First Pitch: Wrapping Up the Minor League Season

Today wrapped up the bulk of the minor league seasons for the individual teams in the Pirates’ farm system. Bradenton, Altoona, West Virginia, and the GCL Pirates are now finished.

Indianapolis finished their regular season today, and will go on to the International League playoffs, which start on Wednesday. There won’t be many “prospects” playing in those games. The Pirates have raided the Indians, leaving them with a lineup that includes players like Anderson Hernandez, Hector Luna, Dallas McPherson, Brandon Boggs, and Jeff Larish.  The main guys to watch are the guys who were recently promoted to Triple-A: Gerrit Cole, Matt Curry, and Ramon Cabrera. Chase d’Arnaud and Matt Hague are the only prospects left from the 40-man roster on the hitting side. Bryan Morris was inexplicably left in Triple-A, despite being out of options next year (in other words, now is the time to see what they have in him). The other top prospect at the level is Tony Sanchez, who currently has a broken toe.

For the hardcore prospect followers, the DSL Championship round is taking place this week. The Pirates are currently tied 1-1 with the Angels, with game three taking place tomorrow.

I don’t know why the New York-Penn League will be finishing their season on Wednesday, but that’s the case this year. The final two games in State College will feature some good pitchers. Tyler Glasnow was promoted today from the GCL and will make his State College debut tomorrow. Luis Heredia will make his final start of the year in the season finale on Wednesday. John Eshleman will have coverage of both games for the site.

We will start wrapping up the minor league seasons with three-part recaps for every team. The first of those recaps will start tomorrow, profiling the GCL Pirates. From there we will move on to West Virginia, Bradenton, Altoona, and then the other teams as they finish their respective seasons.

The “Prospect Watch” and “Minor League Schedule” features will still run until there are no more games. From there we will take a few weeks off from minor league coverage — and hopefully we’ll have some meaningful major league games to focus on during that stretch — until the Fall Instructional Leagues begin at the end of the month.

I’d just like to take this moment to thank everyone for reading the site this year. We’re already well beyond last year’s traffic totals, and it’s only the beginning of September. This is the fourth year that the site has been running. When I started it, I never dreamed it would get to this point. In fact, I didn’t even think this point was possible at all. The support shown to the site over the years has been truly overwhelming, and is greatly appreciated. I’m already working on making next year even better.

Links and Notes

**The Pirates lost to the Astros 5-1.

**Pirates Notebook: Locke Better Than Line; Pirates Keeping it One Day at a Time.

**Prospect Watch: Von Rosenberg Throws Complete Game; Crazy Game in Indy.

**Indians Win Season Finale; Larish Plays 8 Positions, and Reliever Diaz Steals Third.

**Jeff Clement Selected; Oscar Tejeda Designated for Assignment.

**Minor League Schedule: 9/4/12.