The NS9 Report is the start to your week. Posted bright and early every Monday morning, I’ll break down the three things that I’m looking for each week in Pirates land.
Line Change!
It’s week two in Bradenton for the North Shore Nine! We will be doing a line change this week as DiNardo, Neil, Nathan and myself will arrive at NS9AIRBNB and Jim, Tyler and Cody head back north. Man of the people Doug will remain for week two, proving once again that he’s the best of us.
The faces may be different this week, but the content will continue to be churned out by the North Shore Nine crew. We will be going live from the ballpark before games, doing daily recaps after the games and shooting other interviews and fun content throughout the week to help get you ready for everything Pirates baseball as we approach Opening Day. Check out our YouTube channel and subscribe so you don’t miss out on any videos or notifications when we go live.
Are We Worried About Bubba Chandler?
Last season we saw Bubba Chandler in the Majors for just seven appearances and overall, he looked pretty good. He posted a 4.02 ERA, 2.66 FIP and struck out 31 and walked just four in 31.1 innings. The control issue he was having in the minors (4.2 BB/9) was basically non-existent in Pittsburgh (1.1 BB/9). So far this spring though, the control problems have reared its ugly head again.
Obviously this is a super, super small sample size with only 3.0 innings across two outings, but Chandler has given up six earned runs and walked seven batters in that time. In his last outing on Saturday against the Astros, he walked three, gave up three hits, allowed two runs and gave up a home run to Isaac Paredes. So are we worried about Bubba? Look, at the end of the day it’s spring training and this is the time you work on some things and the results don’t mean much. He definitely needs to find the zone more and not be working from behind and putting guys on, but he’s only had two appearances so far. I’m not too worried about it myself, not yet anyway. If he’s still struggling to throw strikes and walking guys toward the end of spring then it’s more worrisome as we head into the season.
Bubba will be due to throw toward the end of this week so I’m looking to see him hopefully throwing more strikes and being more consistent in his next outing. And hopefully he tosses Thursday or Friday’s game when I’m in attendance!
World Baseball Classic Starts This Week
Let the games begin. Yes, spring training started two weeks ago, but the tension and meaning is going to amp up for some players this week as the World Baseball Classic will begin on Wednesday with Australia vs Chinese Taipei at 10:00PM in the Tokyo Dome. The United States is in Pool B with Brazil, Great Britain, Italy and Mexico and will play in Houston. The USA’s first game is Friday, March 6 against Brazil at 8:00PM.
Say what you will about the WBC, but the players clearly get jazzed up for it playing for their country and last WBC’s Ohtani vs Trout at-bat with the championship on the line was pure cinema. With the winter Olympics just finishing up, this will be another cool international tournament to watch. And this year’s USA team will feature both reigning Cy Young winners in Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal…not a bad 1-2 punch. And you know Skenes is pumped up and ready to represent his country…
Here’s all the players in the Pirates organization that are participating in the WBC and will be leaving Bradenton for their respective teams:
40-Man Roster Players
- Paul Skenes (USA)
- Oneil Cruz (Dominican Republic)
- Gregory Soto (Dominican Republic)
- Dennis Santana (Dominican Republic)
- Spencer Horwitz (Israel)
- Nick Gonzales (Mexico)
- José Urquidy (Mexico)
- Kyle Nicolas (Italy)
- Antwone Kelly (Netherlands)
Non 40-Man Roster Players
- Alessandro Ercolani (Italy)
- Joe La Sorsa (Italy)
- Po-Yu Chen (Chinese Taipei)
- Oddanier Mosqueda (Venezuela)
- Emmanuel Chapman (Cuba)
It’ll be fun to see these players competing so early on in the season and at the same time, with these players out of camp, it’ll give us opportunities to see other players more in Bradenton. I mean more Konnor Griffin time is a great thing. And maybe will even see a Skenes vs Cruz big at-bat in the WBC. Obviously we want to see everyone stay healthy in this WBC which is always a concern when players, especially pitchers try to ramp up this early in spring for a tourney like this. The teams are monitoring guys innings especially Skenes so here’s hoping everything goes without incident.
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