93.7 The Fan radio appearance<\/a> that he considers it \u201cmore likely than not\u201d that Griffin is on the Pirates\u2019 Opening Day roster.<\/p>\n\u201cI think he has to play himself out of it at this point,\u201d Hiles said. \u201cIf he is their best shortstop, he\u2019s making the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hiles doesn\u2019t believe the Pirates are merely giving Griffin a chance to force their hand by undeniably seizing the job in spring training. Instead, the former No. 9 pick can earn his spot by holding his own.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIf he hits .275 in spring, I think he\u2019s fine,\u201d Hiles predicted. \u201cI don\u2019t think this is a guy who needs to lead the team in home runs or batting average. I think if he strikes out in 50 percent of his at-bats, that\u2019s gonna be what keeps him from making the major leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Furthermore, Hiles doesn\u2019t anticipate service time affecting Pittsburgh\u2019s decision. The organization could gain extra team control by delaying his call-up, especially with the added risk of a 2027 MLB lockdown or Griffin earning a year of service time by finishing first or second in the National League Rookie of the Year voting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey could lose a lot by bringing him up,\u201d Hiles noted. \u201cBut that kind of justifies the point that they would not have said these things if it wasn\u2019t \u2014 they\u2019re trying to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
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More MLB: Konnor Griffin Discusses \u2018Pretty Special\u2019 Chance Of Being Pirates\u2019 Opening Day Shortstop<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a real chance Konnor Griffin could make his MLB debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates next month. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402],"tags":[5,9545,4,10,776,64,4297],"class_list":{"0":"post-571831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-pirates","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-konnor-griffin","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-pirates","12":"tag-pittsburgh","13":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","14":"tag-pittsburghpirates"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116068028694915657","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571831","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=571831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}