The Pirates announced big news on Sunday night, surprisingly it was not about the all important upcoming draft. This news was about a former second round draft pick named Stetson Allie a pitcher coming out of the Columbus area in high school.
Allie was highly regarded as a power pitcher as he could hit 100 on the radar gun pretty consistently and could back this up with a nasty right handed slider. Coming out of high school Allie was a dominate pitcher but he surprisingly did not start pitching until his senior year. Allie posted impressive numbers even striking out 134 batters in just 60 innings. What people do not think about though is that he did this playing high school baseball in Ohio. I am not bad talking Ohio baseball but is not the best high school baseball in the country, just like none of the North East states are. Allie probably only ever got to face a future Division I hitter once or maybe twice the whole season, and that is not even counting future professional batters like he would see playing in the Pirates minor league system everyday. Taking Allie in the second round of the draft and then giving him a 2.25 million dollar bonus was a very risky move, but a move that you could get excited about.
Now lets get to the point, you have probably been wondering why I have been speaking in the past tense the whole time because Allie is still around he didn't go anywhere he still plays professional ball in the Pirates system. The only difference starting today is that Allie will not be taking the hill, he will be stepping in the batters box instead. Yes that is correct the Pirates are converting Allie from a pitcher to a hitter, most likely a third baseman. Allie's concern was always his control, this is a problem that the Pirates thought they could keep under control and even fix but today they decided that they could not continue with the Allie pitching experiment. Allie made only 17 minor league appearances before the Pirates decided that they had seen enough. In these 17 appearances he pitched 26 and 2/3 innings allowing 37 walks and 29 strikeouts. If you do the math this is a .78 SO/BB ratio, bad statistics even for a half season pitcher. What most likely really set the Pirates over the edge on Allie was his one appearance for Allie in Low-A West Virginia. Allie went 2/3 of an inning on four earned runs eight walks and one strikeout. In this one appearance Allie showed absolutely no control what so ever in this appearance most likely leading the Pirates to their final decision of moving him to a hitter.
What you are probably wondering now is can Allie hit or are they just completely giving up on him? Like I mentioned earlier Allie did not start pitching until his senior year, this meant that he had to be playing somewhere else before that and he played that somewhere else well. From what I have heard Allie hit near or around .500 both his Junior and Senior year of high school with a good amount of home-runs in a high school season. Before the Pirates drafted Allie in 2010 he was committed to North Carolina on a full baseball scholarship where he was targeted to be a third-baseman. What this tells me is that many people thought Allie had a brighter future as a hitter and not a pitcher. Most people though that if Allie would of entered the draft as a hitter and not a pitcher he would of been a 3rd to 5th rounder.
Some people seem to be very upset about this move and think that the Pirates were to early to jump to such major conclusions. I think that these people are wrong. the Pirates know these players better then anyone of us and they would of not made this move unless they were 100% sure that this was in the best interest of both the Pirates and Allie himself. Also Allie showed just about zero upside in the minors not really even making one good appearance. I personally am very excited about this move, I am thrilled to see how he does. This could be one of the stupidest moves in Pirates history or it could be one of the smartest, and only time is going to tell us which one it was.
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