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First Pitch: The Big Benefit to Having Bristol as an Extra Team This Year

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Tonight I wrapped up my final minor league road trip of the season, covering 14 games in 14 days between West Virginia, Morgantown, and Bristol. I’ve had features for the last week on some of the players in West Virginia and Morgantown, and still have more to come. I also have a few from Bristol. But for the most part, this last stretch was a Prospect Guide trip.

We write about every player in the Prospect Guide, and for that reason, I like to see as many players as possible. There are maybe five players in the system now who I haven’t seen, and they’re mostly later round 2016 draft picks who are bench/bullpen guys. I’ll probably end up seeing them during instructs.

The Bristol team is largely made up of organizational guys, or long-shot lottery tickets with lower upsides. There are a few interesting prospects here, but very few who were in consideration for the top 50, and only one prospect who really stands out.

I was thinking about the purpose of this level during this trip, as this is only the third season the Pirates have had a team in Bristol. And that one player might be the exact reason for a team here.

That one player is Adrian Valerio. I’ll have a feature on him coming up next week (I’m taking a break from writing features the next few days, while Brian and Sean give you reports from Indianapolis and Altoona), and while I’ll have other features from Bristol, he’s the only real prospect right now. There are a few guys who snuck into the top 50 at the end, but they’re either projects, or injured (Blake Cederlind).

Valerio is a strong defensive shortstop who has some potential with the bat, but is very raw. He spent all year last year in the GCL at the age of 18, in just his second professional season. He was in the DSL in 2014, and was the top international signing in 2013, getting $400,000. All along, his defense has been the highlight, with some upside if the bat became consistent.

This year, the Pirates couldn’t push Valerio to West Virginia, because he wasn’t ready, as seen by his struggling numbers. They might have been able to push him to Morgantown, although after the 2016 draft, he was blocked by third round pick Stephen Alemais, who might be better defensively than Valerio. Without the Bristol team, Valerio would either be looking at a second year in the GCL, or splitting shortstop duties in Morgantown with Alemais.

The Appalachian League is a slight step up from the GCL, so Valerio now gets to advance a bit, but not to the point where he’s playing against the best college players from the 2016 draft. He’s now playing against the lower round college guys, and a lot of high school and JuCo guys from last year.

The Bristol team doesn’t have many top prospects, but they do have an extra starting shortstop position. They also have one at every other spot, for years where the Pirates want to get further starting evaluations on multiple guys. And then there’s the extra pitching spots, which the Pirates have been using in the last few years to give slightly less aggressive pushes to their prep pitchers (who would have previously gone to Morgantown). On that note, expect next year’s Bristol roster to be loaded, due to the 2016 prep pitchers.

It’s interesting how things have played out with this team this year. There’s not a lot of talent, because the prep pitchers from 2016 go to the GCL, the best college players go to Morgantown, the Pirates aggressively promote their top prep hitters to West Virginia, and they didn’t draft many prep pitchers last year (Ike Schlabach is the only one, and one of the other key prospects here), which leads to a weaker team. But the benefit here is providing an extra shortstop position in the lower levels, which allows the Pirates to give regular starts to two talented defensive shortstops who both need as much playing time at this stage of their careers as possible.

**Taylor Hearn Could Make the Mark Melancon Trade Look Like a Steal For Years. I saw Hearn pitch three innings last week, talked with him extensively about his game and his transition to the Pirates, and talked with his pitching coach and manager. I came away with the impression that he’s going to help make the Mark Melancon trade look like a steal.

**Prospect Watch: Braeden Ogle and Austin Shields Pitch Well in GCL Pirates Victory. As it lines up right now, I’ll be getting my first in-game look at these two next Monday. Tonight’s Prospect Watch had live reports from Indianapolis and Bristol.

**Minor Moves: Yeudy Garcia and Chase Simpson Placed on Disabled List. It doesn’t sound like Garcia will miss more than one start, as it’s minor.

**Two Early Round 2016 Draft Picks Out For the Rest of Bristol’s Season. Updates on two of the top prospects from Bristol who are out the rest of the season.

**Morning Report: Kingham Moving Up, Bristol Remaining Down. I’m also looking forward to seeing the next stages of Nick Kingham’s rehab when I return to Bradenton.

Tim Williams
Tim Williams
Tim is the owner, producer, editor, and lead writer of PiratesProspects.com. He has been running Pirates Prospects since 2009, becoming the first new media reporter and outlet covering the Pirates at the MLB level in 2011 and 2012. His work can also be found in Baseball America, where he has been a contributor since 2014 and the Pirates' correspondent since 2019.

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