Top Five Pittsburgh Pirates Prospect Debuts

4. Gerrit Cole – June 11^th 2013

The Pittsburgh Pirates were a mess of an organization from 1993-2007 as they had seemingly no plan and were just trying to get 81 wins. Bad drafts and bad signings left the team in shambles. When Neal Huntington took over things finally started to change. Instead of drafting lesser talented but sign-able players, the organization started taking the best player available in the draft.

The 2010 Pirates lost 105 games and really weren’t a good club as they had the worst record in the league but because of that they had the number one overall pick and in June of 2011, the Pirates selected UCLA pitcher, Gerrit Cole.

Cole only spent about two seasons in the minors before his call-up and in mid 2013 the future ace was finally called up. The hype around the stadium that day was real as Pirates’ fans finally had the young ace pitcher they’ve been waiting years for.

Cole pitched well in the game against the San Francisco Giants. He went 6.1 innings, allowed two runs on seven hits and struck out two. He also drove in two runs in his second major league at-bat. It was an amazing moment that Pirates’ fans aren’t likely to forget.

3. Pedro Alvarez – June 16^th 2010

Dave Littlefield was a really bad GM for the Pirates. He didn’t know how to sign quality players, make trades but he was especially bad at the draft. The epitome of that happened in 2007 when the Pirates had the number four overall pick in the draft and most people had the Pirates selecting Georgia Tech catcher Matt Wieters, but Dave Littlefield shocked the baseball world when he selected lesser known pitcher Daniel Moskos. This left the fan base stunned and helped lead to Littlefield getting fired in the same season.

One year later, the Pirates had the second overall pick and instead of drafting a lesser talented player, they selected best player available Pedro Alvarez out of Vanderbilt.

Once again, Alvarez spent a couple seasons in the minors before his call-up midway through the 2010 season. By June 16^th the Pirates were 23-42 and on their way to 105 losses, but Pedro’s debut was the sign that the Pirates days of having a terrible farm system were over and talent was coming through the pipeline.

Pedro’s debut game was nothing spectacular, he went 0-3 with a walk and a run scored in a 7-2 loss, but his rookie season was absolutely spectacular. He hit 16 home runs, drove in 64 runs and gave PNC Park one of its most iconic moments during the really dark times on on August 7^th 2010:

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