last thing I care to read about from a quality outlet such as P2 is how some radio hack is doing predictably radio hacky things.
Better than that, Tim.
Thanks…talk radio can make a mountain out of a molehill
Glasnow’s delivery, and maybe it is just that video I have no idea, reminds me a lot of Madison Bumgardner.
Maybe it’s just the angle, but that does seem uncanny. Never before thought of the Bumgardner comp seeing him before though.
I’m no scout but it looks a bit sloppy to me. The way his arm slings out makes me worried he’s heading for TJS. Kingham on the other hand looked much more compact and fluid. Tim what kind of pop was Kang getting off the bat?
That video was the one hit I saw. Was a low looping liner over where the shortstop would be.
That’s interesting, I also saw Glasnow was stepping across to the side and throwing across his body. My son HS level and gets preached at all the time to step directly to the plate to avoid control issues and arm stress. I’m no expert, what do I know? Could be the camera angle.