Buccos Cove

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...

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. As one of the older players out of the 2018 International Free Agent pool, Luis Nova had to be quick in his development in the Minor Leagues. After two years in the system, he has already advanced five levels in the system, working as high as Advanced-A Bradenton last season. He has decent velocity and has experience working out of both a starters role and a reliever's role in his professional career. He has shown good control numbers and strikeout numbers throughout his career but allows way too many hits and that gets him into trouble. His road hasn't always been the smoothest, but he is looking to establish himself as a prominent Minor League pi...

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. When the Pittsburgh Pirates took Winston Nicacio in the Minor League portion of the 2019 Rule 5 Draft, they knew he needed some work. His control had been up and down during his first three years in the St. Louis Cardinals system, and he was struggling to find himself in professional ball. They worked with him extensively in the off-season to teach him how to control his pitches and become more of a pitcher than just a hard thrower. By the end of 2019, Nicacio looked to have his control managed and posted the lowest walk percentage of his professional career to date, split between two levels of the Minor League system. Nicacio pitched between Short Season ...

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. For two-way players, the transition to Professional Baseball can be a tough one as they decide on one side or another. Coming out of high school, Pittsburgh Pirates pitching prospect Alex Manansa was named the #1 high school outfielder from the state of Michigan. However, he was drafted as a right-handed pitcher for the Pirates due to his speed and athletic build. Since joining the Pirates Minor League system in 2017, Manansa has improved each season that he has played in as he becomes a good starting pitching prospect in the low Minors. His fastball hits in the low 90s, and he has a change-up that he is developing to complement the pitch. He spent the 201...

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. It only takes an instant for plans to change, especially with everything going on in this day and age. Pittsburgh Pirates Minor League pitcher Travis MacGregor was one of four pitchers in the Pirates Minor League system battling his way back from Tommy John Surgery. It would be a little harder for MacGregor, seeing as he has no Major League experience, but he had been pitching well prior to the injury and was looking to get back on track in 2020. Then, the Minor League baseball season was shut down by the Coronavirus leaving several players across the country without a field to go on. MacGregor is doing the best with what he has got at his house, but 2021 ...

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. From 2015 through 2018, the Pittsburgh Pirates made it a habit of drafting someone out of George Washington University. In 2018, Will Kobos was the choice, after working as a reliever during his sophomore and junior seasons. He has increased his velocity since going pro and is finding ways to get batters out. He does suffer from control issues from time to time but overall has produced good work in the Minor Leagues. When Minor League baseball, hopefully, resumes in 2021, Kobos will be looking to build off of the success he had at Class Low-A Greensboro last season. Kobos pitched between two levels of Minor League baseball last season, and the results were...

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. Baseball was not originally in the cards for current Pirates pitching prospect Will Gardner. He was fully intent on pursuing a football career, but a gruesome injury would cost him his scholarship and would send him to the sport that would eventually turn him pro. Gardner was taken in the 21st round of the 2018 draft and has become a reliable prospect working out of the bullpen. He features a high strikeout rate at all levels of the Minor Leagues, but he has control issues as well that have made him susceptible to the big inning. He is helped lit by a low opponent batting average, which gets him out of sticky situations when people get on via the free pass...

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. When pitching prospect Oliver Garcia was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2015, not much was made of the signing. Garcia was only hitting in the low to mid-80s and his lanky frame was not that impressive to the team. However, he has since grown out and has upped his velocity by almost ten miles per hour and is putting his name on the map. He is now hitting consistently at 95 miles per hour out of the bullpen and has had an ERA higher than three only one time in his first four seasons of professional baseball. He has been a bit of a late bloomer for Pittsburgh, entering his age 23 season in 2021, but he is starting to hit his stride and should advance th...

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. When the Pittsburgh Pirates drafted high schooler Mason Martin out of Southridge High School in Kennewick, Washington, they didn't know who they were getting. The first baseman/pitcher was taken as an outfielder in the 17th round of the 2017 MLB draft, and had good numbers but needed time to develop. As he enters his fourth season in the Pirates Minor League system, he currently ranks as the team's #15 overall prospect by MLB Pipeline and is showing up as one of Pittsburgh's best power-hitting prospects. He has stayed as an outfielder so far in his career and has used a combination of good hitting and power to climb the Pirates Minor League lad...

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. The 2020 season will be unlike any other in MLB history due to the current Coronavirus pandemic. While teams will be adjusting to all the new changes, it offers a unique opportunity for some of the young guys in the Pirates system to train regularly in front of Major League coaches. One of those young guys taking advantage of the situation is infielder Rodolfo Castro, who started his career as a shortstop but ended up flipping to second base after struggling defensively. When he was signed, he was known for his defensive abilities with questions on whether or not his bar would be able to perform in pro ball. However, his story has been exactly the opposite...

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. When pitcher Braeden Ogle was drafted in the fourth round of the 2016 Major League draft, he was one of the top high school left-handed pitchers in the state of Florida. He was a young power arm, with his fastball hitting in the low to mid-90s and that kind of young talent is hard to find. Since joining the Pirates organization, he has suffered a couple of injuries that have ended his time in starting rotations, but he hasn't let that stop his development in the Minot Leagues, he now serves as a power arm out of the bullpen who when needed can give the Pirates some innings when their starters struggle. The move to the bullpen has also helped his veloci...

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...