For Pirates, no minor league season could become major problem for top prospects

There are so many unknowns surrounding major issues in baseball — from setting a spring training start date to what an adjusted season would look like — that the Pittsburgh Pirates haven’t had many conversations about the minor ones.

When it comes to the minor leagues, MLB teams could have major problems. For starters, what will they do with their top prospects if there is no minor league season?

“We’ve definitely talked about potentially how can we make up for lost game activity,” Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said Saturday on 93.7 FM. “It’s not going to look the same as it normally would, but we want to do the best we can to protect against players sitting out a full calendar year.”

Cherington knows the developmental delays to top prospects could be devastating to an organization such as the Pirates, who are rebuilding with a young core. They already reassigned shortstops Oneil Cruz and Cole Tucker and third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes to the minors before spring training was stopped March 12 because of the coronavirus.

“To say what our roster is going to be or how we’re going to facilitate that is way too early,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said when asked specifically about that trio of prospects. “It was exciting to … come into a new organization and watch them play in spring training. How we move forward is going to be based on the guidelines that MLB puts in place.”

One solution could come if MLB opts to expand rosters from the designated 26 players, including a maximum of 13 pitchers, to a 40-man roster. Such a move could create room for the likes of those three players, plus first baseman Will Craig, outfielders Kevin Kramer and Jason Martin and pitchers JT Brubaker, Blake Cederlind, Geoff Hartlieb, Cody Ponce and Yacksel Rios.

The Pirates also are invested in the futures of top-10 prospects in two former first-round picks, outfielder Travis Swaggerty and right-handed pitcher Quinn Priester, plus newly acquired shortstop Liover Peguero and right-hander Brennan Malone, the return from Arizona in the Starling Marte trade.

“This is something every team is facing,” Cherington told Pittsburgh reporters on a conference call last week. “The vast majority of players are at points in their careers where going a full calendar year without playing live baseball against high-level competition would be the last thing you’d prescribe.

“Whatever we thought was optimal for Player A or Player B is not going to look like that in 2020. We’ve got to figure out ways to make up for that as best we can in safe ways.”