Kevin Gorman

It's a little more of a scatter shot.

But when he was in AA, he looked like a man amongst boys, and he was four and a half years younger than everybody in terms of average age.

He's going to look that play, you know, he already looks the part of being an opening day shortstop.

I think the Pirates may have some reservations about putting him.

They're very much talking about putting this guy in a position to succeed instead of one to fail because they know how valuable he is and how important his development is for their future.

I think what's realistic is you're going to see performances like yesterday.

And yesterday was, you know, a little bit of an abnormally that yesterday

that he's a guy who's going to walk people sometimes because he throws the ball really hard and the command isn't quite where he needs to be you know i think you're going to see because of the predecessors to him jared jones and paul schemes you're going to expect him to come up and throw 100 miles an hour and blow people away which he's shown he can do we've also seen him have a rough outing against milwaukee we've also seen him do it in in small spurts when he's working out of the bullpen to start his career

But the thing that impressed everybody about Bubba Chandler yesterday, it's not so much that he hit 100 miles an hour on his third pitch.

We know he's capable of that.

For him to do it in late February as opposed to, say, late March or early April, it's impressive that the ball's coming out of his hand very good, that he felt good out there, that he was feeling it, that he actually said he regrets dialing it back.

The thing that Joey Bart was impressed with, that Don Kelly was impressed with, and that Chandler was pleased with, is that he got strikeouts with his changeup and his slider.

And so that he's got his secondary pitches working as well as he does this early in spring training is a good sign.

But Bubba Chandler is 23, doesn't hurt 24 until I believe September.

So there's going to be a learning curve.

There's going to be some growing pains for him.

But I do think that this is a special talent.

And I think kind of when it's all said and done, and that may not be the start of the season, maybe more so midseason, I think he's going to be your number two starter behind Paul Skeens.

And if you get to the midseason point of that, if things go well, then you have a starting rotation that has

schemes, Chandler Keller and Jones somewhere along the way.