{"id":144891,"date":"2026-03-21T21:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T21:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/144891\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T21:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T21:47:09","slug":"pirates-announce-opening-day-roster-decision-on-konnor-griffin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/144891\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Announce Opening Day Roster Decision On Konnor Griffin"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> announced the long-awaited decision on where Konnor Griffin will begin the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

Griffin won’t make his MLB debut on Opening Day. The Pirates reassigned<\/a> the 19-year-old shortstop to Triple-A Indianapolis on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The 6-foot-3, 222-pound Griffn flashed sky-high potential by batting .333 with 21 home runs and 65 stolen bases across three minor league levels. He ended the season by playing 21 games at Double-A Altoona, so the majors would have represented a sizable leap for a potential future star.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh still left the door open<\/a> for Griffin to break camp with the team. MLB’s consensus No. 1 prospect would have become the first teenager to star on Opening Day since Adrian Beltre in 1999.<\/p>\n

Griffin belted four home runs this spring, but he also batted 7-for-38 with two walks and 11 strikeouts. The Pirates ultimately decided against having him skip Triple-A in hopes of providing an immediate spark to a lineup that underwent an offseason overhaul.<\/p>\n

His future nevertheless remains bright, and it may not be too long before Pirates fans see his debut. But Griffin won’t play shortstop behind Paul Skenes when the Pirates play the New York Mets on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh’s decision likely means Nick Gonzales will begin the season as the starting shortstop. The former first-round pick batted .260\/.299\/.362 in 96 games last year.<\/p>\n

More MLB:\u00a0Pirates Prospect Konnor Griffin Sets Hall Of Fame Aspirations<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Pirates announced the long-awaited decision on where Konnor Griffin will begin the 2026 season. Griffin won’t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-144891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-pittsburgh","9":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","10":"tag-pittsburgh-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}