BRADENTON, Fla. – Konnor Griffin has been one of the biggest stories in baseball this spring training, as baseball’s consensus No. 1 prospect’s five-tool talents have been on display in Grapefruit League games.

Whether it was hitting two home runs over the replica Green Monster against the Boston Red Sox or making diving plays at shortstop, the 19-year-old phenom is pushing to make the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Opening Day roster.

“He’s been impressive, as we anticipated it would be,” Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said Sunday morning at LECOM Park. “Knowing Konnor and the physical skills and who he is as a person, we anticipated that he would do good things in spring training, and he has.”

Cherington sounded like someone who wants to pump the brakes a bit on the Griffin hype, given that the minor league player of the year did the majority of his damage at Low-A Bradenton and High-A Greensboro in his first season of pro baseball and made only 98 plate appearances over 21 games at Double-A Altoona last summer.

Cherington isn’t committing one way or the other to whether Griffin will start the season in the majors, let alone spend the entire spring in big league camp. The development of the 2024 first-round pick is the highest priority for the Pirates, who have also used Nick Gonzales, Jared Triolo and Alika Williams at shortstop this spring.

Baseball analysts are calling Griffin a can’t-miss superstar, one the Pirates can’t afford to have fail.

“We believe that we have responsibility as organization with Konnor,” Cherington said. “He’s got a chance to have a really, really good, long career, and it’s our job to do everything we can to support him in being in the best spot possible to do that.

“Obviously, we want to try to marry that up with him helping the Pirates win as many games as possible, too. So that will continue to guide us. We’re reminded all the time about spring training versus the entire body of work. Believe that spring training is a tiny slice of information, and … that we owe it to players to look at the entire body of work. In Konnor’s case, there’s 100 plate appearances above High-A, so that’s important information, too. So, we’ll see where this goes. But our job will be to put him in a position to have the longest, best career possible.”

The 6-foot-4, 225-pound Griffin batted .333/.415/.527 with 23 doubles, four triples, 21 home runs, 94 RBIs, 117 runs scored and 65 stolen bases last season, with 122 strikeouts and 50 walks in 122 games across three levels of hte minors leagues. He batted .337 with a .960 OPS, five homers and 22 RBIs in 21 games at Altoona.

This spring, Griffin is batting only .200 (4 for 20) with four strikeouts and no walks, but he’s slugging .581 and tied for the team lead with three home runs and the third-most RBIs (six).

“I think there are things we can learn from spring training, and there are things that we can’t, and there’s things that can be deceiving about spring training,” Cherington said. “I think the things you can learn certainly are sort of like the physical side, health, the sort of raw physical skills.”

Cherington also warned that a smaller sample size can be “really noisy,” so it’s preferable to evaluate players based on the entire body of work over a full spring training. Whether Griffin will get the chance to remain in big league camp for the entirety of the spring is another question.

“We just haven’t gotten there,” Cherington said. “Take it a day at a time. As we get a little bit deeper into March here, we will start to make decisions as we get closer and start to get organized, like the roster, and just continue to take that a day to time.”

Cherington’s roster construction continues, as he acquired utility fielder Tyler Callihan from the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday in exchange for right-handed reliever Kyle Nicolas. Cherington said he wanted to add another left-handed hitter to the infield and that Callihan is a player the Pirates have had “our eyes on for a while.”

“We’re excited to get to know him better,” Cherington said. “Believe in the bat, we know he can play second, we’ll probably take a look at third base here during spring training, see how that goes. He’s just a young outfielder who’s got a lot of time ahead of him and comes in with a really good reputation as a person, as a teammate. Looking forward to getting to know him.”

Meantime, Cherington is still seeking ways to make the Pirates better and hasn’t ruled out making more moves this spring.

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“I think we have to be,” Cherington said. “We have to be out there every day looking for ways to improve the roster. So is every other team. At the same time, we really believe in the group that we have. If the season was starting tomorrow, we feel really good about where we are. Believe we’re in a strong position, but, of course, every day we got to be out there looking for more.”