The Pirates made their first spring training cuts this morning, and as usually happens, there's no surprising news to be found in this round of demotions. Jameson Taillon is the big name being re-assigned to minor league camp today, and Casey Sadler, Carlos Paulino, Joely Rodriguez, Matt Hague, and Alen Hanson are all following him. For the most part, I don't know if we'll see any of those other five players in Pittsburgh this year, though Casey Sadler could make some spot starts in case of emergency the way that Brandon Cumpton did last year.
After my post about Gregory Polanco from last week, I joked about how much easier it is to convince people that Taillon needs to start the year in the minors. Gerrit Cole paved the way for this argument last year; at the absolute least the Pirates need to keep Taillon in Triple-A during the early part of the season to control his pitch counts so that he's available to pitch for the Pirates into October, if necessary. Beyond that, I don't know that there's much else to say. With Edinson Volquez and Wandy Rodriguez as question marks and their immediate replacements being guys like Stolmy Pimentel, Jeff Locke, and Brandon Cumpton (listed in order of my excitement about them), there will be opportunties for Taillon to pitch with the Pirates this year, should he be ready. I certainly wouldn't expect him before mid-June, though.
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