Pittsburgh Pirates: Arizona Fall League Update November

While the Pittsburgh Pirates are starting to get the early parts of the MLB offseason underway, they still have a handful of prospects playing out in the Arizona Fall League.

As of right now, the Pittsburgh Pirates have their General Manager Neal Huntington and others at the General Manager meetings.  These are the first major event during the offseason.  In fact, many believe that team’s start to discuss potential deals with other teams and free agents at this meeting.

However, there are other things going on with the Pittsburgh Pirates organization other than just focusing on the offseason. The Pittsburgh Pirates have a lot of prospects who are playing out in the Arizona Fall League.  Here is how the prospects are looking through the first week of November.

On the pitching side of things, Dario Agrazal has not pitched since the first week of the league.  He is still rocking a 9.00 earned run average in his five innings of work.  The next pitcher is Matt Eckelman.  Eckelman has struggled mightily this fall, pitching to an earned run average north of 16 in six innings of work.  Geoff Hartlieb has pitched a little better than the other two.  So far he has thrown 10.1 innings and has posted an earned run average at 6.10.  The last pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates is 2017 draft pick Blake Weiman.  Weiman is a big lefty who is pitching very well so far this fall.  He has thrown in five games and 10 innings.  Across those innings, he has posted a 0.90 earned run average along with 0.70 WHIP.

The offensive side of things has been a little more interesting.  The Pittsburgh Pirates have numerous offensive prospects in the league.  All three hitting prospects are inside of the Pittsburgh Pirates top 30 prospect rankings. The first is Bryan Reynolds, who is the Pittsburgh Pirates top outfield prospect.  He is having a tough fall league thus far.  Reynolds has hit .111/.167/.313 with 11 games on his record.

Meanwhile, Will Craig is the team’s top first base prospect in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization.  Craig is batting .264/.339/.472.  The former first-round pick has played in 14 games and has three home runs.  The best performing prospect has been one of the Pittsburgh Pirates top prospects. Cole Tucker is the team’s top shortstop prospect and is showing why.  He has the second highest batting average on the Suprise Saguaros at .344.  Also, he is getting on base at a .400 clip while slugging .426.  Furthermore, he has a solid strikeout to walk ratio with eight strikeouts and seven walks.

While the Pittsburgh Pirates try to figure out how to improve their current big league team for the 2019 season, the team’s prospects have been improving out in Arizona.  Whether they have had a tough go of it like Geoff Hartlieb and Bryan Reynolds or success like Cole Tucker Blake Wieman, each player is getting a chance to play at some the highest level of competition they have played in.