At least to begin the week, the Pittsburgh Pirates and their four full-season affiliates all have .500 records or better.
Triple-A: Indianapolis Indians
After finally inching back to even, the Indianapolis Indians — sitting 4.5 games back of division lead — welcome to town the Omaha Storm Chasers. The Kansas City Royals affiliate is last in the division, with the second worst record in the International League. There aren’t many top prospects to talk about, with the sole top 5 prospect Nick Loftin on the injured list. It’s, a very veteran laden roster, as we’ve often become accustomed to with Pirates affiliates at times. What I find ironic is, with all the talk about how Triple-A and Double-A are equivalent, and wanting their prospects to face the top of top pitching, the Pirates decided to promote Henry Davis to Triple-A when the Indians will be facing one of the league’s worst pitching staffs. So, if Tank is going to hit the ground running and make a big first impression, it’s a great week to do it.
Opponent: OMAHA (ROYALS)
Opponent Stats
Team OPS: .792 OPS
Rank: 9/20
Team ERA: 5.73
ERA Rank: 18/20
Top Prospects
Player | Position | Pipeline Ranking
- NICK LOFTIN (7-Day IL) | UTL | 4
- TYLER GENTRY | OF | 7
- SAMAD TAYLOR | 2B/OF | 20
- TUCKER BRADLEY | OF | 27
DOUBLE-A: ALTOONA CURVE
The Altoona Curve are riding a five game winning streak into Richmond this week, sitting a game back of the division lead. The Richmond Flying Squirrels are the San Francisco Giants Double-A affiliate, and carry ten of the Giants’ top 30 prospects, with only one of the ten on the injured list. Back to the irony of the Davis promotion, the Flying Squirrels have the fourth best Team ERA and seven of the nine healthy prospects are pitchers. Of the two non-pitching prospects is the lone Top 100 representative of the week, Marco Luciano. The Curve have three series before the end of the first half (June 25th), and it’s a good week to keep the win streak rolling.
Opponent: RICHMOND (GIANTS)
Opponent Stats
Team OPS: .696 OPS
Rank: 10/12
Team ERA: 4.12
ERA Rank: 4/12
Top Prospects
Player | Position | Pipeline Ranking
- MARCO LUCIANO | SS | 2
- MLB Pipeline Top 100: #18
- Baseball America Top 100: #31
- VAUN BROWN | OF | 5
- CARSON WHISENHUNT | LHP | 8
- MASON BLACK | RHP | 10
- LANDEN ROUPP | RHP | 13
- CARSON SEYMOUR | RHP | 17
- RANDY RODRIGUEZ | RHP | 25
- RYAN MURPHY | RHP | 26
- JOSE CRUZ | RHP | 29
- WADE MECKLER (7-Day IL) | OF | 30
HIGH-A: GREENSBORO GRASSHOPPERS
As is becoming a theme of this week, the Greensboro Grasshoppers are two games back of their division lead. They’ll battle Washington Nationals affiliate Wilmington Blue Rocks, who are in lockstep with the Grasshoppers, trailing them by 1.5 games. The Blue Rocks have eight of the Nationals top 30 prospects, with two of those being rehab assignments. There aren’t many names of note, other than the roster consists of a handful draft picks of recent years.
Opponent: WILMINGTON (NATIONALS)
Opponent Stats
Team OPS: .733 OPS
Rank: 7/12
Team ERA: 4.21
ERA Rank: 5/12
Top Prospects
Player | Position | Pipeline Ranking
- JEREMY DE LA ROSA | OF | 8
- JAKE BENNETT | LHP | 9
- T.J. WHITE | OF | 10
- COLE HENRY (Rehab) | RHP | 12
- ANDRY LARA | RHP | 14
- TREY LIPSCOMB | 3B | 18
- ISRAEL PINEDA (Rehab) | C | 21
- JARED MCKENZIE | OF | 24
SINGLE-A: BRADENTON MARAUDERS
The Marauders are three games above .500, but the Clearwater Threshers should have the first half division in hand with a few weeks left. This week the Marauders will be visited by Toronto Blue Jays affiliate, the Dunedin Blue Jays. The Blue Jays roster has four healthy top 30 prospects, and probably the most interesting non-top 100 prospect in Brandon Barriera. He was Toronto’s 2022 first round pick, a LHP out of high school. He began the year with a shoulder issue, but has amassed 13.1 innings since being activated at the beginning of May. He’s walked six, while hitting four batters, but has struck out 18 so far. If there was a specific game to keep an eye out for, I think the day Barriera takes the mound would be the one to watch out for.
