Pittsburgh Pirates Wake Up Call – Less Than A Month Away

In our daily Wake-Up Call, we get you ready for the day with a complete look at all things Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are less than a month away from opening the season against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park on April 3rd.

With the World Baseball Classic necessitating a somewhat earlier start to Spring Training, it feels like teams have been in camp for longer than they actually have been. As Major League Baseball comes down the home stretch in Arizona and Florida, the Pirates face little questions outside of their final rotation spot and perhaps a bullpen arm or two. That’s a good place to be in.

We mentioned in a previous Wake Up Call that with mainstays such as Andrew McCutchen, Josh Harrison, Starling Marte and more off participating in the WBC, Spring Training is wide open for some prospects to get some much needed reps.

That was on full display yesterday, with Kevin Newman and Austin Meadows providing some highlights.

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That is some fantastic range from Newman, whom many felt was destined for second base. If he keeps showing that type of range, the Pittsburgh Pirates should feel very comfortable with keeping him at shortstop.

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I had a fantastic conversation yesterday with one of our Twitter followers about what matters in Spring Training and what doesn’t. In the end, stats obviously do not matter, but the way someone is swinging – the way that someone is pitching – matters a great deal. Meadows’ swing here may not have been perfect, but he showed an ability to drive the ball to the opposite field on a less than ideal pitch. That bodes very well.

Jose Osuna also went yard yesterday. He’s having a fantastic spring, and you’ll read more about him on these pages very soon.

Cannonballs Coming

In case you missed it yesterday, we debuted Cannonballs, our weekly 15-minute Pittsburgh Pirates debate show. Each week two combatants will enter the arena to debate topics by our moderator Steve Kubitz.  Winner stays on for the next week. Here’s the first episode:

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Our goal with this show – and with everything we do, really – is to push the Pirates conversation forward. We aren’t interested in hot takery, or soundbytes. Intelligent Pirates debate that will hopefully spark some conversation along the way.

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Baseball Talk on the Web

• Dave Cameron gives us a tantalizing look at the future of Statcast as it relates to WAR
• 42 year-old Cubs reliever Koji Uehara thinks he has two more years left in him.
• Like him or hate him, Alex Rodriguez has proven to be a good analyst. Fox Sports clearly thinks so.