At the Futures Game in Seattle last week, Pirates prospect Endy Rodríguez vowed to this reporter that he was going to make his major-league debut this season.
It turns out that he just needed that extra week.
Rodríguez, the team's top hitting prospect according to Baseball America, is being promoted and will make his major-league debut Monday at PNC Park. He will be joined by another one of the team's top prospects, Liover Peguero.
Monday is also going to be the major-league debut of Quinn Priester, so it's going to be quite the night for Pirate prospects.
Rodríguez, 23, was recently ranked as the No. 55 prospect in the game by Baseball America. After getting off to a slot start this season, the catcher/first baseman has found success of late with a more patient approach at the plate. Entering Sunday, Rodríguez had slashed .329/.416/.506 with two home runs and 19 RBIs over the last calendar month.
"Less swings," Rodríguez recently told me about the key to his recent success is. "I feel like that's the power to be better now. Less swings, control my strike zone, try to hit my pitch rather than the pitcher's pitch. Because they want to get me out and I want to get a hit. If I try to hit their pitch, I'll get out. I need to wait for my pitch."
Much of the talk around Rodríguez's development is centered around him as a catcher. He's going to need to get everyday at-bats, and with first base crowded between Carlos Santana, Connor Joe and Ji-Man Choi, it is expected that he'll get the bulk of his playing time behind the plate over Austin Hedges.
Peguero, 22, was promoted to Class AAA Indianapolis on July 4 and has played seven games for them since then, homering twice and posting an .889 OPS. He got off to a slow start with Class AA Altoona, but started to click at the plate around mid-May and posted a .260 batting average and .783 OPS with the Curve.
Peguero did make his major-league debut last season as an emergency call up due to a COVID-19 scare in the clubhouse, but this will be his proper debut. And with Oneil Cruz out until at least mid-August due to his ankle injury, he and Nick Gonzales will likely be the everyday middle infield for the time being.
Between these call ups and rookies Gonzales and Henry Davis, this is shaping up to be a very different, younger Pirates lineup for the second half of the season.
