Chandler was reassigned to minor-league camp Thursday.
Chandler entered spring training with a shot at winning a spot in the Pirates' Opening Day rotation, but he appears destined to open the 2025 season in the minors. Pittsburgh's top pitching prospect, Chandler made three appearances this spring, allowing five earned runs on four walks and three hits across 2.1 innings, while striking out a pair. Chandler seems likely to make his MLB debut at some point this year.
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Pirates' Bubba Chandler: Improves in second spring outing
Rotowire
Chandler walked one but did not allow a hit across a scoreless inning in Thursday's Grapefruit League game against the Twins.
The outing was Chandler's second of spring training, though he's been limited to one frame on each occasion. After allowing one walk, one hit and one run in his first outing, Chandler cleaned things up in his second appearance. The only baserunner reached on a called strike three that was overturned on a challenge to become a walk. Chandler is competing for a spot on the Opening Day roster and is hoping to stretch out his future spring outings to make his case to break camp with the big-league club.
The Pirates have extended Chandler an invitation to big-league camp during spring training.
Fellow top prospects Konnor Griffin, Thomas Harrington and Termarr Johnson also received spring training invites from the Pirates. Chandler appears the most ready of that group to help the major-league club in 2025, perhaps even as a member of its Opening Day rotation. The 22-year-old posted a 3.08 ERA and 148:41 K:BB over 119.2 innings between Double-A Altoona and Triple-A Indianapolis in 2024, including a 1.75 ERA and 61:15 K:BB in his final 46.1 frames.
Chandler gave up one hit and two walks while striking out 10 over six scoreless frames Tuesday for Triple-A Indianapolis.
Chandler has a 1.95 ERA, 0.78 WHIP and 93:19 K:BB in 74 innings across his last 13 starts split between Double-A and Triple-A. The 6-foot-2 righty turns 22 this weekend and is looking like a finished product with a claim as the best pitching prospect in the game.
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