Drew Aller

It's been a long time since we've talked about the Pirates having a unanimous or consensus anything that didn't have something to do with last place or didn't have something to do with being a public relations disaster.

And right now they have the unanimous Cy Young Award winner for the National League and the consensus number one player in baseball.

They have become a hot topic around baseball, and they have some guys walking around.

And I talked to Paul Skeens about this the other day.

You walk into that clubhouse or you see these guys walk on the field and you see a 6'6", 260 Paul Skeens and a 6'7", 240 O'Neal Cruz and a 6'4", 240 or 225 pound Connor Griffin at shortstop.

And you say, man, they got some big, impressive guys walking around on this team that are going to turn heads tomorrow.

and that are capable of doing, you know, things when you, when you hear the term unicorn, you know, it's supposed to be like, it's this mythical, magical, you know, term that people use to say he's one of one.

And the pirates have three guys that people have talked about having, you know, being unicorns in, in schemes, cruising Griffin now.

And so it's a very much a different vibe in that sense that the pirates have those guys.

And in fairness,

The Pirates have seven all-stars on this team.

Seven guys have been all-stars.

And those three are only one of them.

You know, Skeens is the only one of those three, the unicorn types, that's been an all-star.

So they've got some guys around them, too.

You know, there's some serious talent on this team.

Now, whether they can get them all, you know, whether Donnie Kelly can get them all to play together and buy in, you know, and all pull in the same direction, that's going to be, you know, the key to this season is whether, you know, Donnie's leadership gets this team to perform, you know, at or above expectations.

expectations have now increased to the point that I think people are talking about the Pirates as a playoff contender.

Yeah, you know...

The adaptation from a guy who played center field last year in the Grapefruit League play to moving to shortstop was pretty seamless for him in the minor leagues.