The Pirates’ recent sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers was notable for what it was: a team expected to struggle this season beating one of the best teams in baseball three times in a row.
It was also notable for those who joined in on the fun. Rookie utility man Tucupita Marcano hit a pair of homers and is now batting .333 in seven games with the Pirates this season. Rookie infielder Rodolfo Castro almost singlehandedly took over the series finale, with four RBIs, including a clutch two-run homer in the late innings.
Cal Mitchell, Diego Castillo and Jack Suwinski remain starters on most nights. Right-hander Roansy Contreras has taken hold of his role in the starting rotation.
In other words, the Pirates’ youth movement is visible every day. They’re actually there, on the field for the Pirates, something fans have been waiting for over the past several seasons.
At the same time, it’s unclear how long it will last. Many of the opportunities the rookies are getting right now were brought about by injuries. On Friday, before the Pirates’ game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Pirates activated designated hitter Daniel Vogelbach from the 10-day injured list. In theory, his return could have bumped a rookie back to the minors, but this time around, there was no need. The Pirates instead placed infielder Josh VanMeter on the 10-day IL with a fracture in his left ring finger.
This instance illustrates why general manager Ben Cherington says he isn’t going to predict what will happen to the rookies when the likes of Kevin Newman, Ben Gamel, Yoshi Tsutsugo, Jake Marisnick and VanMeter get back to full health.
“My experience is you spend too much time worrying about what’s going to happen 10 days from now and something else is going to happen anyway, so let’s not worry about it,” Cherington said. “We think Vogey’s probably the closest. We’ll have to make a move there. We’ll see what that is. The other guys, we’ll deal with that as they come, and obviously, we hope those guys do come back as soon as possible. It’s no secret that the majority of our experienced position players are on the IL right now. We would like all of them to come back.”
It’s also true, though, there are a bevy of rookies on the Pirates right now that there are more who realistically could be.
Take, for instance, this past week. When Tsutsugo hit the injured list May 27, many wondered if that would give Class AAA Indianapolis first baseman Mason Martin his callup. After all, the 23-year-old leads Indianapolis with 11 homers and is third on the team with an .838 OPS. He slowed down a bit in May, and he has still struck out in 35% of his plate appearances this season, but the Pirates were out of good internal options at first, having to turn to VanMeter for a couple of games to bridge the gap.
Then, the Pirates opted to keep Martin in Indianapolis, instead trading for first baseman Yu Chang from the Cleveland Guardians.
“I think every time there's a variety of factors to consider, and we're always going to look at guys in Indy and make a determination over whether this is the right time, and there's a lot of factors in that,” Cherington said. “Some of it's performance. Some of it is: Is there a specific thing the player is working on at the time that we think a little bit more time in AAA will help? Some of it is roster consideration. There's always more than one factor.
“In this particular case, Chang is a player that we have liked in the past. He happens to have played some first base. That was not the driving factor, I would say. That was kind of an ancillary factor that, yes, he's played some first base, but more than that, he's just a player that we've liked in the past.”
There’s also shortstop Oneil Cruz, who, after an injury scare in his ankle, has returned to Indianapolis’ lineup. All of his numbers have improved in recent weeks, with his batting average, OPS and walk rate rising and his strikeout rate falling. He’s making more consistent contact with the ball. Things are trending in the right direction for the Pirates’ No. 3 prospect on MLB Pipeline.
Cherington acknowledged that, too, saying the Pirates are happy with the progress Cruz has made, yet he remains in the minor leagues while Castro and Castillo eat up the reps among rookie middle infielders.
In a situation like that, where all players involved are young and have an argument for Major League playing time, it’s not always easy to decide who should get it. Both Castro and Castillo have had their struggles at times this season, but the Pirates clearly believe they could contribute in the long haul and have committed to giving them a run in the majors.
When Cruz does come up, he will almost certainly play nearly every day. That will take reps away from others. If the Pirates had called Cruz up before Castro or Castillo, perhaps it wouldn’t have been an issue, but they didn’t, and now they have to figure out when it’s best to give Cruz a long run in the majors at the expense of other players’ at-bats.
“When it comes to the roster, the commitment to the roster spot in the first place and then the playing time is a choice, and there's a ton of value in that,” Cherington said. “So we've got to be really careful that if you're taking that away from someone, that there's good reasons to take it away from someone and also consider what the benefit is to continue to give it to someone. If we believe in a player, believe that a player might help us in some way in the future or might have value for the Pirates at some point, then we've got to weigh that also, along with what it would mean to call a player up. It's all a part of the conversation of trying to weight it all the best we can."
Mike Persak: mpersak@post-gazette.com and Twitter @MikeDPersak
First Published: June 3, 2022, 11:11 p.m.