Buccos Cove

The 2020 Rule 5 Draft is scheduled to take place on December 10th, 2020, as part of the Winter Meetings and the Pirates have some interesting prospects eligible. We will break down all the Rule 5 players and whether or not the Pirates should worry about losing them or not. At just 23-years old, Cristofer Melendez has already made his way around the MLB. He has been a part of four MLB organizations including the Houston Astros, Chicago White Sox, and San Diego Padres. He came over to the Pirates in a trade for cash with the Padres prior to the 2019 season after being selected in the Minor League portion of the 2018 Rule 5 Draft. He has had a lot of struggles throughout his Minor League career and has failed to make it passed Low-A Ball. Before joining the Pirates system, he spent three years in rookie ball before he ended up getting too old for the league and the Pirates decided to promote him to Low-A Ball. He has good velocity, with a fastball in the upper 90s, but his out...

As we await the start of the 2020 MLB season due to Corona Virus concerns, we will take a look at every player on the Pirates roster and outline what they will bring to the table and projections for the 2020 season. I hope this brings some positive reading to the current situation and helps us all as we wait for baseball. Scouting for Major League baseball is anything but an exact science and not the easiest job to do. When you see a guy either in college or in the foreign market, he might have good stuff on paper, but it has trouble translating to professional baseball. This was the case in the early part of minor leaguer Cristofer Melendez's career. He was initially signed by the Houston Astros out of the Dominican Republic and got three different chances in the Dominican Summer League and didn't pan out. However, the saying one team's failure is another team's success applied as the Pirates acquired Melendez in a trade and he has been showing vast improve...