OT: Pirates Talk: That Skenes guy is okay at teh baseball

[NewAgeOutlaw]

I've been banging the drum on the Bucs' international signings being suspect post‐Starling Marte for some time now.

 

[pistolpete11]

I've been banging the drum on the Bucs' international signings being suspect post‐Starling Marte for some time now.

Not disagreeing with you, but remember Kang? He did kill it for those couple of years.

 

[ChaosAgent]

They did just turn Luis Ortiz into Horowitz from an international perspective. Is he the best recent guy?

 

[Empoleon8771]

They did just turn Luis Ortiz into Horowitz from an international perspective. Is he the best recent guy?

Yeah Ortiz is the best recent international guy that they've signed. Ortiz, Bae and Castro are the only international guys who they signed and also had an impact (even a small one) for the Pirates in the past couple of years.

Not disagreeing with you, but remember Kang? He did kill it for those couple of years.

Kang wasn't really an international prospect, he was an established KBO hitter that came over to the Pirates. Not quite the same.

The international prospects being mentioned here are more referring to guys like Marte and Polanco, guys they signed at like 16 and developed. Since Polanco, they'd only gotten very short stints of effective play out of their international prospects. Ortiz last year and Castro in 2022 is really about it.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

The Bucs have been terrible at developing talent, so it makes sense that the youngest prospects in the system would all pretty much stall out sooner or later. Usually sooner.

 

[MrBrightside]

ESPN ranks the Pirates system 20th.

Ranking all 30 MLB farm systems for 2025: Which team is the new No. 1?

How bright is your favorite team's future? Here's how every organization in baseball stacks up.

www.espn.com

20. Pittsburgh Pirates ($179 million)​

Last year: 14th, $222 million

Top 100 prospects: 4

The whole organization has a different feel after the emergence of Paul Skenes. Oneil Cruz might be the only other potential star on the big league roster, but that's two more than some teams have, and Bubba Chandler could make it a trio by the middle of 2025. Konnor Griffin is arguably the prospect with the highest variance in the top 100, so he certainly could turn into a superstar; however, this system is in a brief down cycle as the big league team is full of the last couple of years of graduates. Pittsburgh might have to now start to balance competing in the short term and long term, a welcome change after six straight losing seasons.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Grichuk returning to the Diamondbacks on a 1 year, $5 million deal. Hope you're ready for a Suwinski/Cook platoon in RF this year.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Grichuk returning to the Diamondbacks on a 1 year, $5 million deal. Hope you're ready for a Suwinski/Cook platoon in RF this year.

Luigi, meet Bob