Pirates 3rd-round pick Bubba Chandler has flair, but talent could lead him to future in rotation

The bleached-blonde, mulleted hair. The half-unbuttoned, flamingo-printed shirt he wore for the camera on draft day. The Southern, aw-shucks drawl.

The preferred forename of “Bubba.”

There’s plenty that immediately catches your eye about one of the highest-profile of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 2021 draft picks. Bubba Chandler has all the appearances of a fun-loving extrovert.

Chandler (given name, Roy) doesn’t want you to be fooled, though.

“I’ll do anything to get a win,” Chandler said a day after the Pirates took him with their third-round pick in the MLB draft.

Bubba Chandler is a Clemson football commit.

He was the top remaining player on the board.

He's bringing this mullet to the table.

There's a lot to like @Pirates.

Draft Tracker: https://t.co/gTSr8nqI7L pic.twitter.com/qa0lUhAc7B

— Baseball America (@BaseballAmerica) July 12, 2021

The Pirates need plenty of help in that department after finishing with the majors’ worst record in 2020 and buried deep into last place in the National League Central at the All-Star break this season.

A three-sport star at North Oconee H.S. in Georgia, Chandler is projected to develop into one of the centerpieces of a future starting rotation for the Pirates at some point by the middle of the decade when the franchise — if all goes right — can be expected to compete for championships again.

Athletic and talented enough that he had signed with perennial football powerhouse Clemson as a quarterback, Chandler spoke Wednesday of football in the past tense — with the exception of saying, “I’ll run through a brick wall to … get a first down,” using the idiom to highlight his own competitiveness and leadership abilities.

“You’ve got to win the game for your team,” Chandler said, “and being in the position that I am and the person and player that I am, I feel like every single game I have to do a little extra to just get through and win the game, whether it’s getting a first down, a touchdown, striking out a dude or hitting a home run, whatever. So I kind of just put a lot of stuff on my back, and God made me being able to handle that.”

God also made the 6-3, 200-pound Chandler gifted enough he was rated as one of the top 20 draft prospects in the country by Baseball America for a sport in which he only devoted about a third of his time and efforts on.

Imagine if, the Pirates figure, Chandler spent all his athletic time and energy on becoming the best right-handed pitcher possible?

“When he committed a little bit this offseason and winter, we saw … positive changes in how his body was moving, his ability in his delivery to be more athletic, throw more strikes, and continues to get better,” Pirates senior director of amateur scouting Joe DelliCarri said.

“That’s where we’ll base it, just because he played two sports, but we’ll base it in the body movements and then spending more time in pitching this (past) winter, committed to it, committed to delivering and working on his delivery and being more athletic in his delivery. I think (that) is what we saw played out positively and moving us in a direction to put them in a spot to take him off that board.”

The spot the Pirates took him at (72^nd overall) isn’t representative of Chandler’s ability, in part, because of signability concerns related to Chandler’s “fallback” of playing quarterback for one of the country’s best college programs (not to mention baseball for what is likewise a nationally-renowned program at Clemson).

After taking their target in Louisville catcher Henry Davis with the top pick in the MLB Draft Sunday, the #Pirates reset their strategy for a second day that felt like it was an extended first round. https://t.co/6zxquWRHoB

— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) July 13, 2021

Further clouding the waters in regards to a complete evaluation of Chandler — who’s proficient enough at basketball he can windmill dunk — is that he also was a MLB-draftable talent as a shortstop and hitter. Though the industry consensus is that with a mid-90s mph fastball and above-average curveball that Chandler has a higher ceiling as a pitcher than a position player, it’s not unanimous.

Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said they plan on giving Chandler some opportunities to hit and play the field, but he also made it clear the organization views him as a pitcher.

“He is legitimately talented on both sides, so we want to look at (Chandler playing both ways),” Cherington said. “(But) we do believe there’s a really big upside as a pitcher.”

How does Chandler view himself? Remember, he’s fresh off of spending a few weeks immersed in the Clemson football factory; he’s not quite ready to pin himself down to a baseball position quite yet.

“Hopefully, I can just be Bubba Chandler and go out there and play,” said Chandler, who still has to formally sign his contract before officially joining the organization. “You never know what’s going to happen. I’ve got many more years before I’m talked about making it to The Show, and so I’m just going to try to develop myself on the farm on both sides of the ball and see what I can do. I have great confidence in myself, whether it’s pitching or hitting, but there’s a lot of stuff I’ve got to work on.”

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