SAN DIEGO -- The question centered on how Derek Shelton's managing in 2023. His answer tipped the Pirates' hand for their early season catching plans.
When asking if he anticipates needing to make any adjustments as a manager with a wave of prospects due to be promoted in 2023, this reporter cited Endy Rodriguez and Henry Davis as two examples.
"Well, with those two guys specifically," Shelton started his response, "I mean, they're going to start in the minor leagues."
Considering Rodriguez is the only catcher on the 40-man roster, that raises several questions, the most pertinent being, who will catch then?
Given the Pirates' track record, they have opted not to include top 100 prospects with limited Class AAA experience on the opening day team. We saw it in 2020 with Ke'Bryan Hayes (though him contracting COVID-19 did prevent him from participating in most of the second spring training) and Oneil Cruz and Roansy Contreras in 2022 (Contreras would be promoted before the second game of the season due to injuries on the staff, but he was optioned back to the minors that month).
Rodriguez -- recently named as Baseball America's top Pirates prospect -- and Davis -- the first overall pick in the 2021 draft -- don't have much upper-level minor-league experience and both started the year with Class High-A Greensboro. A wrist injury sidelined Davis for a good portion of the 2022 season, but he capped his year by being named a member of the Fall Stars team in the Arizona Fall League. Rodriguez was one of the most prolific hitters in the minors all season. The duo could be one of the best catching tandems in the sport soon.
They'll probably be a tandem in Class AAA first, even if the Pirates don't have another catcher to go to at the moment. The Pirates outrighted Jason Delay and Tyler Heineman, their two primary catchers last year, off of the roster earlier this offseason. Ali Sánchez, a waiver claim in October, was himself claimed off waivers Friday as the Pirates opened up roster spots ahead of the Winter Meetings and Rule 5 draft.
"I would say I think we’ve probably had more conversations on pitching than catching to this point, but I guess it could change at any moment," Ben Cherington said.
A reunion with Roberto Pérez is possible, if not probable, even if there is nothing imminent. He appeared in just 21 games with the Pirates last year before a season-ending hamstring injury, but he was adored by the pitching staff. He comes with a significant injury risk, but with prospects waiting in the minors, the Pirates have depth.
Delay is also still in the organization, and while Heineman declared himself a free agent, the Pirates are keeping the door open for him as well. Not that they have to resort back to last year's backstops as backups.
"We’ll prioritize a combination of the defensive part of the game again and trying to be able to match up offensively with competitive at-bats," Cherington said about what they are looking for in a catcher. "We feel good about the strength of the position generally in the organization. Probably mostly focused on strengthening the position if we can in 2023 without putting up a massive brick wall in front of younger guys. We’ll see what comes to us."
MORE FROM THE MEETINGS
• In case you were curious, here is the rest of Shelton's answer to my question about managing in 2023 with those prospects in mind:
"I think we are seeing a larger chunk of that core group of development guys entering the big leagues now, which is really important for us. Like we talked about last year, the difference between Triple-A and the big leagues is probably the biggest it’s ever been. We were fortunate enough that we were able to get a lot of reps for those guys at the Major League level this year and I think we just need to be able to build off that to get better. But the other portion of this is it’s an exciting group of players. They do things that a lot of young players can’t so that should provide for a lot of entertainment."
• Starting pitching remains a priority and an area of focus.
After missing out on Kyle Gibson -- who signed a reported one-year, $10 million deal with the Orioles -- the Pirates are still searching for another starter to add to a young group of starting pitchers, which should expand at some point in 2023 when rookies Quinn Priester, Luis Ortiz and Mike Burrows make the leap to the majors.
"We’re excited about our group of young starters and also would like there to be competition amongst that group," Cherington said. "Feeling like that tends to help everybody when there’s competition and there’s a spot to win as opposed to a spot given to. Fully anticipate we’re going to see some of that young starting group make meaningful starts in the big leagues next year, but if we can deepen the rotation and create some more competition I think we would like to do that."
As also previously reported, Cherington remains open to adding multiple starters as well.
"I don’t know if we will, but we could if we wanted to or the right matches lined up,"
• Last week, bench coach Don Kelly flew down to the Dominican Republic to watch some Pirates players play winter ball, including Rodolfo Castro, Miguel Andújar and Oneil Cruz.
"Donnie was rapid-texting me during the game about some of the things Oneil was doing," Shelton said. "The reports have been really good."
The defensive reports are important in particular with Cruz. The Pirates asked him to play winter ball this year, with his footwork being one of the things they have identified as area to improve. They've added a new coach to the major-league staff, Mendy Lopez, to try to shore up the infield defense, because there is a preference to keep Cruz at shortstop rather than move him to the outfield.
"Right now, we see him as a shortstop," Shelton said. "I wouldn't totally dismiss him going to the outfield at some point in spring training. I think I told him at one point I was going to play him, Rudy [Castro] and [Tucupita] Marcano in the outfield one day as a joke. They were all three so excited about it, I may have to do it just to make him happy. But overall, we see Oneil as a shortstop."
• Hayes is "having a normal offseason" after a hip and back injury bothered him in all of 2022. He will probably make some trips to the Pirates' Florida facilities so the team doctors can check in on him.
• Many of the conversations Cherington has had with reporters this offseason have focused around improving the big club in 2023, a departure from general statements of trying to get better every day and organizationally. So why the change?
"Just a moment in time," Cherington said. "We felt like coming out of this season, as difficult as it was, we now have a group of young players that have matriculated onto the major-league team, or started to, or are close to doing that as we look into next year. So relative to two years ago, the total number of players who are either touching our major-league roster or are getting close, we just see as much larger. We just feel like this is the time to start to complement that group.
"This offseason, it may look differently as we look forward. We are not naive about the amount of ground we have to cover. There's a lot of improvement for us to make, and you don't always make up all that ground in one offseason. But we believe that we've got a group of players that's ready to start showing what they can do in the major leagues, and we want to support that group to be as good as we possibly can next year and then after that, too."