Entering the offseason with a large class of Rule 5 eligible prospects and a roster crunch on the horizon, the question surrounding the Pirates was how many spots would be opened up to protect their minor-league players.
As it turns out, only four, with shortstop Liover Peguero and outfielders Travis Swaggerty, Canaan Smith-Njigba and Jack Suwinski having their contracts selected. After utilityman Phillip Evans, right-hander Tanner Anderson and catcher Taylor Davis were released earlier this week, backup catcher Michael Pérez was designated for assignment Friday to open up a final spot.
If that seems underwhelming to you, you’re not alone. These roster decisions could be described more by who the Pirates didn’t protect rather than who they did add.
Not Tahnaj Thomas, Cal Mitchell, Cody Bolton or Eddy Yean, all of whom were ranked in Baseball America’s midseason top 30 list. Not Mason Martin. Not even some unranked pitchers who could potentially help out in the bullpen, like Yerry De Los Santos, Omar Cruz or Hunter Stratton. All of them have some level of merit to being on the roster.
This isn't like last year, where only Max Kranick and Rodolfo Castro were added but almost all of the top prospects were in the lower levels. There's a real risk that the Pirates will lose some prospects on Dec. 8.
“We definitely talked about a lot more than four,” Ben Cherington said during a Zoom call with local reporters Friday night. “There were several other players we spent a lot of time on. Pulled a lot of information from our scouts, our analysts, our player development staff. They’re obviously important decisions. A 40-man spot, or a spot on the roster, is a really valuable thing. There are different ways to use those roster spots for us. We need to always be thinking about the best way to allocate those roster spots.”
Of course there is no guarantee any of these young players, including the ones they protected, end up being successful majors leaguers. And even if a player, or players, are taken in the draft, they could be returned back to the Pirates later this year or simply not pan out.
"Sometimes there are good players taken in the Rule 5 draft, but it's not a real high volume of them,” Cherington said. “There are also a lot of players taken who don't end up doing much.”
That’s all true. But for a front office that has been driven by acquiring as many young, talented players as possible over the last two years, leaving this many prospects unprotected seems counterintuitive. You can’t hang on to everyone, but even if they will likely only lose a player or two, that’s still a good prospect being taken off the board.
“We’re balancing a lot of things. How do we use those 40 spots to our advantage this offseason and into spring training, in the season,” Cherington said. “We have to keep in mind that there’s a major league roster to build starting in April. There are 26 spots right there.”
Peguero and Swaggerty were the only two players that absolutely needed to be added. Peguero is a top 100 prospect, and depending on if Oneil Cruz can stick at that position and if Cole Tucker will finally have that long awaited breakout, he is the shortstop of the future. He should start in Class AA Altoona, and when you consider players like Cruz, Castro, Kranick and Roansy Contreras, a promotion to the majors in 2022 could be on the table.
Swaggerty impressed at the alternate training site in April so much that he ended up skipping Altoona and going straight to Class AAA Indianapolis. Had he been healthy, he would have played right field in the majors at some point, but all signs are pointing to be fully recovered from his right (non-throwing) shoulder surgery for spring training.
After those two, though, the Pirates got conservative with their additions.
I wrote earlier this offseason how it just made no sense to keep the entire trio of Smith-Njigba, Suwinski and Mitchell. It would simply be too many outfielders and not enough playing time, even if Bryan Reynolds is the only sure thing in the major-league outfield.
Smith-Njigba is a logical choice out of those three. He had a big Arizona Fall League, earned a promotion to Indianapolis at the end of the season and is improving in areas where the Pirates want him to focus.
“He's just got a really interesting combination of skills,” Cherington said. “He has always gotten on base at a good rate, sees pitches really well, controls the strike zone. There's a good athlete in there and he's a big, strong kid. Really encouraged about some of the swing adjustments and even just approach adjustments he's made, particularly towards the end of the Altoona season as he came off the injury, and then it certainly carried into the fall… It’s just been getting the ball off the ground, and we're seeing more of that recently. He's making an intentional effort to do that. He's also really worked on his conditioning and he's moving really well as an outfielder.”
Suwinski only had about a month and a half worth of games with the Pirates, coming over from the Padres in the Adam Frazier trade. While three of these players were acquired in three of Cherington’s biggest trades with the Pirates, he says that wasn’t a factor for why they were selected.
“Obviously, we've had less time with him. but we are really encouraged by how hard he hits the ball, his ability to impact the baseball to all fields and hit for power,” Cherington said. “He also is a guy who can get on base and take a walk, and is a solid defender. He’s shown a really strong work ethic.”
All four players are fine additions, but the class could have been larger. I spent the week at the “Get Better at Baseball” Camp at LECOM Park, and some of those players who were on the edge of the roster were trying not to think about how their major league futures with the Pirates were hanging in the balance.
“I hope it works out for me, but all I can do is try to get ready for next year and try to put myself in a spot where I can help the Pirates win games, whether that’s on the 40-man or not,” Mitchell said this week in Bradenton.
“Obviously it’s coming up, but what’s the point in stressing about it when you can’t control it?” Martin echoed. “I’ve played my season, and at the end of the day, I left everything out there.”
Both players in camp seemed to be making some strides, especially Martin, who was trying new drills with occlusion goggles to improve his pitch recognition. There were plenty of good things said about Martin down there, too.
“I can't say enough about the way that he prepares himself,” director of coaching and player development John Baker said about Martin Wednesday. “He's constantly taking notes. He's constantly asking really good questions. He's really conscientious, he stays on top of his routine in his work.”
That’s all on top of him having arguably the most pop out of anyone in the organization, outside of Cruz.
Maybe he wasn’t added because they felt he could be snuck through the Rule 5 draft. After all, the last true first baseman to be taken in the draft was Mike Ford in 2017. But for a team that desperately needs power (finishing last in baseball in homers and slugging percentage last year) and has little organizational depth at first base -- having only Colin Moran at the moment and maybe re-signing Yoshi Tsutsugo for one more year -- the Pirates are gambling losing a player at a position of need.
There can be cases made for why they didn’t add just any particular player. Thomas is the club’s No. 11 prospect, per Baseball America, but had a mediocre year for Class High-A Greensboro. The Pirates took a player who was in that exact same boat last year in Luis Oviedo, and they needed expanding pitching staffs to get through the year with him. Bolton is the No. 15 prospect, but he missed the entire season after right knee surgery. Do you want to take a risk on someone who hasn’t pitched in a game in two years? Yean and Abrahan Guttierez are still in Bradenton, and even if relievers are usually at high risk of being taken, the Pirates could snatch someone from another club to replace a De Los Santos or Stratton.
But they assumed a lot of prospect risk by protecting only four minor-leaguers, with the reward being temporarily retaining more players from a 101-losss team.
This won’t be a 2003 Rule 5 draft, where the Pirates lost seven players that year, but it looks like it could be the first time since Cherington took over as general manager that the Pirates’ farm system could get dinged.
“There’s an investment in the people,” Cherington said. “The players are names on a press release but there are people involved. There’s investment in those people. Staff cares about those people and are advocates, too. We’ve got people screaming and pounding the table, ‘We have to protect this guy!’ That’s good. We want that. There’s always a little bit of anxiety related to it. We look back in time and review these decisions, see what we got right and what we didn’t get right.”
