{"id":501887,"date":"2026-02-27T00:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T00:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/501887\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T00:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T00:08:07","slug":"poll-will-konnor-griffin-break-camp-with-the-pirates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/501887\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll: Will Konnor Griffin Break Camp With The Pirates?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Spring Training gets underway, many fans are watching top prospects. For the Pirates\u2019 Konnor Griffin<\/a>, however, it\u2019s not just fans in Pittsburgh watching to see if he\u2019ll be in the starting lineup on Opening Day; it\u2019s the entire baseball world.<\/p>\n

Griffin won\u2019t celebrate his 20th birthday until the end of April. The ninth overall pick in the 2024 draft opened eyes all around the sport with his performance in his first professional season last year, slashing .333\/.415\/.527 in 122 games across three levels, topping out in Double-A. That was enough to make him the consensus top prospect in the sport. The Athletic\u2019s Keith Law<\/a> called Griffin \u201cthe most exciting prospect in the minors since Mike Trout<\/a>\u201d last month, while FanGraphs\u2019 Eric Longenhagen described Griffin as \u201ca franchise-altering entity whose talent rivals that of Bobby Witt Jr.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to get much more impressive than comparisons to Trout and Witt. Between the hype prospect evaluators of all stripes are heaping onto Griffin and his unbelievable start to his pro career, it\u2019s understandable that he would be in the conversation to start the season with the Pirates on Opening Day, even though he\u2019ll still be a teenager.<\/p>\n

For now, the Pirates are saying all the right things. Every indication has been that the team will give Griffin the opportunity to earn his way onto the roster. The players currently standing in his way, Nick Gonzales<\/a> and Jared Triolo<\/a>, aren\u2019t the sort of slam-dunk regulars that would normally give a club pause when it comes to pushing one of them into a bench role. That open avenue toward a roster spot is great news for Griffin, and so far he\u2019s made the most of the opportunity he\u2019s been handed during camp with two homers in his first ten plate appearances this spring.<\/p>\n

There are other factors to consider as well. The most obvious is that Griffin is extremely inexperienced as a professional. He\u2019s played only 122 professional games. Elite prospects have been getting called up more quickly since Trout made his debut 15 years ago, but even by more recent standards Griffin would be among the fastest to reach the show. Witt had 161 games in the minors before his big league debut, and Juan Soto<\/a>\u2018s short stint in the minor leagues lasted 122 games, the exact amount Griffin logged last year.<\/p>\n

The Pirates are entering a year where they\u2019re clearing trying to win, more than in other recent seasons. They added Ryan O\u2019Hearn<\/a>, Brandon Lowe<\/a>, and Marcell Ozuna<\/a> to help bolster a stagnant offense and added Gregory Soto<\/a> to the bullpen as well. That quartet cost around $60MM in total, which is a notable chunk of change by the Pirates\u2019 typical standards.<\/p>\n

Reigning Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes<\/a> is under club control for just four more seasons before he\u2019ll reach free agency and could see his arbitration price explode by 2027 or 2028. The Pirates are acutely aware of that, and getting the most out of Griffin they possibly can while Skenes is still in town should be the team\u2019s top priority.<\/p>\n

Service time is another factor the Pirates will need to consider, and that cuts both ways when it comes to the Griffin decision. Holding Griffin down for even just three weeks to start the year\u00a0could unlock a seventh year of team control over Griffin by ensuring he doesn\u2019t earn a full year of MLB service in 2026. The counter to that, of course, is Skenes himself. The Pirates didn\u2019t promote Skenes until May 2024, but he was still dominant enough once he arrived to win the NL Rookie of the Year Award and earn himself a full year of service anyway. Had they simply brought Skenes up on Opening Day, the Pirates would\u2019ve been able to secure an extra draft pick thanks to his Rookie of the Year win.<\/p>\n

Another wrinkle in the service time conversation is Griffin\u2019s apparent willingness to consider an extension<\/a> with Pittsburgh. If the sides were to reach a deal either this spring or in the early days of the 2026 campaign, that would negate the service time concerns. While explicitly holding a player down due to service time considerations or promoting them only if they agree to an extension is frowned upon, it has happened. The prospect promotion incentives added in the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement have somewhat lessened the frequency with which such situations occur, but they\u2019ve also prompted some teams to wait until late August with prospects who otherwise look ready, so as to preserve their rookie status (and potential PPI gains) the following season. The Pirates didn\u2019t call Bubba Chandler<\/a> up until Aug. 22 last year. If they do agree to an extension, the Bucs would be incentivized to not finalize it until after Griffin\u2019s debut. A player who signs a pre-debut extension is not eligible to earn a PPI pick for his team.<\/p>\n

How do MLBTR readers think Griffin\u2019s candidacy for a spot on the Opening Day roster will play out? Will he make the team, or start the year in the minor leagues? Or, perhaps, could his status on the MLB roster be determined by how extension talks between the sides go this spring? Have your say in the poll below:<\/p>\n

\t\t\tWill Konnor Griffin break camp with the Pirates?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTotal votes: 2,465\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Thank you for voting!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Spring Training gets underway, many fans are watching top prospects. For the Pirates\u2019 Konnor Griffin, however, it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,131696,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-501887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-konnor-griffin","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}