Sunday, 10 February 2013 00:43

Written by Bill Brink

BRADENTON, Fla. — At Pirate City in January, Neal Huntington outlined the purpose of the Pirates’ player development system.

“Our goal in every single thing that we do is to impact the major league win-loss record,” he said. “The win-loss record is an outcome. We’ve got to make sure that our process is solid. Not just for one year. We don’t want to win just for one year. We want to be able to be in a position to play meaningful games as many Septembers, into Octobers, as we possibly can, but to do that, we have to be sound in our process.”

In today’s Post-Gazette: A look at the origins and methods of the Pirates’ player development system, the first in a two-part series.

Also in the paper today:

• Pirates position battles
• Five questions facing the Pirates entering 2013
• The methods the Pirates use to develop pitchers

In conversations with members of the Pirates’ baseball operations staff and others in the industry, some themes of current player development emerged. Individualized instruction is common. Minor league statistics do not mean much. Teams can coach up players, but if scouts aren’t finding talent to sign or trade for, the minor league system will suffer.

The Pirates' system currently has elite talent at the top of the system. The question, especially given how important developing players internally is to teams with low payrolls, is how well the system works compared to the rest of baseball.