The Pittsburgh Pirates made the wrong decisions when they decided to send Konnor Griffin down to Triple-A and there’s no debate about that. The Pirates should be playing the best nine guys in the organization on a daily basis and that’s exactly what Griffin is at this stage of his career.
Now, the Pirates aren’t rushing anything, but they’re also not hiding what this next step is supposed to look like, and Ben Cherington made that pretty clear when talking about Griffin’s future and what he has to do to get called up.
“Got a little taste of it in spring training, he'll get more of that now in Triple-A,” Cherington said, per Lancaster Online. “Older pitchers may have some of the same stuff as younger pitchers, but their approach is more advanced. It’s more about the consistency of how they command, how they sequence, just the way they’re setting hitters up. Those are the things that change a little bit as you get to Triple-A.
“I think it's seeing him, over some period of time, manage that, adjust to that kind of pitching, and seeing that play out in his at-bats and the consistency of his at-bats,” Cherington said. “Along with the things that you know he's gonna bring every day, which is that great attitude and athleticism and ability to impact the game in different ways. Excited to see him continue to develop in Triple-A. We’ve got a lot of guys around him. They're gonna challenge him. He's gonna challenge them. It's gonna be a fun group to watch.”
For any player, even one like Griffin, there’s an adjustment. Playing in the show is as tough as anything in the world when it comes to professional sports. However, he’ll either figure it out or not. I’m not saying the Pirates should send him up if he’s not ready, but I think he showed everyone that he has the tools to be that good one day.
The encouraging part for Pittsburgh is that none of this takes away from what Griffin already brings. No matter how long he’s down there for this year, he’ll come up and have a real chance to change how this lineup looks in a meaningful way.