Baseball's top prospect, Konnor Griffin, impresses with maturity and humility, navigating immense hype and Hall of Fame comparisons with grace in the Pittsburgh Pirates' spring training camp.
The first thing that strikes you about Konnor Griffin is his likability.
The unanimous top prospect in baseball is 19 years old but has the maturity of someone much older. I walked up to his locker in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ spring training clubhouse last week in Bradenton, Fla., and the shortstop immediately extended his hand.
“Nice to meet you,” Griffin said. When we ended our brief chat, he said, “Thank you for coming over and saying hello.”
Professional athletes don’t act like that very often. While most of them are good guys, a few show manners like Griffin.
That may not seem like stuff that matters in the grand scheme of things. However, it is admirable for a teenager who is generating considerable hype throughout baseball and is already being compared to Hall of Famers by some analysts.
If anyone could be forgiven for carrying himself in a cocky way, it would be Griffin. He deserves to have a high opinion of himself following a spectacular professional debut season last year when he hit .333/.415/.527 with 21 home runs and 65 stolen bases in 122 games with Double-A Altoona and the Pirates’ two Class A farm clubs at Greensboro and Bradenton.
And to think some critics thought the Pirates over-drafted Griffin in 2024 when they selected him ninth overall following his graduation from high school in Flowood, Miss.
Yet with so many things coming at Griffin so soon into his professional career, it is the way he stays grounded that might resonate the most.
“I give a lot of credit to my parents. They raised me the right way,” Griffin said. “I know it’s pretty special to be doing what I’m doing at 19, but I just try to be professional every day. I’m around a lot of great players, and that kind of humbles me a little bit, keeps you being who you are and not trying to change. I just try to be the same person every day.”
Griffin admits that already being considered a potential Hall of Famer is a little hard to digest. Yet Griffin admits he hopes he turns out to be the type of player who gets inducted in Cooperstown five years after his career ends.
“The Hall of Fame is the ultimate honor, and I think every player wants to be the best player he can possibly be,” Griffin said. “But I’ve got a whole lot of work before I can even start thinking about that. You’ve got to be great for a lot of years, and I haven’t even played in a major-league game yet.”
The big question is when Griffin will make his big-league debut. Will it be on March 26 when Pittsburgh opens the season against the Mets in New York or later in the year?
“That would be pretty special,” Griffin said of making the team in spring training, “but it's got a long way to go until then. I’m just going to keep growing as a player, have fun every single day, and see what happens.”
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