The final move the Pittsburgh Pirates need to make heading into 2026 might not involve free agency, trades, or anything at all. Instead, it\u2019s an internal option that could say a lot about where the organization truly believes it is in its rebuild.<\/p>\n
That decision centers around Konnor Griffin.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
For a franchise that has often sat on the side of caution with prospects, this feels like a moment to be smart.<\/p>\n
The Pirates don\u2019t need to promise Griffin a spot or rush his development. I\u2019m not saying that, but they need to give him a legitimate chance.<\/p>\n
That means, entering spring training, they need to have an open competition and allow Griffin to earn his way onto the roster.<\/p>\n
Right now, the path is there. The Pirates\u2019 roster has room for more talent, and Griffin has exactly that.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Jay Staph of Just Baseball framed it perfectly when discussing the Pirates\u2019 decision on Kriffin, suggesting that they do so this spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe final thing the Pirates need to do heading into 2026 isn\u2019t an external move, but instead something they should focus on internally. They should give Konnor Griffin every opportunity possible in 2026, including a chance to make the Opening Day roster with a strong spring training\u2026 This leaves the door wide open for Griffin, and the Pirates have expressed their willingness to allow him to make this jump. If he does, he\u2019d become the first teenage hitter to make their major league debut since Juan Soto in 2018,\u201d he wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n As he wrote, Juan Soto wasn\u2019t promoted early because of hype, he was promoted because he was ready and because the Washington Nationals were willing to trust their young stud.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n If Griffin forces the Pirates\u2019 hand in spring training, keeping him down purely because of age or service-time manipulation would feel outdated and outright questionable.<\/p>\n The plan should be to let him face big-league pitching in camp and see if he can compete. Let the decision be made on performance, not service time or anything else.<\/p>\n For a team trying to shift its ways and build something, it eventually has to let one of its young hitters come up and do what he can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The final move the Pittsburgh Pirates need to make heading into 2026 might not involve free agency, trades,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402],"tags":[5,134,9545,4,10,776,64,4297,151,71],"class_list":{"0":"post-505352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-pirates","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-juan-soto","10":"tag-konnor-griffin","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-pirates","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","15":"tag-pittsburghpirates","16":"tag-spring-training","17":"tag-washington-nationals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115838115076141173","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}