Kevin Gorman

There's a lot of variables, Joe.

But I think by mid-March, we should have a better idea when the WC concludes of where Connor Griffin stands with this team and how the Pirates are feeling about it, whether they want to move forward with him as their shortstop or whether they want to give him some time in AAA and ease him in.

Because they've made it very clear his development is the priority, and they've also talked in the past about dominating every level.

So he's not had a chance to dominate every

AAA, let alone even play in AAA before he gets to the major leagues.

Perhaps the Pirates have in their plans to do that, to let him go down to AAA, show that he's ready for that level before they bring him up to the majors and expose him to the best pitching in the world.

It's the

the player informant, you know, performance, uh, incentive that if you have a guy who's considered a, you know, top 100 prospect, there's incentive to bring him up and have a, give him a chance to win rookie of the year.

And if he does win those rookie of the year MVP type of awards, or even get votes, I think, um, you know, if you finish in top three voting, um,

then you can get rewarded with a draft pick.

And that's something where the Pirates brought Paul Skeens along very deliberately because of his pitch count and because of his innings count, that this is a guy who had to handle a heavy workload as a junior at LSU, and they wanted to try to have him at the end of the season more so than at the beginning.

But Connor Griffin's a different story.

Like, you know, this is a guy who, you know, you expect him to be able to handle playing 100 plus games.

He did it last year.

I think, you know, to expect him to hit, you know, to play at least 125 games is not out of the realm of possibility, regardless of whether he starts this even with the Pirates or not.

Yeah.

Well, for one, it was a very college-heavy draft, and there was a lot of guys.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Nick Kurtz might have been in that draft, too.

There was a lot of talent in that draft.

I'm pretty sure that was the one where Travis Bozzano went number one overall, but