From Friday in Australia, Robbie Glendinning, who was selected by the Pirates in the 21st round of the 2017 draft, made his winter debut for the Perth Heat. He played shortstop and went 0-for-1 with three walks and a run scored. Glendinning hit .198/.342/.229 in 29 games with Morgantown after being drafted. Going back to 2008 (first year for winter stats on Pirates.com), no other draft pick has played winter ball during the same year they were drafted.
Michael Suchy went 1-for-4 with a walk and a run scored. He extended his hitting streak to eight games and now has a .250/.344/.421 slash line through 21 games.
From Colombia, we have results from the last two games for 17-year-old shortstop Francisco Acuna. On Tuesday night, he went 2-for-2, with a walk, sacrifice hit and a run scored. On Wednesday, he went 0-for-4 with an RBI. Acuna handled a season-high ten chances in that game without an error. Through 35 games, he is hitting .243/.372/.308, with five doubles, a triple and three stolen bases.
In Venezuela on Thursday, Elvis Escobar went 2-for-4 with his ninth double and his 14th RBI. He is hitting .260/.320/.326 through 60 games. His regular season ends tonight, but his team has made the playoffs.
Engelb Vielma went 1-for-4 with a single and a run scored. He is hitting .240/.311/.302 through 34 games.
In Mexico, Jerrick Suiter played in his sixth game this winter. It was his second game as a first baseman (other four were as a DH). He went 2-for-4 with two singles and a run scored. Suiter is hitting .231/.286/.269 through 28 plate appearances.
Carlos Munoz went 1-for-4 with a single and an RBI. He’s hitting .273/.366/.369 in 63 games.
In the Dominican league playoffs, Anderson Feliz went 0-for-3 with a walk. He went 1-for-4 in his playoff debut on Tuesday.
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.
Another note: that is a very fit looking umpire. It looks like he’s in playing shape.
Damn…I had forgotten about him.
EDIT: Ha, ha…this is what I get for sending on my phone…this was meant to be in the Heredia comment below.
I was wondering why you had known the umpire in the first place to have forgotten about him.
If only my knowledge base extended to the point where I could identify umpires in Australia by their physiques…some team, somewhere, would give me mid-six figures for my analytical skills 🙂
Is Luis Heredia completely gone from the system?
He became a free agent in early November and hasn’t signed anywhere yet. He actually had some type of injury this off-season while getting ready for winter ball and hasn’t pitched yet in Mexico. So it’s no surprise that he hasn’t signed yet.
That is one of the weirdest triple slash lines I have ever seen that Glendinning put up. Does he hate swinging or something?
There are only 2 slashes in that line? I am confused.
Small sample size, plus a lot of walks/HBP = high OBP
He had 19 hits, three were doubles, no triples or homers.
Does he legitimately have a good eye, though, or was the sample small enough that it could just be attributed to pitchers often missing badly against him?
I didn’t see him much because he barely played and more of his games were on the road so they weren’t broadcast on MiLB. That being said, he has always had a lot of walks and a high strikeout total since the start of college, so I’m guessing he takes a lot of pitches. That style works at the lower levels, but won’t as he advances in the system.