00:00He opts to sign with the Pirates. He was a two-way player in single A, and then he became one of the best and maybe the most electric pitching prospect in all of minor league baseball.
00:10Native of Lawrenceville, Georgia, third-round pick of the Pirates in 2021, he made his major league debut over the weekend.
00:16It was at home against the Colorado Rockies, and it was out of the bullpen.
00:20He went four innings of two-hit shutout ball, no walks. He punched out three, and he dialed it up to 100 miles an hour.
00:26I think what people knew is that the fastball was really electric from Bubba.
00:32What I didn't really understand until the first time I saw him live was just how electric it was.
00:39There's 100, and then there's a different-looking 100, and the Pirates have two of those guys in Bubba Chandler and Jared Jones, who's unfortunately on the IL right now.
00:49There are very few guys around the league that have that electric type of 100,
00:53and I could make the argument that Skeens doesn't have that electric type of 100 because it doesn't carry to the top of the zone the way that Bubba's does or the way that Jared Jones's does.
01:02Strider at the peak of his power, Spencer Strider has that, 100 up top.
01:06Jacob Mizorowski has that, 100 up top.
01:09With Bubba Chandler, you're getting the most electrifying young pitchers in the game here.
01:15Working out of the bullpen, did that tick you off a little bit that he's a long reliever right now?
01:19Everything about the Pirates ticks me off.
01:23You just laid it out.
01:24This is a freak athlete.
01:27Could have played quarterback at Clemson.
01:29Two-way guy.
01:30Starts focusing on pitching, and this stuff is just outrageous.
01:35Now, I know he's 22 years old.
01:37It's not like they needed to call him up.
01:39But when the stuff plays, the stuff plays.
01:41Averaging 98.4 miles an hour on that fastball in his first start with 17 inches of induced vertical break.
01:50You mentioned a lot of starters.
01:52We just had Liam Hicks on the show, and you were speaking with Liam Hicks with Arm as well,
01:57talking about how Uri might have the best fastball in Major League Baseball.
02:03You watch that guy throw that heater, and your eyebrows perk up.
02:08It's just, whoa.
02:10It's like you're watching an explosion live on television.
02:13He's 97.8 at about 17 1⁄2 inches.
02:17Yeah.
02:17Very close.
02:19I think there are times where that fastball could dominate so much where he could go one pitch.
02:23He could do a flick of the glove and say, here it comes.
02:26Now, these Major League hitters can hit a bullet, so obviously that would be very challenging.
02:29But that speaks to how electric this pitch is.
02:32And then he has three other secondaries that he can work off it.
02:35Now, the strikeout stuff wasn't quite there in his debut, which was a little bit weird, just because it's the Rockies, and I expect more.
02:44But he's already thrown a ton of innings this year as well, and this was his first start.
02:49There's going to be a couple of jitters, right?
02:51The command wasn't perfect, even though he didn't walk a batter, which I thought was really impressive.
02:56But to answer your original question, of course it did.
02:59Everything about the Pirates, the way they're drafting, the way they're calling up these guys, what they did at the deadline.
03:07Yeah.
03:07How is Bubba Chandler a swing man?
03:11That stuff looks as good as any young pitcher already in baseball.
03:15Yeah.
03:17And you got him in a swing man role?
03:19I mean, there's a reason the Pirates are where they are.
03:22It was interesting.
03:23I didn't really understand that, and I know that the Tigers made the move to Jackson Jobe last year as a relief option,
03:29but that's different because the Tigers were in the thick of a wildcard push at that point.
03:34The Pirates are not.
03:35So you have all the time in the world to experiment with this guy, and if you want to limit his innings,
03:40why not just have him throw innings one through four, especially when he is going to be in the rotation for you moving forward,
03:47and you hope for the next six years.
03:48That was just the weird part of that to me.
03:51I'm excited to see Bubba in the big leagues now.
03:54It was a long time coming.
03:55You could have made the argument that he should have broken camp.
03:57But now you start to see the vision of Paul Skeens and Bubba Chandler.
04:02You've got one of the best prospects in all of Major League Baseball in Connor Griffin,
04:05who just made his double-A debut this week within the Pirates organization, too.
04:09Leave him out on top four of the missions and you'll see them more during theάze.
04:24Press him up on the hill.
04:24Please leave him up on the hill.
04:26Get your hands in the air.
04:28Do it all of you need to get rid of the court?
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