Baseball Isn’t Boring
Presser: Ben Cherington Addresses Konnor Griffin's Immediate Future
08 Mar 2026
Chapter 1: What are the expectations for Konnor Griffin in spring training?
here yeah you know he's he's been impressive as as we anticipated he would be you know uh knowing connor and the physical skills and he is a person uh anticipated that he would he would do good things in spring training and he has and um you know we believe that we have responsibility as an organization with connor um he's got a chance to have a really really good long career and
it's our job to do everything we can to support him in being in the best spot possible to, to do that. And obviously we want to try to marry that up with him, helping the pirates when he's been in games as possible too. So that will continue to guide us. You know, we're reminded all the time about, you know, spring training versus the entire body of work.
I believe that spring training is a tiny slice of information and, the entire body of work that we owe it to players to look at the entire body of work. And in Connor's case, there's a hundred plate appearances above high A. So, you know, that's important information too. So we'll see where this goes, but our job will be to put him in a position to have the longest, best career possible.
Do you anticipate him being around big league camp for its entirety?
Chapter 2: How do spring training numbers influence roster decisions?
I think we just haven't gotten there, Noah. You know, like take it a day at a time as we get, A little bit deeper into March here, we will start to make decisions as we get closer and start to get organized the roster and just continue to take that a day at a time.
How much do the actual numbers go into that decision? Obviously, it's kind of different with everyone. For some, spring training numbers don't matter as much, but for someone trying to make the team after not having played above AA, do they matter more?
Yeah, you know, I think there are things we can learn from spring training and there are things that we can't and there's things that can be deceiving about spring training. I think the things you can learn certainly are, you know, sort of like the physical side, health, you know, the sort of raw physical skills.
Like if you see pitchers, you know, you can see a new pitch, for example, or you can see that a guy's healthy or you can see how a guy's moving. I mean, I think that's information that's valuable.
Chapter 3: What is the Pirates' strategy for player development and support?
Um, in terms of the performance in a game, it's really noisy. You know, it's, it's you trying to control for sample size and who they're facing. And, you know, it's just, it gets, it gets really noisy, which is why I think we generally owe it to players to look at the entire body of work and not just spring training. Um, so it's a little bit of both, but I would just go back to that.
The spring training is going to be a smaller slice of it, uh, than, than the entire body of work.
What'd you guys like about Tyler Callahan?
Yeah, kind of a guy we've had our eyes on for a while. I think as we look at our infield group moving forward, you know, over the next several years, we're a little bit more right-handed than left-handed in that group. So we've been looking to add a left-hand bat back into that group.
And Tyler, someone we've had our eyes on, had been talking to Cincinnati probably off and on since going back to last July.
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Chapter 4: How does the WBC affect team roster decisions?
And it just so happened to line up.
now so we're excited to get to know him better believe in the bat we know he can play second we'll probably take a look at third base here during spring training see how that goes you know he's just easy going outfielder who's got a lot of time ahead of him and comes in with a really good reputation as a person as a teammate so looking forward to getting to know him you guys still looking ben i mean
Starting rotation?
Yeah, I mean, I think we have to be, right? Like, we have to be out there every day looking for ways to improve the roster, so has every other team. And at the same time, really believe in the group that we have. You know, if the season was starting tomorrow, we'd feel really good about where we are, believe we're in a strong position.
But, of course, every day we've got to be out there looking for more.
Does the WBC complicate that at all, with guys being away? Does it make it harder to make trades?
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Chapter 5: What insights does Ben Cherington share about Tyler Callahan?
We made one with Kyle, so I think there's nothing technically standing in the way of it, but I guess it's a little unusual, and a lot of people's focus is on the WBC, and it's an exciting event for baseball, and I'm also looking forward to March 17th or whenever it is, getting back to our full squad.
Ben, given the success of the WBC, what are your thoughts about in 28 in Los Angeles about MLB allowing, whether it's pausing this season or allowing some players that want to be in the Olympics? I mean, I think generally my thought is that if there are events that are clearly good for the game, good for growing the game, that I'm supportive, we're supportive of those. The devil's in the details.
