If you missed it earlier today, DK posted the likely minor league assignments for the Pirates’ best prospects here and here today. As he notes himself, it’s mostly stuff you’d expect and there are really only a couple of assignments worth talking about.
One is Danny Moskos. He had a nice year in terms of ERA in Double-A last year (3.74) but his strikeouts (4.7/9) and walks (3.5/9) were both a mess, but he’s likely getting a promotion to Triple-A anyways. The reason is that he’s moving back to the bullpen, so the front office must’ve seen what they wanted to see from him in terms of pitch repertoire or something. It’s not unprecedented for them to move a player up a level based on reaching some kind of goal that’s not reflected in stats (Pedro Alvarez from Lynchburg to Altoona this year, for example), but I don’t see a whole lot of evidence that Moskos is turning into someone that’s going to suddenly turn into a shutdown reliever. His platoon splits thus far aren’t great, but hopefully he’ll find something new in moving to the pen this year. He’ll be 24 in April, so I guess there’s still time to hope.
The other one that caught my eye is Tim Alderson. Because of his young age (he turned 21 in November), going back to Double-A isn’t a huge deal, but his declining strikeout rate was noted everywhere and it was coupled with some reports about declining velocity, as well. That obviously didn’t go unnoticed by the front office, and now his performance at Double-A this year is something of a measuring stick for next year.
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