BRADENTON — The Pirates will begin their Fall Instructional League (instructs) schedule on Wednesday. If you’re unfamiliar with instructs, it’s a post-season camp for minor league players, operated in a similar fashion as Spring Training. There are workouts each day, and games that are played. In previous years, the Pirates played other organizations, including the Blue Jays, Phillies, and Yankees. This year they will be playing mostly intrasquad games, with a few games against the Baltimore farm system, who hold their camp in Sarasota, just south of Bradenton.
Here is the schedule for instructs this year, with the first game taking place on Wednesday.
I will have live coverage of most of the first half of camp, along with some coverage at the end, depending on my schedule for the Pirates in the post-season. The first live report will come on Wednesday afternoon. Here is the roster of players who are currently slated to attend instructs.
This list is incomplete, as we’ve already heard about 11 players who are making the jump from the DSL to instructs, and none of those players are on the list. We’ve confirmed that those players are in camp, so it’s possible that they’ll be participating but won’t be playing in games. The list also lacks any 2015 draft picks, and recent draft picks have always attended instructs in the past. So expect more players to be in attendance than the ones listed above.
