Buccos Cove

With the Pirates no longer having the Short Season West Virginia Black Bears, the Low-A Bradenton Marauders are going to be the introductory team to many in the Pirates organization. With young talent comes a hunger to prove themselves and the Marauders will feature a lot of internal competition. It is every high school and college baseball player's dream to be drafted into Major League Baseball. However, after the glitz and glamour of the MLB Draft is over, the work begins as the player begins his ascent to the Major Leagues. With the loss of Short-Season West Virginia this year, many of these players will get their first taste of pro-ball with the Class Low-A Bradenton Marauders. After serving as the High-A affiliate for the Pirates for the last 10 years, Bradenton got moved down to the Low-A affiliate due to the Minor League realignment. The move makes sense as LECOM Park is right by Pirate City, giving the new prospects full access to the Pirates training facility.

It is an early-season battle for second place in the National League Central when the Pittsburgh Pirates welcome in the St. Louis Cardinals over the weekend. We look at what to expect as the Pirates try to continue their streak of not losing series. The Pittsburgh Pirates have been playing above expectations throughout the month of April, and part of that is because of their ability to win series. They didn't win the series with the Royals this week, but they earned a split of the two-game series and still have not lost a series since the April 5th to April 7th games in Cincinnati. They look to continue that stretch this weekend as they welcome in National League Central Rivals the St. Louis Cardinals for the first time in 2021. It may be a bit too early to look at the standings, but this is an early-season battle for second place in the division. Pirates and Cardinals games always have a flare, but this series will test the Young Buc's competitiveness and see how t

The Minor League season is just a week away as the Pirates Minor Leaguers are eager to return to live-action. The Greensboro Grasshoppers feature an exciting roster of draft picks ready to shine in pro ball. Once a college player gets drafted into Major League Baseball, the long and winding road to the Major Leagues begins. For many college players, their professional careers got started in Low-A or Short-Season ball, and they would fight their way up through the system. However, with the changes to the Minor League system, there will also come with it some changes in the development of players. With Low-A serving as the lowest level above Rookie Ball, many college players will start beginning their career with Advanced-A teams. It provides more of a challenge for the players and creates more exciting rosters for the Advanced-A clubs of teams around the league. After serving as the Pirate's Low-A team for the last several seasons, the Greensboro Grasshoppers are going t

A couple of years ago, a young starter named Tyler Glasnow came to the Big Leagues with a lot of promise, but never put it together until he left Pittsburgh. Now, Mitch Keller is going through some of the same struggled and this time the Pirates don't want to mess things up. Back in 2016, a young talented pitcher by the name of Tyler Glasnow made his Major League debut for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was 22-years-old and brought with him a lot of promise from the Minor Leagues. He spent a total of seven seasons in the Minor Leagues, five of those before he made his debut, and had a career 2.01 ERA going 45-21. However, in his first seven Big League appearances, he went 0-2 with a 4.24 ERA in 23.1 innings of work. Things didn't get any easier for Glasnow as he went up and down between the Major and Minor Leagues and had an ERA over 4.00 in each of those seasons. Then, in 2018, he was packaged in a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays and went on to become one of the top pitc

As we continue our look at the Pittsburgh Pirates Minor League affiliates, we move to Altoona to visit the Altoona Curve. They are one of the most exciting team's in the Pirates Minor League system, featuring many of the prospects that will make up the Pirates of the future. When you hear about General Manager Ben Cherrington's rebuild, most timelines have the Pirates being competitive again right around the 2023 or 2024 seasons. Using that timeline, a lot of the guys that will be a part of the next Pirates playoff team are likely to be starting the year right around the Double-A level. Because of this the 2021 Altoona Curve team should be one of the most exciting teams to watch in the system this season. The starting rotation will be full of guys from the Pirate's top 30 prospect list, and most of the everyday players are guys the team is looking to develop into everyday starters. First-year Manager Miguel Perez, hitting coach David Newhan, and pitching coach D

After stepping in as closer last season, Richard Rodriguez has nailed down the job with an impressive showing in 2021. He has not been scored upon in 10.1 innings this season and hasn't been scored upon in 21 consecutive innings. At the beginning of the 2020 season, the Pittsburgh Pirates' closer role was largely up in the air. Kyle Crick and Keone Kela were battling it out for the ninth inning spot, but Kela couldn't stay on the field and injuries hampered Crick's ability to jump into the role. However, by the end of the season, there was a clear-cut closer who was dominating every time he stepped onto the mound. He never had closing experience at the Major League level, but when the Pirates had a need, he jumped in and filled the role. Richard Rodriguez had quietly had three strong seasons in the Pirates bullpen, and he is now being rewarded as the team's closer. He has been one of the toughest relievers in all of baseball dating back to last year, and

