Pittsburgh Pirates AFL: End of October Update

The Pittsburgh Pirates will see their prospects playing in the Arizona Fall League finish up the month of October.  How have they performed through the first month?

The Arizona Fall League is already almost through October.  The Pittsburgh Pirates prospects have seen plenty of action already.  So far every team has played in 16 games as of this morning.  The Surprise Saguaros, the Pittsburgh Pirates affiliate, have a losing record of seven wins and nine losses.  The Pittsburgh Pirates have multiple players on both sides of the ball for the Saguaros.  The players with the bats have performed much better than the players throwing the ball.

On the pitching side of things, the Pittsburgh Pirates have only one starter out in Arizona and that is Dario Agrazal.  Agrazal still has only pitched in one game through the first few weeks of the Arizona Fall League schedule.  He is still sporting a 9.00 earned run average with five earned runs in nine innings of work.  That was on eight hits with no walks and no strikeouts.

Also, the Pittsburgh Pirates have multiple relief prospects throwing for the Saguaros.  The best has been lefty reliever Blake Wieman.  Weiman, of course, was a 2017 draft pick by the Pittsburgh Pirates out of Kansas.  He has appeared in four games so far accumulating eight innings and a 1.13 ERA. He has struck out eight while only walking one.  The next best performer is Geoff Hartlieb.  Hartlieb has thrown in 8.1 innings across 5 games.  In those innings, he has struck out eight and walked three.  The worst reliever has been Matt Eckelman.  Eckelman has an ERA over 11 in four games and four innings pitched.

The offensive Pittsburgh Pirates prospect has had the worst October for Surprise has been outfielder Bryan Reynolds.  Reynolds boasting a tough slash line of .120/.343/.120 through his first eight games.  In 25 at-bats he has no extra-base hits, eight walks, and has only struck out three times.  So it appears that Reynolds is making a lot of contact and just having some bad luck.

Will Craig has followed up his strong 2018 season with a solid Arizona Fall League thus far.  Craig has played first base and served as the designated hitter across 11 games and 42 at-bats.  In those appearances, he has put up a slash line of .262/.311/.429 with three extra base hitsm including two home runs.  So far, top shortstop prospect Cole Tucker is performing like the top Pittsburgh Pirates prospect.  He is batting .341/.420/.439 through 10 games and 41 at-bats. He has three extra base hits with two doubles and a triple.  Also, he has swiped six bags in seven attempts, along with nine RBIs and 10 runs scored.

The Pittsburgh Pirates prospects have seen a real mixed bag of results so far out in Arizona.  The team’s best performing prospects, however, are pretty clear-cut with them being Blake Weiman, Will Craig, and Cole Tucker.  Of course, Tucker is the clear-cut best performer through October.