Here's the Pirates' Spring Breakout roster
Alex Stumpf
@AlexJStumpfBRADENTON, Fla. -- The Pirates are the only team with four pitchers on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 prospects list.
On March 14, three of those pitchers will get to suit up together in what could be a preview of what a future Pirates rotation will look like, in Major League Baseball’s inaugural Spring Breakout game.
The contest between the Pirates’ and Orioles’ best prospects will take place at LECOM Park. Leading the way for the Bucs are their collection of starting pitching prospects: No. 3 overall prospect Paul Skenes, No. 82 prospect Anthony Solometo and No. 93 prospect Bubba Chandler. The game is a way for teams to show off some of their top prospects and offer fans a glimpse of what the future holds.
For the Pirates, that includes Skenes’ 102 mph fastball, Solometo’s funky mechanics and Chandler showing why he skyrocketed up prospect boards after a dominant second half of last season.
“It’s kind of a glorified back field game, which is cool,” Chandler said earlier this spring.
While it has already been decided that the trio is not going to make the Pirates’ Opening Day roster, they may not be too far away. All three were promoted to Double-A Altoona last season, and it’s reasonable to assume they will move higher in 2024. In Skenes’ case, that could potentially mean the Majors, which would be a rapid rise after being taken with the No. 1 overall pick in last year’s MLB Draft.
They also all got a good look at Major League Spring Training this year, giving them time to acclimate to a big league environment. All three received good feedback from their team in camp, too.
“The nice thing about being here and being in the locker room is this is a team that we’re going to win a lot of games with, hopefully,” Skenes said. “So that’s the goal, to win a lot of games with them for a long time.”
The top of the Pirates’ farm system is stacked with pitching, including No. 7 prospect Braxton Ashcraft, who will also participate in the game. General manager Ben Cherington often says a team can never have enough pitching, but it looks like there should be talented young arms on the way in the next couple years.
They’ll be given quite a task against the Orioles’ lineup, which will feature some of the top prospects from the highest-ranked farm system in the game. The much-hyped Skenes vs. Jackson Holliday matchup has already happened, but there should be plenty of Top 100 vs. Top 100 at-bats in this game.
It should be an external challenge after this group of young pitchers has been pushing each other to get better.
“For all of us, we’re all just doing the same thing, pushing each other,” Solometo said. “It’s good to have 1-1s and other picks, but it’s nice to see the guys we drafted put in that effort. It sets the runway for everyone else.”
What is Spring Breakout? MLB Spring Breakout is a four-day event showcasing baseball’s future: the current stars of Minor League Baseball. The inaugural edition will be held from March 14-17 at Grapefruit and Cactus league stadiums during Spring Training. A series of 16 exhibition games will be played between teams comprised of each MLB organization’s top prospects, creating a new touchpoint on the baseball calendar that celebrates our sport’s budding talent.
Here is the Pirates' Spring Breakout roster with MLB Pipeline's rankings: