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Morning Report: Kevin Kramer is Leading the Way on Offense

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The last two Morning Reports covered the team hitting and pitching for the four affiliates of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Today we look at the individual players who are leading each team in some hitting categories, as well as the organizational leaders in some other categories. Tomorrow we will look at the pitchers. This is basically a look at the month of April in the system and something we can check back on at the end of next month for comparison. Since all of the teams have played about 20 games, I’m using a minimum of 40 plate appearances for the slash line stats.

Indianapolis

Avg: Chris Bostick, .304

OBP: Jose Osuna, .341

Slugging: Max Moroff, .485

Homers: Moroff, 5

Stolen Bases: Bostick, 3

Altoona

Avg: Kevin Kramer, .381

OBP: Kramer, .494

Slugging: Kramer, .619

Homers: Kramer, 3

Stolen Bases: Kramer and four others, 1

Bradenton

Avg: Casey Hughston, .319

OBP: Christian Kelley, .400

Slugging: Kevin Krause, .730

Homers: Logan Hill, 5

Stolen Bases: Cole Tucker, 11

West Virginia

Avg: Ty Moore, .368

OBP: Trae Arbet, .432

Slugging: Arbet, .609

Homers: Arbet, 4

Stolen Bases: Sandy Santos and Logan Ratledge, 4

Bradenton is getting contributions from everyone, with a couple hitters off to strong starts not making the top spot for any of the five categories. Kevin Kramer has been the entire show for Altoona, a team that has gone 5-for-11 in steals this season. Kramer’s .494 OBP is third best in all of the minors. As for some miscellaneous categories (covering the whole system), Ty Moore leads with eight doubles and his 25 hits is tied with Logan Hill for the most. Hill also leads with 17 runs scored and Logan Ratledge leads with 13 walks.

PIRATES GAME GRAPH

The Pirates were off on Thursday

TODAY’S SCHEDULE

Today’s Starter and Notes: The Pittsburgh Pirates had off Thursday. They now start a three game series against the Miami Marlins. Jameson Taillon will make his fifth start of the season tonight against 26-year-old left-hander Andrew Conley, who has a 3.00 ERA in 18 innings. Taillon allowed four runs over 5.1 innings in his last start. In his three previous outings, he gave up a total of two earned runs.

In the minors,  Steven Brault gets his fifth start tonight, as he continues to make his push for a starting spot with the Pirates. His last outing was his best, with nine strikeouts and one run over six innings. James Marvel has shown a strong improvement in his strikeouts so far this season, going from 41 in 65 innings last year, to 19 in 19.1 this season. That improvement has come with a sharp decline in his terrific GO/AO ratio, which has gone from 2.33 last year, down to 1.47 this season. That’s still a very strong ground ball rate, but not in the elite category like last year. Austin Coley will make his third straight start in place of Brandon Waddell, although Waddell is getting closer to returning.

MLB: Pittsburgh (9-12) @ Marlins (10-10) 7:05 PM
Probable starter: Jameson Taillon (2.13 ERA, 10:20 BB/SO, 25.1 IP)

AAA: Indianapolis (5-12) @ Scranton/WB (10-9) 6:35 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Steven Brault (3.00 ERA, 9:21 BB/SO, 21.0 IP)

AA: Altoona (11-8) vs Harrisburg (9-9) 6:00 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Austin Coley (2.76 ERA, 5:14 BB/SO, 16.1 IP)

High-A: Bradenton (11-10) @ Charlotte (8-12) 6:35 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Dario Agrazal (2.28 ERA, 2:14 BB/SO, 23.2 IP)

Low-A: West Virginia (10-12) @ Rome (14-7) 7:00 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: James Marvel (1.86 ERA, 6:19 BB/SO, 19.1 IP)

HIGHLIGHTS

Here is a tenth inning homer from Chase Simpson, which gave Altoona a 3-2 victory on Wednesday afternoon.

RECENT TRANSACTIONS

4/27: Eury Perez added to Indianapolis roster.

4/27: Jess Amedee placed on the disabled list. Trace Tam Sing added to Bradenton roster.

4/26: Pirates recall Gift Ngoepe. Dovydas Neverauskas optioned to Indianapolis.

4/25: Hector Garcia placed on disabled list. Mike Wallace added to West Virginia roster.

4/25: Jerrick Suiter added to Bradenton roster. Trace Tam Sing assigned to Extended Spring Training.

4/25: Antonio Bastardo placed on disabled list. Pirates recall Johnny Barbato.

4/24: Adam Frazier placed on disabled list. Pirates recall Dovydas Neverauskas.

4/20: Chris Diaz assigned to Altoona.

4/19: Brett McKinney assigned to Extended Spring Training. Johnny Barbato added to Indianapolis roster.

4/18: Starling Marte suspended 80 games by MLB. Pirates recall Jose Osuna

4/18: Brandon Waddell placed on disabled list

4/18: Joey Terdoslavich added to Indianapolis roster

4/18: Pedro Vasquez added to Bradenton roster. Julio Eusebio assigned to Extended Spring Training

4/17: Pirates acquire Johnny Barbato from New York Yankees. Barbato optioned to Indianapolis.

THIS DATE IN PIRATES HISTORY

Seven former Pittsburgh Pirates players born on this date, all of them pitchers. Recent pitchers include former first round draft pick Daniel Moskos, high-priced Cuban signing Yoslan Herrera and Romulo Sanchez, who pitched for the team during the 2007-08 seasons.

Older pitchers born on this date include Pedro Ramos (1969), Tom Sturdivant (1961-63) and  Walt Woods, who pitched for the Pirates on April 27,1900, one day before his 25th birthday. Woods had a 20-year career in pro ball, but he played in the majors during just three of those years.

The final pitcher born on this date was Red Lucas, who played five seasons for the Pirates, from 1934 until 1938. He went 47-32 during his time with Pittsburgh and Lucas has a very under-appreciated career. He won a total of 157 games, he made just 12 errors during his entire 14-year career and he was a .281 career hitter over 1,606 plate appearances. Lucas was used as a pinch-hitter almost 500 times, and he occasionally played infield during his career.

The link above also includes a trade from the 1910 season, where the Pirates tried to improve their pitching staff by giving up two players to the Boston Doves for Kirby White. Two years into his career at the time of the trade, White had  2.94 ERA over 174.1 innings, pitching for a Boston team that was awful. He seemed like a solid pickup for the Pirates and they didn’t give up much to get him, but he went 10-10, 3.46 in 153.1 innings for a strong Pirates team and then never pitched in the majors again after May, 1911.

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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