Talking Baseball: Vol. 28
Talking about the Pittsburgh Pirates, Konnor Griffin, ABS challenges, Shohei Ohtani and Mason Miller.
We are through the first full month of the Major League Baseball season, and I have some concerns with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
It is not the current five-game losing streak.
It is not the 16-16 record.
It is May 1. Unless you are 10 games over .500 or 10 games under .500 I am not sure anybody’s record is telling you much of anything at this point. Everybody is mostly jumbled together and there is still a lot of noise as everybody figures out what they are.
I am also not overly concerned with individual ERA/OPS/batting average numbers. It is a long season and there is a lot of time for those things to come down or go up. Small sample sizes early in the season produce a lot of noise.
I am not fully on board with an Oneil Cruz breakout just because he has an OPS over .820 right now.
I do not care that Paul Skenes ERA is over 3.00 after Thursday’s start, nor do I have any concern over it. Or with him.
What I am concerned about are the more big-picture items.
Coming into this season the biggest concern with this roster on paper was how well it would be able to catch the baseball. Not only did they assemble a roster of players that are below average defensively, they have a lot of them playing out of position, learning new positions or having them play multiple positions. Through the first 32 games, this team is as bad as advertised defensively. Outside of Konnor Griffin, Spencer Horwitz and Henry Davis I am not sure there is anybody else on the roster that is even average defensively at their spot. And I am not really sure how good those three are at their spots. Griffin might be the best, and he is still only 20 years old trying to get his feet wet in the Major Leagues. That is a problem.
I am concerned about the lack of pitching depth. Braxton Ashcraft had one start pushed back and it completely derailed everything. They still have Carmen Mlodzinski out of place in a starter’s role to throw 3.2 innings every start. That is a problem. They need Jared Jones to come back, and to be effective when he does.
They need Bubba Chandler to emerge as a front-line starter, and for him to do that he has to be able to consistently find the strike zone. He is doing everything but that. That is a concern.
The big concern with Marcell Ozuna coming into this season was how healthy he is and whether or not he still has the bat speed and power to deliver as an everyday designated hitter. He is not only not getting hits, he is not hitting the ball hard. There is almost no hard contact here. This is not a a hitter going through an unlucky stretch. This looks like a hitter that might be washed.
I do not love that Bryan Reynolds is not hitting for power. Maybe his two doubles on Thursday are the start of something. But his 2025 season was a problem, and given how bad his defense is (and it is BAD) if he is not hitting, he is not providing any value.
Overall, I still think this team is significantly better than the most recent versions. But it still needs a lot of things to go right for it to get back to the playoffs. There are concerns with a lot of those variables. That is a problem.
You have to have some patience with Konnor Griffin. The Pirates also need to have some patience with him. It should not be a surprise that he has had some struggles early on, and the expectations for what he would immediately do in the Major Leagues were probably not in line with reality.
There is a reason 19 and 20 year olds do not typically play at this level.
It is hard. It is a huge adjustment from the minor leagues. There are going to be growing pains. I am not at all surprised he is having some. I also think the Pirates and Griffin would be best served to let him play through it and figure it out. He is not going to benefit from going back to Triple-A, be the best player on the field every night, and dominate.
Especially since he is starting to show some signs of figuring it out.
I also don’t think the start to his career is anything overly concerning compared to similar players that came before him in recent years.
Since the start of the 2015 season, Major League Baseball has seen 12 players age 20 or younger become full-time players. Here is a look at what each of them did through their first 25 games to start their career.
Almost all of them, with the exception of Luis Garcia Jr., have become stars, but even he is has been an everyday player for the Washington Nationals. Wander Franco probably would have been had he not committed some heinous crimes off the field. The jury is still out on Jackson Holliday, but nobody should be writing him off.
Some of these guys dominated right away, specifically Juan Soto, Rafael Devers, Carlos Correa and Fernando Tatis Jr.
Some of them were pretty good right away.
Some of them got off to slow starts.
Not every player develops at the same pace.
Griffin through his first 26 games is in the Holliday, Franco, Chourio range. Two of those guys quickly put it together. We will soon find out of Holliday will.
Plus, in that small of a sample size we are not talking about that big of a difference in production. The difference between what somebody like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. did in his first 26 games, versus what Griffin has done, is two more hits (in four extra at-bats) and a couple of extra home runs. It’s a difference. But it’s not a huge difference. And it’s not like Griffin hasn’t been right on the edge of an additional home run or two.
There are also some signs that Griffin is starting to figure it out.
Entering play on Friday, he is hitting .360 with an OPS over 1.000 over the past seven days. Even when he is not getting on base he has made some especially loud outs.
He is going to have some rough patches. He is also going to have some guys like the one in Milwaukee where he had three hits and stole a base. Let him play through it.
The more I see it, the more unsure I am on what to think about the ABS challenge system.
On one hand, it does add a certain layer of drama to games in person as you wait for the graphic on the scoreboard to tell you what the pitch is, and the crowd pop it can provide is exciting.
But my opinion on replay in sports is very well established: It should only be used to correct black-and-white calls that are obviously wrong. I came into this thinking it might show how many calls umpires miss at the plate, but it’s actually given me a new appreciation for how good and consistent most of them have become with it. Teams aren’t overwhelmingly successful on reviews, and the ones that are overturned so close that it is really hard for me to get mad about it. Am I supposed to get upset about an umpire missing a strike call by a tenth of an inch? If I am, I am having a hard time doing so.
I would almost rather see every pitch be called with this, assuming you trust the technology and have a strike zone that makes sense.
I imagine that is probably the next step.
I guess what I am saying is: I do not hate the ABS challenge system, nor am I in love with it. It’s fine.
Shohei Ohtani is looking like he is completely back as a pitcher, and he might have a chance to add to his argument for the best there ever was. He is DOMINATING so far this season, and through the first month has to be the early front-runner for the National League Cy Young award. If he adds that to a resume that already includes two American League MVP awards and two National League MVP awards it will be completely absurd. I also would not rule him out as a potential MVP award winner (for what would be a third consecutive year) when he starts hitting up to his normal level. And I have no reason to believe that he will not do that.
The obvious top contender for him in the National League Cy Young race is going to be Skenes, but I am also wonder if San Diego Padres closer Mason Miller pitches his way into that discussion.
I know. He’s a reliever. Relievers are not as valuable as starters. But it would not be unheard of for a closer to win the Cy Young. It has happened several times, including with Eric Gagne back in 2003. None of them dominated to the degree that Miller is so far this season.
The mindset of voters has changed a lot over the past two-plus decades, and the criteria of what they are looking for has changed dramatically. There is a different idea of value now and a different definition of what they are looking for. So it might be an even bigger uphill battle for a pitcher that throws less than 80 innings in a season. It would take a superhuman level of domination to get that sort of vote share. But Miller has, to this point, delivered that level of domination. I am not saying he will win. I am saying I want to see how close he can get.