Why did top prospect Konnor Griffin miss Pirates' Opening Day roster?

There's a fair argument for Konnor Griffin to start in minor league

The ninth overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft, Konnor Griffin made the jump from high school to Double-A a year ago. There, he had limited playing time, appearing in 21 games, where he managed to slash .337/.418/.542 from the plate. 

In other words, his potential is through the roof, but he is still very young and inexperienced. There's an argument for taking the time not to rush his development.

On top of that, while Griffin had his highlights in spring, including a two-home-run game, he only had a .171 batting average and a .261 OBP. That clearly wasn't enough to force Pittsburgh's hand, even if he's considered the top prospect in baseball. 

Service-time manipulation hangs in the air

The Pirates and several other small-market teams in MLB do have a clear problem. Fans don't trust them when it comes to young prospects and the possibility of manipulating their service time. That way, the player will take longer to get to free agency and be cheaper in the short term.

Griffin hasn't signed a contract extension yet. Had he done that, maybe he would have been on the roster. It's not really possible to prove that right now, and it is cynical, but Pittsburgh doesn't get the benefit of the doubt anymore. 

If promoted by April 9, then Griffin can still attain a full year of eligibility and become PPI eligible for a draft pick if he won Rookie of the Year. So, it will be interesting if Pittsburgh increases its $100M contract extension offer in the meantime. 

That happened to the Pirates with Paul Skenes. They delayed promoting him, seeming to manipulate his service time, but when he got called up, he won the Rookie of the Year anyway, earning back a year of service time, while the Pirates didn't add a draft pick. That can't happen again to Pittsburgh. 

Given how much the Pirates are spending on their roster, they're always going to have limited shots at sustained success. However, with the best young pitcher in Skenes and potentially the next generation of great shortstops in Griffin, it's clear that a window is opening up while they're both in Pittsburgh. So, giving up enough MLB time this year for Griffin to deny him an extra year of arbitration and delay his free agency by one season would effectively be punting on another Skenes season before his own free agency.

Get the extension done, and all questions about service time manipulation go away. Then, it would be clear that everything that the Pirates are doing is actually about Griffin's development. In the meantime, it looks like Nick Gonzales will open at shortstop for Pittsburgh.