{"id":464606,"date":"2026-02-12T17:44:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T17:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/464606\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T17:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T17:44:07","slug":"konnor-griffin-discusses-pretty-special-chance-of-being-pirates-opening-day-shortstop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/464606\/","title":{"rendered":"Konnor Griffin Discusses &#8216;Pretty Special&#8217; Chance Of Being Pirates&#8217; Opening Day Shortstop"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The hype surrounding the Pittsburgh Pirates this offseason <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsnetpittsburgh.com\/2026\/01\/05\/mlb-insider-says-pirates-appear-to-be-going-from-pretender-to-contender\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">is growing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Not only does the team return stars like NL Cy Young award winner Paul Skenes and <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsnetpittsburgh.com\/2026\/01\/31\/pirates-oneil-cruz-ranked-as-top-10-centerfielder-in-baseball\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">one of the top centerfielders<\/a> in the game in Oneil Cruz, but the Pirates also added All-Star second baseman Brandon Lowe, All-Star first baseman Ryan O\u2019Hearn and three-time All-Star designated hitter Marcel Ozuna to a revamped lineup.<\/p>\n<p>One of the other possible new additions could be top prospect Konnor Griffin, who is in the mix for Pittsburgh\u2019s starting shortstop job.<\/p>\n<p>Griffin may be battling the likes of 26-year-old Nick Gonzales for the Opening Day gig.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat would be pretty special,\u201d Griffin said, according to a report by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.post-gazette.com\/sports\/pirates\/2026\/02\/12\/pirates-prospect-konnor-griffin-shortstop-spring-training\/stories\/202602120061\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Colin Beazley of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/a>. \u201cBut like I said, still got a long way to go until then. Got to continue to grow as a player and try to be a sponge every single day and learn from the guys every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The 19-year-old was selected as the ninth overall pick in the 2024 June Amateur Draft straight out of high school and is the consensus top prospect in baseball.<\/p>\n<p>Griffin finished last season with 21 home runs, 94 RBIs and 65 stolen bases with a sizzling .333\/.415\/.527 slash line across 484 at-bats covering 122 games between Low-A Bradenton, High-A Greensboro and Double-A Altoona.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI try not to think about it too much. I just try to be myself and be in the moment, be present, take it day by day, and just try to grow as a player,\u201d the teenager said of potentially be a starter on Opening Day. \u201cWe still have a month, month and a half, until games actually start. So got a lot of time to grow and be prepared for whatever comes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>More MLB: <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsnetpittsburgh.com\/2026\/02\/11\/don-kelly-excited-for-marcell-ozunas-potential-impact-on-pirates\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Don Kelly \u2018Excited\u2019 For Marcell Ozuna\u2019s Potential Impact On Pirates<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The hype surrounding the Pittsburgh Pirates this offseason is growing. Not only does the team return stars like&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[216349,363,216350,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-464606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-konnor-griffin","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-nick-gonzales","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}