{"id":659032,"date":"2026-04-02T15:40:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T15:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/659032\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T15:40:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T15:40:18","slug":"pirates-to-promote-konnor-griffin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/659032\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates To Promote Konnor Griffin"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pirates are calling up shortstop Konnor Griffin<\/a>, the top prospect in all of baseball, to make his major league debut in tomorrow\u2019s home opener, Pirates insider Jason Mackey reports<\/a>. The team has confirmed Griffin\u2019s promotion but has not yet formally selected his contract to the 40-man roster. They\u2019ll need to do so and make corresponding 26-man and 40-man transactions prior to first pitch tomorrow.<\/p>\n

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Griffin was in the mix to break camp on Pittsburgh\u2019s Opening Day roster but was reassigned to minor league camp late in spring training. The two parties have continued talks<\/a> on what would be a record-setting contract extension \u2014 expected to be both the largest ever for a player with little to no major league service time (surpassing Colt Emerson<\/a>\u2018s recent eight-year $95MM deal with the Mariners) and the Pirates\u2019 franchise-record contract ($100MM for Bryan Reynolds<\/a>).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible the Bucs simply wanted Griffin to make his debut at home, popping ticket sales throughout the weekend and further boosting excitement for fans after an uncharacteristically aggressive offseason. It\u2019s also feasible that the two parties have become close enough on a long-term contract that the Pirates are making the move to promote him now and will announce an extension not long after his debut. The benefits in that scenario are straightforward. Players who sign extensions before making their MLB debut are not eligible to net draft picks for their club under MLB\u2019s prospect promotion incentives; players who sign extensions after debuting remain PPI eligible. So long as any contract is finalized after Griffin has debuted, he\u2019d net the Pirates an extra draft pick either by winning 2026 NL Rookie of the Year honors or with a top-three finish in MVP voting in 2026-28. (A player can only generate one total PPI pick for his team.)<\/p>\n

Griffin is still three weeks away from his 20th birthday, but the 19-year-old phenom will get his chance to prove he\u2019s ready for the big time. A physical beast already standing 6\u20193\u2033 and weighing 225 pounds, Griffin is perhaps the most touted No. 1 overall prospect in recent memory. He draws plus (60) to plus-plus (70) grades on the 20-80 scale for all of his tools across the board. Griffin is an elite runner who scouts believe can stick at shortstop while hitting for both average and power.<\/p>\n

Selected with the No. 9 overall pick in 2024, Griffin has played just one full professional season, and the results were borderline comical. He sprinted through the minors last year, climbing from Low-A to Double-A and absolutely raking at each of his three stops. Griffin totaled 563 plate appearances overall and slashed .333\/.415\/.527 with 21 home runs, 23 doubles, four triples and an eye-popping 65 stolen bases in 78 tries (83.3%). He walked at an 8.9% clip and struck out at a 21.7% rate.<\/p>\n

Those numbers are staggering on their own. By measure of wRC+, Griffin was 65% better than an average hitter across those three levels. That ignores the context that the Mississippi native was among the youngest players \u2014 if not\u00a0the youngest player \u2014 at all of those stops. Griffin hit just .171 in 46 spring plate appearances with the Pirates but still popped four home runs. He\u2019s taken 21 plate appearances in Triple-A to begin this season and gone 7-for-16 with three doubles, three steals, five walks and only four strikeouts.<\/p>\n

With the Pirates, Griffin will immediately step in as the team\u2019s everyday shortstop. That\u2019ll push Jared Triolo<\/a> to a bench role for which he\u2019s probably better suited. Triolo is an adept defender at multiple infield spots but carries just a .234\/.319\/.343 slash in 1054 plate appearances at the major league level. He can mix in at any of the four infield spots now, though he\u2019s not going to supplant starters Spencer Horwitz<\/a> (first base), Brandon Lowe<\/a> (second base) or Nick Gonzales<\/a> (third base) unless there\u2019s an injury or a prolonged stretch of poor play from Gonzales as he acclimates to the hot corner.<\/p>\n

Griffin steps into a big league lineup that has been substantially revamped since last season. The Pirates didn\u2019t get the biggest fish they pursued this winter (e.g. Kyle Schwarber<\/a>, Josh Naylor<\/a>, Kazuma Okamoto<\/a>), but they still brought in several established veteran bats who\u2019ve unequivocally bolstered the offense. Lowe and outfielder Jake Mangum<\/a> came over from the Rays alongside lefty reliever Mason Montgomery<\/a> in a three-team trade sending young righty Mike Burrows<\/a> to Houston. Ryan O\u2019Hearn<\/a> signed a two-year, $29MM in free agency. Marcell Ozuna<\/a> later came aboard for a year and $12MM. Griffin now joins newcomers like Lowe, O\u2019Hearn and Ozuna in the heart of a vastly improved lineup that Pirates hopes will better support the team\u2019s excellent young pitching staff.<\/p>\n

Service time considerations seemingly weren\u2019t a factor in Griffin\u2019s promotion. He\u2019s still being called up in time to get a full year of major league service even without a Rookie of the Year win. His timelines for reaching arbitration and free agency would be rendered moot if Griffin eventually signs an extension, as many expect, but as things currently stand he\u2019d be on track for arbitration eligibility following the 2028 season and free agency following the 2031 season, when he\u2019d be just 25 years old (and going into his age-26 season). Griffin is so young that even a record-setting extension could still position him to reach the open market well ahead of his 30th birthday.<\/p>\n

Griffin is the first of many young Pirates hitters who could impact the team this season. Pittsburgh also picked up touted outfield prospect Jhostynxon Garcia<\/a> in a trade with the Red Sox, and he should get a look in the majors before too long. Infielder Termarr Johnson<\/a>\u2018s stock has dipped in recent seasons, but he\u2019s still just 21 years old and coming off a nice 2025 showing in Double-A. Catcher\/first baseman Rafael Flores<\/a> Jr., another trade acquisition (from the Yankees in last summer\u2019s David Bednar<\/a> swap) had a big season between Double-A and Triple-A last year and could hit his way into a bigger audition in 2026 as well.<\/p>\n

For now, all eyes are on Griffin \u2014 both to witness the debut of one of the best prospects in recent memory and also to see whether he signs a franchise-altering extension that\u2019d lock him in beyond his original six seasons of club control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pirates are calling up shortstop Konnor Griffin, the top prospect in all of baseball, to make his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,9545],"class_list":{"0":"post-659032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-konnor-griffin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116335871643924203","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659032","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=659032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}