Yesterday I had my weekly radio segment with David Todd on ESPN 970, and we covered a lot of topics, with many involving players in Altoona. Here is a quick rundown.
**Last week we discussed the results of the draft, but this time around we touched on Kevin Newman, his upside, and where he would fit in our updated prospect rankings, which are in the works.
**We discussed the recent promotions for Willy Garcia and Keon Broxton, and the demotion for Mel Rojas. The interesting thing here is that last year in the second half, Rojas got the promotion over those two. That was legit, as he was ahead of both, but obviously things have changed since then.
**On the subject of outfielders, we touched on the fact that the Pirates have a strength at the outfield position throughout the system, which means if they need to trade someone, it would make sense to deal from that outfield depth. The outfield in the majors is set for the next few years, and they have so many outfield prospects trending upwards in the minors that they could trade a few of them and still have several options to keep around for themselves for the future.
**Sean McCool wrote about Jacob Stallings yesterday, noting his offense has improved. I broke down what works with the defense, and gave a Chris Stewart comp, giving Stallings the upside of a defensive minded MLB backup catcher.
**Jeff Inman has had some impressive velocity lately, along with good numbers. He’s an interesting pitcher, and we discussed his stuff and upside, but ultimately he’s behind a lot of guys with similar stuff, including the recently promoted Yhonathan Barrios. So don’t expect him to get a shot in the majors with the Pirates this year, unless a lot goes wrong.
**Gift Ngoepe does have a shot in the majors in the future, all for his defense. We discussed how good that defense has been, and how he could reach the big leagues.
**Finally, I had the reminder on the show, but I’ll be covering the Dominican Summer League live next week on Monday and Tuesday, with a lot of content coming from the academy down there. It’s a long way from the majors, but it’s a very important aspect of the Pirates’ development, especially when you consider Gregory Polanco and Starling Marte currently making an impact in the majors.
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