P2Daily: From 28 to 26-Man Rosters

The Pirates have a decision to make in the next day.

Two of them, actually.

MLB rosters were expanded for the first month of the season, due to the impact of the lockout shortening Spring Training. Today is the final day of the rosters being at 28. After today, every team will need to trim down to 26-man active rosters.

The Pirates currently have 15 pitchers and 13 position players. It probably won’t be difficult to find players to send down, as the Pirates have brought some players up recently. Beau Sulser and Jack Suwinski are the most recent examples of prospects who are probably inevitably going down to the minors when their roster spots are gone.

That’s not to say those two are the obvious choices. The Pirates could opt to send down a struggling player instead, such as Miguel Yajure, who might be better off right now working out of Indianapolis, than the Pittsburgh bullpen.

Inevitably, the Pirates will lose one or two pitchers in the next day. That raises a question of how effective and how extensive their pitching approach will be with guys like Wil Crowe and Dillon Peters working more long-relief situations to keep the starter workloads lower.

Part of that strategy was due to the shortened Spring Training. I think part of it is just a strategy that the Pirates are adopting that is here to stay.

Now that the rosters are trimming down to normal size, we’ll get a chance to see how the Pirates continue this strategy with fewer pitchers.

How do you think that adjustment will go? Leave your thoughts in the comments.