P2Daily: Outfield Getting Crowded In Bradenton As Season Winds Down

The Pittsburgh Pirates didn’t use many of their draft picks on position players, but they did snag a pair of outfielders along the way. Less than a month after the draft, both are in Single-A playing for the Bradenton Marauders.

With seven wins in their last 10 games, the Marauders find themselves in first place in the Florida State League, west division in the second half of the season.

While the Marauder rotation has some very promising young arms, the team’s strength down the strength could come from the outfield, as they got additional boosts in Deion Walker and Tanner Tredaway on Friday. This isn’t even counting Rodolfo Nolasco, who has been on the injured list since August 5.

Tres Gonzalez picked up his first hit with Bradenton on Friday, driving in a run. While his overall numbers still don’t look great, Sergio Campana has picked up seven hits in his last five games, including a pair of doubles on Friday. He’s been solid when he’s made contact, and has some of the best speed in the system, but is still striking out too much.

It will be interesting to see how the outfield rotation shakes out, but a potential outfield of Campana-Walker-Jasiah Dixon may be one of the fastest in the minors, and shouldn’t see too many baseballs find the grass in the outfield.

Peguero Warming Back Up

When the season started, there were few hitters that got off to a better start than Liover Peguero. He even got a quick cup of coffee with the major league team, picking up a hit as well. He’s struggled a bit since coming back down to Altoona, but recently picked up his 100th hit of the season on Friday.

Though he did extend his hitting streak, only getting a double snapped a four game streak where Peguero had picked up multiple hits.

In Friday’s game, Peguero also passed the amount of at-bats he recorded in 2021 (374 in Greensboro, 376 now with Altoona), and looking at the numbers there’s plenty there to say he’s still making the proper steps forward.

	At Bats	Hits	Strikeouts	XBH	GB%
Greensboro	374	101	105	35	49.8%
Altoona	376	100	88	32	42.5%

Peguero has 17 fewer strikeouts in a nearly identical number of at-bats from a year ago, and is hitting a lot less ground balls in Altoona. The hit totals are nearly identical, but in favor for his time in Greensboro, which probably shouldn’t be too surprising, and encouraging that he’s nearly kept pace with what he did last year in about the same amount of at-bats.

Gutierrez Continues To Hit

I talked about the Greensboro catchers getting the opportunity to step up and flex their defensive abilities after Endy Rodriguez was promoted. Abrahan Gutierrez has taken it a step further.

In three games this week since Rodriguez has moved on to Altoona, Gutierrez is 4-for-13 with a home run and two doubles, driving in three total runs in the process. Jersey Shore also hasn’t stolen a base yet this week, despite being tied for fourth in the South Atlantic League in the category.