Pittsburgh Pirates Spring Prospects: Dylan Busby Set to Appear

The Pittsburgh Pirates have their third spring training game today.  The team is going to give a third base prospect a chance to play in it.

Yesterday, the Pittsburgh Pirates won against the Miami Marlins by a score of 10-6.  The Bucs won on a walk-off grand slam by top third base prospect Ke’Bryan Hayes.  This was a big moment for Hayes, who also hit a home run earlier in the game.

Hayes wasn’t the only Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman to make a big impact on the game.  The Bucs also saw comeback candidate Jung-Ho Kang go deep twice in the game.  Kang started the game going 2-2 with two solo jacks. Hayes replaced him and went 2-3 with two homers and six total RBI.

So the team got a lot of production from their third base spot yesterday.  Could they get more again today?  The Pittsburgh Pirates will be at home for the second straight day taking on the Boston Red Sox.  Jordan Lyles will get the start for the Bucs against the Red Sox who will send lefty Brian Johnson to the mound.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are going to start last year’s opening day third baseman Colin Moran.  This will be a good matchup for him to get some real left-on-left practice.  However, after Moran’s first few at-bats the Pittsburgh Pirates lineup card has him being replaced by a prospect named Dylan Busby.

Dylan Busby is a 23-year-old third base prospect in the Pittsburgh Pirates farm system.  He stands at 6’2” and weighs around 200 pounds.  Busby was a third-round pick by the Pittsburgh Pirates.  They took him out of Florida State University in 2017.  He was projected as one the best third baseman available on Day two of the Draft.

Busby has not lived up to his third round selection thus far.  He has had his fair share of struggles in the minors since joining them back in 2017.  When he first joined the organization, he was placed at Short-Season A to play with the West Virginia Black Bears.  Through 41 games, he only slashed .188/.266/.256 with a 27 percent strikeout rate.

This past season was his first full professional year in which he split time between three different levels, mainly at Low-A West Virginia.  The reason he split it between three levels is that he was hit in the head by a pitch in May.  Busby had to be placed in a neck brace and was taken off the field in an ambulance, so he ended up missing most of the rest of the season before having some rehab games in the lower levels of the minors.

All in all, Busby appeared in 45 total games, with 33 of them being with the Power.  He slashed .243/.342/.461 at Low-A.  At a quick glance, his batting average is a little low, but he seemed to hit for good power and still find ways to get on base.  He had a really good ISO at .217 and a solid wRC+ of 130.  The biggest issue for Busby, once again, was his strikeout rate.  Busby struck out 27.5 percent of the time.

Dylan Busby was considered to be one of the better third basemen out of college in the 2017 draft.  His career got off to two shortened seasons thus far and he has not been able to really work consistently.  Still, he showed some interesting power last season and is considered to be above average at third.  If Busby can cut down on the strikeouts, he could become a legit prospect to pay attention to.  For now, he will get a chance to play some in today’s spring game.