It’s not just a lack of spending or money that keeps the Pittsburgh Pirates at the bottom of the Major League Baseball standings every year. It’s also the fact that they are poorly run. Especially when it comes to player development throughout their own farm system.
One of their newest prospects, catcher Rafael Flores, who was just acquired before the trade deadline in the David Bednar trade with the New York Yankees, unintentionally gave an example as to one of the flaws with the Pirates.
As Flores explained to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette this week, the Yankees’ minor league focus is almost entirely on individual player development, while the Pirates — in his early view — seem more focused on team success at the minor league level.
He also explained that the Yankees give their catchers every piece of information and data that they possibly can, while the Pirates only give their catchers the information that they specifically ask for.
Those are two very eye-opening comparisons, and the first one is by far the most problematic and shows a very serious flaw with the Pirates’ approach.
The major league team should never, under any circumstances, care about the team success of a minor league team. Those teams do not exist to win games or win championships. They exist as an avenue to teach players how to play professional baseball, develop their skills and get them ready to be contributors for the major league team.
Everything else is secondary.
Now, Flores has only been in the Pirates system for two weeks. It is possible his initial perception is not the entire reality. But it’s still an eye-opening comparison for a player to make when coming over from a completely different — and far more successful — organization.
It would also track with a lot of the recent Pirates issues in developing players.
They have been awful at developing position players, especially under general manager Ben Cherington, and tend to be slow to promote players through the system. (Paul Skenes was a rare exception to both issues.)
It would also make sense that they want their minor league teams to do well. It makes it easy to sell hope to a frustrated fan base. If the major league team is not winning, it is easy for the Pirates to point out the success of their farm teams and say, “see, they are doing well … there is help on the way” even if it is entirely misleading.
The Pirates do have two of the best prospects in baseball in infielder Konnor Griffin and starting pitcher Bubba Chandler, but neither is currently in the major leagues. It remains to be seen if they will develop them into top-tier major leaguers.
Recent history suggests the odds are not in their favor.
Especially if the team is more concerned about its minor league teams winning games over individual players developing.