Always like how to how to do it in a way that's protecting the interest of baseball, protecting the interest of the Pirates, our team, et cetera. Trust that there's a lot of smart people will be focused on how to do that, but we are supportive of anything that's going to help grow the game.
And we see that, you know, happening through the WBC and certainly seems possible it could happen through the Olympics too.
Ben, with those final roster spots, let's call them, there's a few guys, Nick York, who stated his case saying in his exit meeting, his goal was to walk away, making your decision really hard this season. How pleased can you be with maybe how challenging those final spots might be for you guys, knowing these guys put themselves in that position?
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Chapter 6: What challenges does the Pirates' starting rotation face?
Yeah, I think if those decisions are harder all the time and we start to think of, You know, good players going to AAA, we're going to be unhappy about it. We're not rooting for them to be unhappy, but it's probably a good position for us to be in if that's the case. So that's not specific to Nick York. Generally speaking, we know that we're going to have difficult decisions to make.
We want people to be making those decisions hard for us, certainly. The expectation is that, you know, it's kind of playing out. In some ways, the way we hoped it would on the position player side is that part of our goal this offseason was not just to add the more proven bats, but really to create more depth, more competition.
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Chapter 7: How are the Pirates handling player positions and competition?
I've been turning down interviews all week. Hoda Kotb reached out, Oprah, George Stephanopoulos. So I said, no, I was booked on the Deitch podcast before the Taylor Swift phenomenon. I must live up to my responsibility.
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You know, there's fighting for jobs, there's fighting for opportunities, so hopefully that is happening this spring, but expect it to happen throughout the season, too. You know, we want guys to be pushing up from Indianapolis.
Those who start the season there will be pushing up, and we want guys on our Major League team to know that we believe in them, but know also that there's competition coming, so hopefully that's playing out.
When you look at this number five rotation spot and you consider the timelines of guys coming back from injury, some of the guys you have in AAA, Do you consider maybe getting creative with it, that maybe it's not a traditional number five starter, that that could be a piggyback or a bullpen game for just a couple times through until some other things unfold?
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Chapter 8: What are the early evaluations of players transitioning to new positions?
Yeah, I think maybe related to your question is, like, probably not even thinking about number five yet specifically. I think we have a number of starting pitchers who are building volume up and – as we get deeper into spring, we'll continue to see that pitch counts, you know, increase. And, um, so what we're looking for as guys get their pitch counts up is, you know, how they're holding stuff.
Um, what's the execution as they get deeper into outings and you start to think about how guys can come together, uh, to form the best group of 13 that we can leave Florida with. And, um, some of them obviously will be pitching in traditional starting roles and, We may ask some to pitch in different roles to help us win a game.
So still thinking about it that way, less specific than three, four, five, six, whatever. And as we get closer to the flight to New York, we'll have a better sense of that.
Is that something you guys might have to entertain, Ben, based on just workloads and young guys and having to monitor innings too? Is that another input?
I think there's some of that for sure that we'll keep an eye on. And then But even more than that is just what puts us in the best position to win games. I think we've learned last year that there's different ways to win games. And if you have a starter that can give you seven shutout, that's one way. That's great. We'll take that every time. But you don't count on that every time.
And there's different ways to win games. And we have a lot of talented pitchers. And I think we think about who's the best group of 13 we can have on a daily basis. And that's going to change over the course of season two. We're going to start with 13 and we're going to use 25. So we're just we're trying to prepare a group of pitchers to be in position to help us win games this season.
Exactly what the rules are, you know, don't know as much about yet. With some, it's more clear. We know what Paul Skeens is going to be doing, and we know what Mitch Keller is going to be doing. With others, we're still learning. But we believe in the group.
We believe that we've seen this spring that we've got guys with the pitch qualities and ability to execute to get major league hitters out, and it's just a matter of exactly how we're going to use them all.
It seems like Ryan is going to be playing a little bit more outfield than he has in past regular seasons. What have been your early evaluations on his workload there so far, or his performance there so far?
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