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.
Opening Day This Week
Finally, we are about to have some real baseball action this week. One of the more anticipated Pirate seasons in the past decade will begin on Thursday afternoon from Citi Field when Paul Skenes and the Bucs begin a three-game series with the Mets. And the rotation is all set with the news today from Don Kelly that Carmen Mlodzinski will start on Sunday in the series finale.
Jason Mackey tweeted out the rotation order on Sunday:
Once again, we’ll have an all right-handed rotation and the Pirates are giving Mlod another shot at starting. With his new pitch mix and the success he had with it in the second half of last season, I’m willing to give him another shot at it too. He’ll have about a month or two to prove to the brass that he can handle the starting gig and go at least five innings because Jared Jones is on schedule with his rehab and should be back in mid to late May.
Now that we see the rotation on paper, we know the potential is there but how good can they be? We know Paul Skenes will be elite as he makes a run at another Cy Young award. We know Mitch Keller will eat innings and be a solid starter. But it’s Braxton Ashcraft and Bubba Chandler that could really make this rotation one of the best in the game. Ashcraft had a great spring while Bubba struggled, but both could really make this rotation take flight. And this tweet from Thomas Nestico really gets you thinking…
If Ashcraft receives NL Cy Young votes, whoa baby we could be in for a fun season in the Burgh. Meanwhile, Bubba currently has the 5th best odds (+2000) to win the NL Rookie of the Year award behind Konnor Griffin and Mets starter Nolan McLean (who the Pirates will see in this first series). It’s time for the Pirates young rotation to take control and dominate.
Final Spring Training Game and Rounding Out the Roster
The Pirates have one more spring training game in Grapefruit League play on Monday against the Braves and then they’ll head north. They’ll be off Tuesday and Wednesday and then Opening Day commences on Thursday at 1:15PM. The Bucs are 17-12 this spring which is good for 4th in the Grapefruit League standings behind the Braves, Cardinals and Yankees.
The Pirates also made some roster moves Sunday:
With Alika Williams being reassigned to minor league camp and Rafael Flores optioned to Triple-A that leaves the catching tandem of Henry Davis and Joey Bart making the team and it rounds out the bench with Billy Cook, Nick Yorke and Jake Mangum. It looks like Jared Triolo will start at shortstop and third base being some combination of Nick Gonzales and Nick Yorke. All I can say here is that this team better hit this season because the defense in the outfield and infield could be very below average. There’s always a chance that the Pirates work some last minute trade out to bring in a third baseman or shortstop, but I’m not holding my breath waiting for that one. In an offseason that nearly checked every box needed for this team to compete this season, they really missed the boat by not acquiring a good third baseman. It’s looming large here especially with Griffin starting the year at Triple-A.
The last move that needs to be decided still is the final bullpen spots. Basically there’s two spots for the following trio of Hunter Barco, Mike Clevinger and Jose Urquidy. My gut tells me that they’ll start Barco in Triple-A and Urquidy/Clevinger make the bullpen, but maybe Barco will get the bullpen role to piggyback during Mlodzinski starts. We’ll find out this week. Urquidy was signed to a Major League deal so even though he struggled mightily this spring (11 ER in 10.2 IP), I think he’ll make the team in the pen. Clevinger has pitched well enough at times this spring to warrant a roster spot, but there’s no telling what this team will do next with some of these roster moves.
Joe La Sorsa, who made some noise with Team Italy in the WBC, has an upward mobility clause that he’s triggering Monday since he was reassigned to minor league camp. That makes him available to any of the 29 other teams and if another team gives him a spot then the Pirates have to add him to their active roster or lose him to said team. If no team offers him a roster spot then he can be sent to the minors and remain in the Pirates organization.
Good Start Needed
Every Opening Day is exciting even when your team isn’t projected to be very good like the Pirates have been in recent years. We get all the fun cliches and sayings—Hope springs eternal, every team is in first place! Blah blah blah. It’s true, but this year there’s definitely more reason to be excited for this season besides just false hope. The Pirates long rebuild is apparently over. It’s time to win now. They went out this offseason and spent some money, made a couple trades and added actual solid Major League bats and added depth to raise the floor on this team. With the expectations higher for the Pirates this season, a good start is paramount in my opinion.
Last season the Bucs started just 1-5 then 2-7 and came out of April with a miserable 12-19 record which ultimately led to Derek Shelton being fired early on. They can’t afford to do that again. They need to at least tread water and play .500 ball or better until Griffin gets called up which should give them a boost at least defensively with Griffin taking over short and moving Triolo to third to at least solidify the left side of the infield. A hot start is something that I’ll be looking for this week as the Pirates once again start the season on the road for the 10th straight year.
Blog Schedule
As the 162-game season gets underway, let me take care of some housekeeping and give you the blog schedule for the season. Monday morning I’ll still have the NS9 Report and we’ll still have a column style post from Neil or myself mid week throughout the season. But each morning we’ll also be posting the Bullpen Breakdown where I track each reliever’s usage and pitches throughout the week. We’ll have the graphic and a quick writeup from me on who pitched the previous game, who should be available for the next game and a quick look at the starting pitcher that day. That Bullpen Breakdown post will run as our game preview each day. And then following each game and our live postgame show on YouTube, we’ll have our postgame recap on the blog that will be our three takeaways from each game. So on gamedays, you can expect a minimum of two posts.
On top of that, I’ll be doing a Twitter/X recap each week with the top tweets and all things from Pirates Twitter. And Neil will have a look at the prospects in his farm report most likely running every Friday. Names like Wilber Dotel, Jhostynxon Garcia, Esmerlyn Valdez, Seth Hernandez, Termarr Johnson, Edward Florentino, Antwone Kelly, Tony Blanco Jr., Konnor Griffin (hopefully not for long though) and more will be featured each week so you can stay up to date on what the young guns are doing in the minors.
And any other breaking news, roster moves, trades, random analysis and commentary from Neil and I will be on this site so be sure to check it every day throughout the season. From our social media accounts to our YouTube channel to our blog, North Shore Nine remains your number one source for all things Pirates! Let’s get this highly anticipated season going this week and have some fun.
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