Hello and welcome to the Pirates Fan Forum here on DK. Pittsburgh Sports Podcast Network.

I'm your host, Gary Morgan.

Not with me, as always, is Jim Stam, who is out sick.

They're calling a pinch hitter tonight.

And it's our old friend, Ethan Smith, who has been busy just working, living life, dealing with his cat, all that stuff, kind of checking out a little bit from the scene, huh?

Just a little bit.

I feel like once the weather gets a little warmer and, you know, opening day gets closer and closer, i think it'll come back to me uh what's

that seline dion song it's all coming back to me now hopefully it doesn't get copyrighted but i feel

like that's just going to play in my head whenever it all comes well if you could get copyright trouble

on on youtube believe me it'll be me i they shut our christmas show down just about every year so

um i wanted to talk a little bit about what we've seen early on in spring and i mean we've got

enough to kind of digest and chew on now right i mean we've seen most of the pictures we wanted to

see we've even seen our first round of cuts nothing nothing to be surprised about there

that's a good place to start though Connor Griffin the number one pick last year man he

really looked good they put him at shortstop they didn't put him a shortstop in a game they

had him in center field but um he looked great out there I mean he made a diving catch too hustling hit a home run

what do you think pretty impressive so far kid looks like a man yeah he does i mean he definitely

has the athleticism in the build of a major league baseball player already at such a young age he's

only going to fine tune that i'm sure the team will make sure throughout his development, not only with his body, but also with his play, that he'll just turn into that kind of player. Now, obviously, he is still one of those guys where you wonder where is he going to settle in? Is he going to be a shortstop? Is he going to be an outfieler? You never really know that. I mean, you're going to probably see a lot of that at the lower levels in like Greensboro and, of course, rookie ball. He's going to probably play three or four different positions. And it'll get talked about all the positions that he plays, but he'll eventually settle in somewhere. And you mentioned the outfield. I think that's going to eventually be his settling spot. I think just from interviewing him, I think that's where his heart is. But I think he can play shortstop. I really do. Yeah, so do I. It kind of reminds me of how Henry was with the whole catching thing. He's like, this is what I do. I am a catcher.

I am always going to be a catcher. Like, this is what I'm going to do. And that's kind of what Connor Griffin reminds me of. He's like, I want to be an outfielder. And just even with O'Neill Cruz, V stays healthy and stays around long enough, I think that's a very fun fantasy to have with O'Neill Cruz and Connor Griffin in the same outfield.

I just really hope... I think that's a very fun fantasy to have with O'Neill Cruz and Connor Griffin in the same outfield.

I just really hope his bat ends up being the highlight of his game, though, not the fact of how athletic he is and everything else that comes with him.

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