Welcome to the Pirates Prospects daily video rundown, where we pull some of the top videos of the Pittsburgh Pirates across the internet.
JT Brubaker
The righty has had a strong spring so far, leading the majors in strikeouts after his latest outing. Brubaker has struck out 26 batters in 17.1 innings in five starts this spring. In his latest outing against the Philadelphia Phillies, he was able to complete five innings for the first time, allowing two runs and striking out six batters.
JT Brubaker in Spring:
17.1 Innings
26 Strikeouts
3 Walks
1.10 WHIP pic.twitter.com/HxHgKYgfIt— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) March 21, 2023
Andrew McCutchen
McCutchen hit his first home run of the spring on Tuesday, a two-run shot that put the Pirates right back into the game.
Ladies & Gentlemen… Andrew McCutchen. pic.twitter.com/JoKMS7AowF
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) March 21, 2023
Oneil Cruz
Gotta hit it a little higher than that 😂 pic.twitter.com/7G8cJNYkNQ
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) March 21, 2023
There are several advantages to having a 6’7″ shortstop, with this being among the best of them.
Anthony began writing over 10 years ago, starting a personal blog to cover the 2011 MLB draft, where the Pirates selected first overall. After bouncing around many websites covering hockey, he refocused his attention to baseball, his first love when it comes to sports. He eventually found himself here at Pirates Prospects in late 2021, where he covers the team’s four full season minor league affiliates.
It’ll be huge if JT can step up and be in the same bucket as Keller/Roansy. He’s got the pitch selection to do it
can´t get past the fifth inning
he is not any good
You’ve said this before despite all the evidence that he is actually very good, just working hard to figure out how to put it together. What’s with the lack of patience with talent? Should we have moved on from Keller two years ago?
career 5.44 era in the 5th inning
Keller was a top ten prospect in all of mlb
His issues are consistency and avoiding giving up long balls.
He always has had the pitches. He’s struck out a batter an inning three straight seasons. His career FIP is 3.96. Clearly the skill and talent are there if he can learn the sequencing and execute. He might be a 5 inning guy, though. He seems to run out of juice. But there are a lot of very valuable 5 inning guys. Dylan Cease. Tyler Glasnow. Drew Rasmussen. He isn’t at that level, but he also is clearly not a 5 ERA starter according to stuff. Hopefully he does what Keller did last year.
I read a FanGraphs article where a commenter suggested his favorite team fleece the pirates for brubaker before they realized what they had. Too late. The pirates know and have all along.
Hopefully our veteran catchers can shepherd him through his starts this spring!
Agree, and Oviedo has pitched much better lately than in his earlier outings – a better and more long term option than VV.
Impressed with the efficiency of both Keller and BRU – hopefully the struggle to get 5 IP before hitting 100 pitches is behind them. That has been an unneeded strain on their arms the first 3 years.
2023 is just their 4th years of Service and hopefully they can both serve as anchors for Contreras, Oviedo, Ortiz, Priester, and Burrows. Buying Quintana and Hill has served a purpose that should no longer be necessary in future years. The Pirates have about $36 mil invested in Hill, Santana, Hedges, ‘Cutch, Choi, VV, Garcia, and Stephenson for 2023.
‘Cutch has gotten himself into great shape and looks VG at 36!
The only thing I can add is they need to give these starters better defense behind them. I can still see in my mind the past few years of guys like JT and Mitch struggling to get out of a jam then outfielder runs a bad route and misplays an out or an infielder throws a ball in the dirt and the first baseman can’t make a routine pick. It puzzles me how the worse hitting team in baseball has ran the poorest defense out on the field also. Has to have been very stressful pitching for this team in that time. We’ll see in the next few cuts whether they are going with hoping defensively challenged guys are going to hit better than their career stats indicate or go with good defensive players hoping they can hit better then their career stats indicate.
agreed on the efficiency thing so frustrating to see a pitcher go up 0-2 and then nibble for 3 straight balls and/or even worse, non competitive pitches.