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Morning Report: The 2015 Draft Class is Moving Along at a Nice Pace

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Exactly one year ago, I took a look at the progress through the system for the Pittsburgh Pirates 2015 draft class. The Pirates signed 33 players that year, giving them a large group to follow. The breakdown by level for the players on April 21, 2016 was as follows:

Bradenton (4), including Kevin Newman, Kevin Kramer, Brandon Waddell and Logan Hill

West Virginia (15), including Ke’Bryan Hayes, Casey Hughston, JT Brubaker, Mitchell Tolman, Seth McGarry, Bret Helton and Logan Sendelbach among picks in the first ten rounds.

Extended Spring Training (13), including Jacob Taylor, Ike Schlabach, Sean Keselica and James Marvel

Retired (1) Nick Hibbing

2017 Teams

Here is the current breakdown of those 32 remaining players (minus Hibbing):

Altoona (7) including Newman, Kramer, Waddell, Brubaker, Keselica, Tanner Anderson and Tate Scioneaux

Bradenton (11) including Hayes, Hughston, Tolman, McGarry, Helton, Sendelbach, Hill, Christian Kelley, John Bormann, Jordan George and Daniel Zamora

West Virginia (4) including Ty Moore, Logan Ratledge, James Marvel and Albert Baur

Extended Spring Training (9) including Taylor, Schlabach, Scooter Hightower, Stephan Meyer, Nicolas Economos, Nathan Trevillian, Shane Kemp, Mike Wallace and Ryan Nagle

Released (1) Chris Plitt

What you see is that 31 of the 33 players are still in the system and the two who aren’t anymore are due to a retirement and Plitt not bouncing back well from his injury that caused him to miss all of last year. In one season, the Pirates went from four guys in Bradenton to 18 players between Bradenton and Altoona. Not surprisingly, all of the players in Altoona are college picks. That’s part of the reason that this class has moved quickly as a group. They only signed three high school players and one was Ke’Bryan Hayes.

If you looked at the 2016 draft class a year from now, you wouldn’t see the same success because four of the best picks were high school pitchers and the best case scenario is that they end up in West Virginia next year. Also, the 2016 group is smaller because they signed 28 players last year and three are already out of the system due to two retirements (Danny Beddes, Tyler Leffler) and one released player, Robbie Coursel.

** Time for the prospect updates for the three now four players in the majors who still have prospect status. Jose Osuna joined the group of three Opening Day prospects on the roster since we last did one of these updates. As promised, they would come after each Tyler Glasnow start until he graduated from being a prospect. I assume he will lose his prospect status first, then after that I’ll probably update every Sunday.

Glasnow went 4.2 innings on Friday night, giving him 11.1 this season and leaving him just 15.2 innings away from crossing that 50 IP barrier. Trevor Williams hasn’t pitched since the last update, so he is still 32.2 innings away. Alen Hanson didn’t have an at-bat until Friday night, but he sure is a swell pinch-runner. He is still 92 at-bats away. Jose Osuna just came up this week and has five at-bats, so he’s 126 at-bats away.

Clint Hurdle made it sound like Osuna would stay until Marte came back, but it would be tough to keep Austin Meadows down after the super 2 deadline passes. His slow start still hides the fact he has reached base safely in nine straight games after a single and a walk on Friday night. Meadows could safely be called up just over five weeks before Marte is able to come back, which would still give seven more weeks to rack up Triple-A at-bats in the meantime. Should be interesting to watch how they handle it.

PIRATES GAME GRAPH


Source: FanGraphs

TODAY’S SCHEDULE

Today’s Starter and Notes: The Pittsburgh Pirates won 6-3 over the New York Yankees on Friday night. The Pirates will go with Jameson Taillon today in game two of the series. In his last start, which came Sunday night at Wrigley, he allowed on unearned run over seven innings. The Yankees will counter with right-hander Michael Pineda, who has a 3.44 ERA over three starts.

In the minors, Josh Lindblom will go today for Indianapolis. He was originally scheduled for Friday, but he was switched with Steven Brault to keep Brault on his normal rest. Bradenton’s Dario Agrazal has allowed one earned run over his last 12 innings. Altoona’s Austin Coley will make his third start already, despite the fact he wasn’t in the Opening Day rotation. He got a spot start during a doubleheader the first week of the season, followed by two starts in place of Brandon Waddell. West Virginia has been postponed today due to weather.

MLB: Pittsburgh (7-9) vs Yankees (10-6) 4:05 PM
Probable starter: Jameson Taillon (0.90 ERA, 7:16 BB/SO, 20.0 IP)

AAA: Indianapolis (4-11) vs Scranton-WB (7-7) 7:15 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Josh Lindblom (3.27 ERA, 2:13 BB/SO, 11.0 IP)

AA: Altoona (9-5) @ Akron (5-9) 2:05 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Austin Coley (2.61 ERA, 4:11 BB/SO, 10.1 IP)

High-A: Bradenton (9-7) vs Jupiter (8-8) 6:30 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Dario Agrazal (1.62 ERA, 2:9 BB/SO, 16.2 IP)

Low-A: West Virginia (7-9) vs Lakewood (9-7) 2:05 PM POSTPONED (season preview)
Probable starter: James Marvel (1.93 ERA, 5:14 BB/SO, 14.0 IP)

HIGHLIGHTS

Here’s an RBI double from Edwin Espinal, his fourth double of the season. He went into Friday night’s action with a .415/.487/.585 slash line through 11 games.

RECENT TRANSACTIONS

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.

4/15: Cam Vieaux added to West Virginia roster. Mike Wallace assigned to Extended Spring Training

4/13: Julio Eusebio added to Bradenton roster. Pedro Vasquez assigned to Extended Spring Training

THIS DATE IN PIRATES HISTORY

Two former Pittsburgh Pirates players born on this date, and one Opening Day of note. The two former players both have longevity attached to their career. Mickey Vernon played in four different decades, starting in 1939 and ending in 1960 as a September pinch-hitter for the Pirates. He was actually the first base coach during that World Series winning season, but the Pirates activated him in September and he was used nine times. Vernon had a career that should get him Hall of Fame consideration, especially since he had 2,495 hits and over 1,300 RBIs, yet missed two years of his career while serving in WWII. The year after he returned from service, he won the AL batting title, so there is a good chance he would have added significantly to those numbers that look good without the two missing seasons.

The other player born on this date is Jake Pitler, an infielder for the 1917-18 Pirates. Those two seasons were his entire big league career, but he played in the minors until 1936 and managed for 17 seasons as well. Pitler was a regular for the Pirates in 1917, playing 109 games. The next season, he played just two games before the Pirates assigned him to the Jersey City Skeeters of the International League in early June. He left that team shortly after to join the war effort.

On this date in 1891, the Pittsburgh Pirates opened up their season with their new revamped lineup, but lost to Chicago in front of 5,500 fans by a 7-6 score. The Pirates had four Hall of Famers in their lineup, and another player who could still make it someday. First baseman Jake Beckley and pitcher Pud Galvin are in the HOF as players, while catcher Connie Mack and center fielder Ned Hanlon are in as managers. Left fielder Pete Browning was one of the top hitters of his day and he is the original Louisville Slugger. He has received some HOF support in the past and could get another push in the future.

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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