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After Key Changes in Triple-A, Trevor Williams Ready For His Shot in Pittsburgh

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PITTSBURGH — The Pirates’ cadre of promising young starting pitchers has been one of the hallmarks of the team’s prospect pool for the last few years.

From first-round draft picks Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon to high-upside prep pitchers like Tyler Glasnow and Nick Kingham to reliable college arms such as Chad Kuhl and Steven Brault, the Pirates have plenty of pitching talent — and that’s just amongst those close to the majors.

So it was easy for Trevor Williams to get lost in the shuffle. To begin with, the Pirates acquired Williams in perhaps the most unconventional of fashions. He was flipped to the Pirates from the Miami Marlins in exchange for Richard Mitchell last October. But that’s only half correct. The reason the Marlins traded Williams, who was at the time their fifth-best prospect, for Mitchell, a GCL pitcher, was to get the Pirates to release pitching coordinator Jim Benedict from his contract.

Acquired for a team official and buried beneath a ton of top prospects at Triple-A, it would have been easy for many to overlook Williams. Then, he went down with a shoulder injury at the beginning of the season. That may have turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

“[The Pirates] made a few pitching changes once I came off the DL this year,” Williams said at PNC Park Tuesday. “I think it’s just having an aggressive mindset to force weak contact.”

That adjustment took some time to take hold. When Taillon made his major-league debut in early June, Williams had a 4.87 ERA and was probably the least-heralded pitcher on the staff.

The call-ups continued, as Brault, Glasnow, Kuhl and even Wilfredo Boscan were called up to the majors.

“Being a starting pitcher, you’re a fan for four of five days. Seeing those guys go up, I got to be a fan from Indianapolis and watch them in Pittsburgh,” Williams said. “It was never ‘don’t forget about me.’ I knew I had work to do. I knew I had stuff to work on.”

At one point it seemed like he was the last pitcher left in Indianapolis.

“The saying we always said down there was, ‘We’re competing with each other, not against each other,’” Taillon said. “We competed to push each other, not compete to take each other’s spot. If we did well enough, we’d all go up. Sure enough, it worked.”

So Williams kept on pitching, and the adjustments made at the beginning of the season started to pay dividends.

“We’re very pleased with his development,” manager Clint Hurdle said. “We felt very optimistic [when we got] him from the Marlins. We had a good look at him in Spring Training. … You can’t bring them all up all the time. If you think about it, we actually had all five of the starters up here at one time. He was able to stay on point and get the work in that we feel was most beneficial to him and his development.”

From the all-star break on, Williams has been pretty much un-hittable in Triple-A. He has a 1.55 ERA, 45 strikeouts compared to 16 walks and allowed just one home run in the second half.

“It’s obviously been working well for me in Triple-A,” he said. “Hopefully, it carries over into the bigs.”

The emotional journey from top prospect, to odd trade bait, to the back of the pack in the minors and now to his first trip to the big leagues hasn’t been lost on Williams.

“It’s amazing. I found out yesterday I was coming up. Obviously, it’s an unbelievable feeling,” he said. “It still kind of hasn’t hit me yet.”

Williams will start out in the bullpen, but could be an option for a spot start down the stretch. He doesn’t seem to mind how he’s used.

“I’m just going to be ready for whenever the phone rings,” he said. “I’ll be ready to throw.”

He’s been encouraged by the success that his former teammates have had at the major-league level.

“They keep bringing guys up and having success,” he said. “They wouldn’t bring guys up if they weren’t ready for it. It showed. Everyone that’s come up has had success. Hopefully, I can keep adding on to that progression.”

At least one of those teammates thinks Williams has what it takes to make an impact.

“I was actually talking about him in the dugout the past couple of days,” Taillon said. “I think he really has a chance to come up here and have an impact and be a help. I think Pirates fans are really going to like him.”

Williams thinks there are some more talented pitchers coming behind him, as well.

“We had a lot of guys come up this year and we had a lot of guys had success,” he said. “I think that just shows how great of an organization the Pirates are and how it is down through the system. I’m sure guys from Double-A could have come up and have success. They have a great team, as well.”

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