Pirates include top position prospects Ke'Bryan Hayes, Cole Tucker on training camp roster

The Pittsburgh Pirates set their 60-man roster for the shortened season Sunday afternoon, despite a surprise suspension, and notable names were missing from the major league roster and taxi squad.

The 39 players who will report to training camp starting Wednesday at PNC Park included top position prospects in third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes and shortstop Cole Tucker and a spring training star in closer Blake Cederlind. The 20-man taxi squad will train at Peoples Natural Gas Field in Altoona.

“Well some of them were easy but, yeah, we had quite a bit of conversation, really over several weeks, kind of leading up until the last couple days,” Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said. “We tried to look at the best combination of supporting our major league team and providing some development opportunity for a handful of younger players who we felt would be ready and able to take advantage of the environment in Altoona.”

Just before the Pirates were set to submit their roster, they received word from MLB that relief pitcher Edgar Santana received an 80-game suspension without pay after testing positive for the performance-enhancing drug Boldenone, ruling him out for the entire season.

That left them with 59 players. Cherington said the Pirates could sign another player.

“He was part of spring training 1.0 and would have been part of spring training 2.0,” Cherington said of Santana. “But we’re going to focus on the guys that are here, that are getting back to Pittsburgh. I think if we look at the roster in total, the total group of players between Pittsburgh and Altoona, I think we feel in a relative sense that relief pitching bullpen is a relative area of depth and a strength of the team. And we still feel that way today.”

The Pirates also left off the list their past two first-round draft picks, right-handed pitcher Quinn Priester (2019) and shortstop Nick Gonzales (2020), as well as the two 19-year-old prospects acquired in the Starling Marte trade in January: shortstop Liover Peguero and right-hander Brennan Malone.

“There was a number of players, aside from Quinn and Nick, who we considered,” Cherington said, “and we just felt like that we remain hopeful that there will be an opportunity to get them in uniform at a facility in 2020, and if we can do that, that that would be just a more productive way for them to continue their development.”

In total, the Pirates will start training camp with 21 pitchers, three catchers, 10 infielders and five outfielders. Santana is on the suspended list, and starting pitchers Chris Archer and Jameson Taillon and infielder Kevin Kramer will miss the season while recovering from surgery.

The pitchers are left-handers Steven Brault, Miguel Del Pozo, Robbie Erlin, Derek Holland and Nik Turley and right-handers JT Brubaker, Nick Burdi, Blake Cederlind, Kyle Crick, Michael Feliz, Geoff Hartlieb, Clay Holmes, Keone Kela, Mitch Keller, Chad Kuhl, Joe Musgrove, Dovydas Neverauskas, Hector Noesi, Richard Rodriguez, Chris Stratton and Trevor Williams.

Jacob Stallings, Luke Maile and John Ryan Murphy are the catchers, with the infield composed of All-Star first baseman Josh Bell, second baseman Adam Frazier, shortstops Kevin Newman, Tucker, Erik Gonzalez and JT Riddle and third basemen Colin Moran, Hayes, Philip Evans and Jose Osuna. In the outfield, Gregory Polanco, Bryan Reynolds and Jarrod Dyson are joined by Guillermo Heredia and Socrates Brito.

The taxi squad has infielders Ji-Hwan Bae, Rodolfo Castro, Will Craig, Oneil Cruz and Mason Martin, catchers Christian Kelley and Andrew Susac, outfielders Jason Martin, Jared Oliva and Travis Swaggerty, right-handed pitchers Cody Bolton, Max Kranick, James Marvel, Nick Mears, Cody Ponce, Yacksel Rios and Aaron Shortridge and lefties Sam Howard and Braeden Ogle. Rios was outrighted off the 40-man roster.