For the first time since the 2019 season, Minor League Baseball will have a season when they begin play on May 4th. Today, we look at the Pirates Triple-A Indianapolis Indians as we go through their 2021 season preview. The Pittsburgh Pirates are performing above many expectations early this season going 11-11 in their first 22 games. However, the eye is still on the future and for the first time since the 2019 season, the Minor Leagues are set to start back up, with Opening Day scheduled for May 4th. This will give guys at the alternate training site a chance to play in actual games again, and show off their talents to try and climb the ladder. With the Pirates in a build for the future mode, Triple-A Indianapolis is going to be more important than ever in terms of developing players to be Major League ready. Brian Esposito returns for his third season at the helm of the Indians with Joel Hanrahan as his pitching coach and John Nunnally as his hitting coach. While not as e

The Pittsburgh Pirates return home from their nine-game, 6-3, road trip and bring Interleague play with them to PNC Park when they host the Royals tomorrow. We look at what to expect as PNC Park welcomes the American League in 2021. The Pittsburgh Pirates are on fire as of late, having won 10 of their last 15 games, including a nine-game road trip that saw them go 6-3 and win three straight series. The team now returns home bringing that momentum with them as they host their first Interleague series of the 2021 season when they bring in the Kansas City Royals for a two-game series. After starting the year 1-6, the Pirates have gone 4-0-1 in their past five series and have not lost a series since April 5th through April 7th in Cincinnati. During that time, the pitching has been consistent, and the bats have started to come to life. They are looking to keep that momentum going as they are back in their home yard and looking to get over the .500 mark for the first time since O

The 2021 MLB Draft is just over 11 weeks away, and the Pittsburgh Pirates have the #1 overall pick in the draft. We get you ready every Monday leading up to the draft with a look at some of the top college prospects the Pirates could be targeting this draft season. The MLB draft is still over 11 weeks away, but there is already speculation as to who the Pittsburgh Pirates will take number one overall. With things starting to get back to normal, scouting will be easier this season, and the Pirates will have their pick of any top prospect they want. In a zoom call this week, General Manager Ben Cherrington noted that the good news around this year's draft class is they get to see them play. However, with the college season in full swing, two names have emerged as front runners to be that number one overall pick and both are from Vanderbilt. Starting pitchers Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker are on top of everyone's draft boards as the two battle to be the Pirate's num

The 2021 season is almost a month in, and the Pirates are out to an unexpected 11-11 start and have won 10 of their last 15 ball games. We look at the comparisons between this year's team and last year's team to see if this success could be a sustainable thing. The 2020 season was a very bad year overall for the Pittsburgh Pirates. They finished as the worst team in all of baseball, at 19-41, and had really no positives to speak of moving forward other than developing their young guys. However, not even a year later, the team is outperforming all expectations set in the pre-season. After their first seven games, the team looked to be reverting back to their old ways after a 1-6 start. Since then, they have completely turned things around going 10-5 to improve to 11-11, and they currently sit in third place in the National League Central. Now, they probably aren't going to be competing for a division crown this season, but they are giving the Pirates a lot to loo

With Chad Kuhl on the injured list, the Pittsburgh Pirates needed to find a starter for Sunday's finale in Minnesota. They ended up going with taxi squad pitcher Wil Crowe, as he makes his first start for the Pirates as the team tries to win its third straight series. This off-season, General Manager Been Cherington made it a point to add to the future of this club by trading for high-upside prospects for the future. We already saw one of those prospects make their debut when Miguel Yajure got the start in game two of Wednesday's doubleheader. He did well enough, going 4.1 innings allowing four runs, but he was pitching great until running out of gas in the fifth inning. He was able to compete throughout the night, even though he suffered his first loss of the season. Now, the Pirates are relying on Wil Crowe to give them a similarly good start as they try to win their third straight series. However, this is not Crowe's first rodeo, as he got a few starts for th

Going into the 2021 season, all eyes were on Mitch Keller to see if he would develop into the ace pitcher he was projected to be. However, JT Brubaker has dominated on the mound and is taking over Keller's spot as the pitcher to watch. In 2018, the Pittsburgh Pirates had a ton of top prospect pitchers throughout their Minor League system. Guys like Mitch Keller, Shane Baz, and Nick Kingham were the top prospects to watch as the Pirates were looking to build towards the future. However, that season, none of those three pitchers won the Pittsburgh Pirates 2018 Minor League pitcher of the year award. That season, it went to a guy who was drafted kind of late at 21 years old and took some time to develop. The man who won that award was then 24-year-old right-hander JT Brubaker. Up until that 2018 season, Brubaker had had a shaky Minor League career up to that point but broke our going 10-6 with a 2.81 ERA between Double-A and Triple-A. He was promoted to make his MLB debut

After starting the season 1-6 through their first seven games of the season, the Pittsburgh Pirates have turned it around going 8-4 in their last 12. A lot of that success has been because of the team's ability to hit with two outs and continuously drive in runs. When you get the first two outs of an inning quickly, most pitchers begin to relax knowing they need just one more out to get out of the inning. However, the Pirates are making it difficult on pitchers this year with two outs, as they are coming through with some clutch hits. The most recent display of their ability for clutch two-out hits came against the Detroit Tigers this past week. They scored a total of nine runs in the series win, and five of those came with two outs in the inning. In their 4-2 win in the series finale, three of the runs they scored came with two outs, including the first two runs of the game on RBI hits from Colin Moran and Erik Gonzalez. These clutch hits have helped give the Pirates p