Buc Notes: March 1, 2016

The Pirates play there first game of Spring Training today at Joker Marchant Stadium against the Detroit Tigers. Kyle Lobstein will be pitching for the Pirates. Matt Boyd will take the hill for the Tigers.

Boyd is a genuinely nice guy – one of baseball’s good guys and was a highly touted prospect in the Toronto Blue Jays system until he was traded to Detroit. I had the pleasure of covering him while he was with the Blue Jay’s AA affiliate, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

The game isn’t televised but it is available on KDKA. RumBunter has got a game thread going for the game.  Also, if you haven’t see the Spring Training television schedule that is available on the site as well.

Matt Gajtka at DKPittsburghSports.com had a great article on Tyler Glasnow that is worth reading. Seemingly, Clint Hurdle is putting Glasnow down as a guy likely to see playing time this year. But Glasnow, also, clearly has several things to work on. So don’t get your hopes up too high.

Rob Biertempfel wrote a piece on Cole Figueroa and his battle for a roster spot.  Figueroa is up against some serious competition for a utility spot on a team full of utility players. It’s not clear what the Pirates see in Figueroa that don’t already have multiple better options for. In typical Pirates fashion, infield coach Nick Leyva had this to say about Figueroa, “His versatility is the thing I like the most. He’s been working at all the infield spots other than first base. He’s even going to start working in the outfield.”  Of course, the Pirates need more outfield guys to fill up the near mythical fourth outfielder roster spot that this team may or may not have open.

With so many options at so many positions, 2016 spring training is shaping up to be a real Pirates mystery. The story lines are well developed: the first base platoon of Morse and Jaso, the trouble at the end of the rotation, the battle of infield/outfield utility players and of course and more recently the Pirates low ball offer to Gerrit Cole.