PITTSBURGH — They’ll live to regret it, according to most everything I hear, so let’s name them directly before the issue blossoms toward its full baseball clarity or merely chugs off into the historical fog: The teams who passed in the 2024 draft on Konnor Griffin were the Guardians, Reds, Rockies, A’s, Royals, White Sox, Cardinals and Angels.

With the ninth pick of the first round on that steamy July Sunday in Fort Worth, Texas, the Pirates chose a strapping shortstop who, unlike every other pick in the top 10, did not play college baseball. Unlike every other human, Griffin would transform in little more than 13 months into the consensus top prospect in the game. And because you can now bet on everything without ever having to get out of bed, he’s the odds-on favorite to win National League Rookie of the Year as well (at 2-1), and you could look it up.

From what you can read about Griffin, the issue of whether the 19-year-old Mississippian starts the 2026 season with the Pirates or playing Triple-A baseball for additional seasoning seems almost a subplot. The question isn’t Pittsburgh or Indianapolis; it’s Cooperstown or bust.

Some of the players Griffin commonly gets compared to — Cal Ripken, Alex Rodriguez, Mike Trout — suggest the arrival of the next baseball savant, or what is more and more commonly called a “generational talent,” which I gather indicates someone only available once in, uh, yeah.

But judging from the draft order, there were at least eight other generational talents more attractive to some, which strains the modifier just a bit. The Greater Eight includes one JJ Wetherholt of West Virginia, taken seventh by the Cardinals.

By itself, getting selected ninth guarantees little, which isn’t to suggest it’s not the launching pad to serious major league competence; see Ron Darling, Kevin Appier, Barry Zito, Javy Baez, Ian Happ, Keston Hiura and Kyler Murray, who’ll be throwing for the Minnesota Vikings this fall in another sport where draft position can be seriously deceiving.

Of the 25 people taken ninth in the MLB draft in this century, you might have heard of five of them. I’ve heard of seven, and I’m ostensibly paying attention.

This isn’t the first time the Pirates have used the ninth pick of the first round on a high school hitter, as they took Austin Meadows out of Grayson High School in Loganville, Ga., in June 2013. Meadows was sent to Tampa along with All-Star and World Series champion Tyler Glasnow in the disastrous Chris Archer trade five years later and had a promising career aborted by injuries, COVID and anxiety issues five years after that.

No examination of Pick No. 9 is therefore particularly instructive, and given Griffin’s early reviews, it’s perhaps better to look at Pittsburgh’s No. 1 picks, as the Pirates have only drafted two non-pitchers with the first pick in the entire history of the draft.

The first, Jeff King (1986), enjoyed a solid if unspectacular big-league career that spanned 11 seasons with an average annual OPS of .749. Twice he knocked in 100 runs or more, once with the Pirates and once with the Royals. The second was Henry Davis, the first player chosen in 2021, whose bat remains mostly undetected in parts of three seasons. He’s hit 15 homers since getting to the show in 2023, but he hit .167 in 87 games last summer and has a career OPS of .556. As of Friday, he was 0-for-spring training.

No one in or out of baseball can say with anything resembling certainty what kind of career Griffin is headed for, but at least one aspect of the differing fates of King and Davis is sitting there screaming at the Pirates to this day. It’s the essence of their dilemma. King arrived in Pittsburgh with 1,116 minor league at-bats. Davis got here after only 686. Griffin has 484.

Baseball’s conventional wisdom has long held that a prospect is ready for a big-league promotion after he’s had demonstrable success at Double A and/or Triple A and has between 1,000 and 1,500 minor league at-bats. But like everything else in a sport that seems to get more difficult for hitters every day, some hitters are ready after 500, and most aren’t after 5,000.

This spring, from the moment he started launching baseballs over Grapefruit League fences, Griffin has evidently looked ready. He’s reportedly the first teenager with three spring training homers in at least 20 years.

“He's got a chance to have a really, really good, long career, and it's our job to do everything we can to support him in being in the best spot possible to do that,” general manager Ben Cherington said last week.

I thought the Pirates’ job was to win baseball games, but, wait ...

“Obviously,” the GM went on, “we want to try to marry that up with him helping the Pirates win as many games as possible, too. That will continue to guide us.”

Guide us where he didn’t say, but the considerations go far, far beyond some number of minor league at-bats. Those considerations are financial, emotional, psychological, the whole bit.

I don’t know what the Pirates should do with Griffin. It’s baseball. Nobody knows. There are only guessers and liars.

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