Pittsburgh Pirates Bulls and Bears – Spring Training Week 1

With the first full week of Spring Training games in the books for the Pittsburgh Pirates, it’s time to take a look at whose stock is rising and whose is falling.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have now played a full week of Grapefruit League games. The results, of course, don’t matter, yet after one week there has been a few eye-openers.

Here are a few notes on whose stock is rising (in stock market terms, the “Bulls”) and whose stock took a hit this past week (the “Bears”). Today we will look at two starting pitchers with notable performances over the past week.

I think we can all agree that Tyler Glasnow had a rough start to his spring in his first outing against the Atlanta Braves. In lasting just 1.2 innings and immediately finding himself putting out fires, Glasnow may have shown that the proponents of starting him in Triple-A Indianapolis were on to something.

It’s easy to forget now, but in eight starts for the Indians, Glasnow walked 4.8 batters per nine innings. Of course, with an ERA of 2.20 and 10.5 strikeouts per nine innings, it could be argued that the lack of control didn’t matter much. While that may be true at the Triple-A level, it’s notable that Glasnow ran into trouble in facing Michael Bourn, Nick Markakis, and Freddie Freeman, among others. These were noted, professional, major league hitters. With Glasnow still developing his changeup, hitters may be able to key into tendencies the young hurler can’t help but fall back to.

Of course, spring training is especially meaningless for pitchers, and that’s doubly true for starting pitching prospects. Glasnow is working on that which Ray Searage is asking him to. It will take at least a few more outings before a true read on Glasnow’s major-league readiness can be obtained. Absolutely none of this has affected his standing to observers both within the organization and outside of it.

On the other hand, Jeff Locke focused on his new delivery to rebound from a poor first outing this spring. In his most recent spring start against the Phillies, Locke did not walk a batter in three innings while striking out one. This is clearly the formula to success for Locke, who historically struggles with control.

If he can find his way to a sub-four ERA, Locke can be as valuable as any other number four starter in baseball. Although the Pirates bullpen was built to withstand shorter outings from the likes of Locke and Ryan Vogelsong, more quality starts from him can also increase the effectiveness of the relief pitching corps. The Pittsburgh Pirates and their fans had to be very happy with what they saw from him in the outing, and for that, his stock is rising.

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