Opponent: DUNEDIN (BLUE JAYS)
Opponent Stats
Team OPS: .659 OPS
Rank: 9/10
Team ERA: 3.85
ERA Rank: 4/10
Top Prospects
Player | Position | Pipeline Ranking
- BRANDON BARRIERA | LHP | 2
- TUCKER TOMAN | SS | 5
- ADRIAN PINTO (7-Day IL) | SS/2B/OF | 16
- MANUEL BELTRE | SS | 20
- IRV CARTER | RHP | 27
Pirates Prospects Daily
By Tim Williams
**P2Live: Pirates Keep Winning, Rookie Ball Begins with Strong Debuts
**JP Massey is Named as Florida State League Pitcher of the Month for May
**Plenty Of Wheels In Motion After Henry Davis Promotion
Song of the Day
Jeff Reed with the pick today.
Can’t wait till the next Indy and Louisville series. It’s going to be:
Louisville (Reds)
lol
We need Prospect Watch to come back.
It’s in P2Live each night.
Good article in the PG ABOUT Shackleford this morn.
https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pirates/2023/06/05/pittsburgh-pirates-pipeline-aaron-shackelford-quinn-preister-miguel-andujar-anthony-solometo/stories/202306050090
Altho, as one commenter noted, 47 K’s in 171 PAs is NOT 33% but 26%.
The math works if ABs was the denominator. Is it ABs or PAs that is used to calculate K% and BB%?
You are right. It should be using PAs per Fangraphs.
Let the game within the game begin. Davis vs Endy with the winner to earn a promotion to Pittsburgh.
Are you #TeamEndy or #TeamTank to earn the promotion first?
Endy seemingly is ahead of Davis, but Davis’ status as a #1 pick may hold sway in BC’s mind.
I say Endy wins this battle and replaces Delay on the 26-man roster later this month.
I say Endy becomes Craig Biggio and Hank becomes Jeff Bagwell. And they do it at the same time.
My vote is Team Endy. No reason, just because 🙂
Left/right swinging catcher duo? Anytime the Bucs have been good, we’ve had that set up. As Flounder said in Animal House, this is gonna be great!
Endy is versatile and can play lots of places. I’m thinking they’re gonna leave the two in Indy for a bit and work on how they’ll get them both in the lineup enough and how they’ll both extend each other’s careers.
The only need to bring Endy up now would be to look around and see and learn with spot starts around the diamond.
The way Hedges gunned down Ruiz last night, when every soul in the park knew he had crime in his heart, was something. He had a big lead, but Holderman was short to the plate and Hedges was quick with a great throw.
I suspect Hedges will be dealt at the deadline, but not if we’re in contention. If we’re in contention, you’ll see Endy when rosters expand. I think the classy thing to do is deal Hedges to a good team with a need at some point. You get more for a proven guy like that and there is no doubt he can hold his own in the bigs.
I sincerely think Delay is the sleeper-keeper here. No, he is not a .300 hitting catcheteer, but he has steadily improved since his days in Toon-Town and I think he’s got a long MLB career ahead of him. I feel like you get a possible Cerberus situation at catcheteer which will actually be good for everyone. And ya keeps Delay bc he at least knows where the bat rack is located.
And that’s all Forest has to say about that.
-BB
I’m gonna say Tank, cause in their development, his bat is the most likely tool to carry over in terms of aiding the club immediately. Both still could use defensive polish.
The Pirates development technique for defensive polishing
I think they are doing a very professional job of making it clear to everyone that it isn’t a competition. They are two teammates who will play the same position sometimes like marcano and bae and Rodolpho.
I understand why the Pirates are saying and doing what they are saying and doing. However, I can guarantee you Davis and Endy very much want to do better than the other guy. So in that respect, it very much is a competition.
Then we have Father Abrahan feeling left out a step behind… You know he is swearing that he is not hoping for an injury to either one of Tank or Endy……