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2017 Winter Mini-Camp: Day Three Discussion Thread

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The 2017 winter mini-camp began Monday for the Pittsburgh Pirates down at Pirate City in Bradenton, Florida. It’s four days of voluntary workouts for players on the 40-man roster. No one from the 40-man roster is required to show up, but a many of them will be there for at least one day, while some will spend all four days there. You will also see a lot of players who were Non-Roster Invites in attendance, getting a jump on their season. There will also be some minor league players in attendance. Some of them will be invited players, while others will be getting an early start on their Spring Training.

Tim Williams has been providing live coverage of the event and will be there all four days. Here we have a discussion thread posted for the minor news of the day. It will be updated throughout the morning and early afternoon. Anything bigger, such as an interview, breaking news or videos from the day, will be posted in separate articles.

Here are some of the notes from day one and day two, while we will add any notes from today throughout the morning:

**The first bit of news on Monday was that the Pirates announced the non-roster invitees to Spring Training. The list included 19 names and also noted that Danny Ortiz has been brought back on a minor league deal. If you’ve been following the winter league coverage, you already know he had quite the off-season in Puerto Rico, winning the league batting title and leading the league in OPS. He’s currently taking part in the playoffs.

**Tim Williams talked to Austin Meadows on Monday about his injuries and his future. The First Pitch article from Monday night included videos of Meadows in the batting cages, along with video on Josh Bell hitting and taking grounders.

**Tuesday featured Casey Sadler and Angel Sanchez throwing bullpens, as they make their way back from Tommy John surgery. The First Pitch from last night has videos of both players, as well as an update on Brandon Cumpton.

**Neal Huntington talked to the media on Tuesday about various topics, which can all be found here.

**Wednesday saw the arrival of Nick Kingham at mini-camp. The Pirates expected a total of 37 players to show up on the Major League side of mini-camp, and now only Gregory Polanco has yet to make his appearance. Of those 37 players, 20 are on the 40-man roster, and 17 are non-roster invites to ST.

**The last three days we have posted about Pirates being rated among the top ten players at their position by Buster Olney. Starling Marte ranked second for left field, Andrew McCutchen was fifth for center field and Gregory Polanco was seventh for right field. Catchers came out today and Francisco Cervelli missed the top ten, falling in the Honorable Mention category instead. His low slugging percentage was cited as the main factor for his drop. He was fourth at this time last year for Olney.

**We have a Josh Bell article coming up later today. More news to follow, so check back for updates and feel free to discuss any Pirates topic in the comments.

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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