Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Neal Huntington met with reporters Sunday. Here’s what he had to say.
On prized prospect Josh Bell: “Defensively, he continues to be a work in progress and is getting better, but there is still work to do. With Josh, we are talking about an outfielder moving into the infield, and that takes more time. It’s more game situation and awareness and where he needs to be and what he needs to do. Offensively, the power is beginning to show. He’ll learn how to work counts and try not to do too much … We anticipate him being ready to go at some point this year or next. He’s certainly putting himself in position. It’s not a bad thing that we’ve got a pretty solid player ahead of him.”
Regarding changes to the starting rotation: “The rotation when we went with Jameson (Taillon) was supposed to be a spot start. Obviously, Gerrit (Cole’s) injury changed that. We hoped (Cole would return on) the 16th day, but we’re going to be beyond that, and it’s now just a matter of how far beyond that we are. We’ve left it open with him. Not that we’re trying to put any more pressure on him, but all we can hope is he comes up and gets them to beat the ball into the ground, give himself a chance to win this game and put himself in a spot to continue to make starts for us.”
On pitching prospect Tyler Glasnow: “Last outing, we challenged Tyler to be aggressive again. We challenged him to be aggressive with the breaking ball, be aggressive with the fastball — and the fastball has life in the zone, which makes it hard to hit. When it’s out of the zone, it’s a lot easier to hit. He was very aggressive with it his last start but, interestingly enough, still walked more guys than he’d like. When he attacked hitters, he was really good. It seems counterintuitive to be aggressive instead of pitch to contact, but that is how he locates better.
He’s a very aware young man that knows the best thing for him is to get to the Major Leagues when he is ready and can help the team win games. He understands he might be able to out-stuff guys at the Major League level, but he would much rather locate his fastball in the zone. Like every pitcher and position player when they get the call, they don’t want to be sent back, and Tyler understands that with the work he is putting in, it hopefully means he will never go back down. Each start he makes down there makes it more likely that he will be a big leaguer for the rest of his career.”
Regarding Cory Luebke’s release after Luebke refused this Triple-A assignment: “He has five years of service, so he can do that. We knew that the second time we called Cory up, if we decided he wasn’t (one) of our 12 we wanted in Pittsburgh, that he would probably leave. No hard feelings. I don’t think it is the way any of us wanted it to go. For whatever reason, we just weren’t able to help him translate the success to the Major League level. We wish Cory well … We just decided to go in a different direction, and, as was his right, he did too.”
Image credit: MLB.com/Associated Press
