It's The Bigs Blog #11 - Raise the Jolly Roger for the 2023 Pittsburgh Pirates
Who are the 2023 Pittsburgh Pirates? At first glance, they appear to be nothing more than another last-place, rag-tag group of veterans nearing the end, rookies coming through the system and reclamation projects in hopes of catching lightning in a bottle. At writing, this group is 18-8 and in first place of the NL Central. That sentence -- in and of itself -- is something I never thought I'd write on this blog in April, but here we are. Let's look over this group and see how we got here: Rotation: Mitch Keller - 27 y/o - Drafted, 2nd Round, 2014. This is the next Gerrit Cole, Joe Musgrove... he's the ace of the future. I don't know that he has the ceiling of either of those guys... or even half that of those guys, but this is the ace of the future. Vince Velasquez - 30 y/o - Signed 1yr/3.15M - Vinny V has been that fringe streamer pitcher in fantasy circles that you'd try to find during his journey through MLB. Starting with Houston then going to Philadel...