Pittsburgh Pirates News: Ke’Bryan Hayes Update

The Pittsburgh Pirates are currently in the midst of Spring Training 2.0, or as what others are calling it, Summer Camp.  Apparently, one of their top prospects has not participated yet.

A few weeks ago the Pittsburgh Pirates, along with the other 29 teams around baseball, released their expanded rosters for the upcoming 60 game season.  The Bucs had a lot of intriguing names on their active roster and taxi square.  Of all the players, Ke’Bryan Hayes, the team’s top hitting prospect, was one of the names that jumped off the list.

Back in March, the expectation was that Hayes would be held down in Triple-A and if he was performing well, he would get the call post Super-2.  Instead with the shortened season, there was hope that he would get a chance to take the starting third base job.

Since the restart, manager Derek Shelton has mentioned everyone but Hayes as potential depth at third base.  At first, it was a bit surprising that he was throwing names out like Phillip Evans, a utility type player, over Hayes.  However, it looks like there might be more to this than we originally thought.  Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette tweeted the infield groups from practice:

"Pirates doing infield drills. Do not see Ke’Bryan Hayes. Breakdown: 3B: Moran, Evans SS: Newman, Tucker 2B: Frazier SS/2B (rotating): Riddle, Gonzalez 1B: Bell, Osuna C: Stallings, Maile, Murphy"

Yesterday brought multiple reports that Ke’Bryan Hayes has not been in attendance at PNC Park. Shelton released this information during his press conference.  He handled it very similarly to how he handled the update on Keone Kela, who is also missing from camp.  This could be for many reasons, of course, players have the right to keep their COVID testing private, but there are also other reasons he could be held up.

"Ke’Bryan Hayes has not yet been on the field, Derek Shelton says. No explanation, which was sort of expected. Tweet from Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh PG"

Hopefully, Ke’Bryan and his family are okay and there is nothing too serious going on.  Hayes is a big part of this team’s future, but is also one of the most likable players in the minor league system.  He has always worked hard, interacted with fans, and plays the game the right way. Not to mention he has steadily improved as a player on both sides of the ball.  Let’s hope he is okay and can get to camp soon.