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Altoona helped by Pirates’ depth in minor leagues

Keon Broxton was a much more productive player at the Double-A level than even Andrew McCutchen.

That usually comes as a big surprise when people hear it, but McCutchen went through a lot of ups and downs with the Curve in 2007 and had, numbers-wise, a ho-hum year (.258, 10 homers, 48 RBIs, .710 OPS).

Not that it matters much since Cutch is now one of the best all-around players in the majors.

Broxton, on the other hand, was a very good player for Altoona both last year (.275, 15 homers, 52 RBIs, .853 OPS) and this season (.302, three homers, 26 RBIs, .828 OPS). When he was promoted to Triple-A on Friday, the Curve lost one of their best players – the kind of loss that often can badly hurt a minor league team.

But that probably won’t happen in this situation with this first-place Curve team, and the reason is because the Pirates organization has done a much better job in recent years of stockpiling and developing good young players.

“You’re just getting deeper within the organization,” Curve manager Tom Prince said. “You’re building a foundation.”

When an organization has a strong foundation, it can replace a player of Broxton’s caliber at the Double-A level by calling up another talented guy from Single-A. In this situation, that guy is 22-year-old outfielder Jose Osuna, who has looked good in his first two games for Altoona.

Osuna went 1-for-4 with a double in his Curve debut Friday, and he was 2-for-3 with three RBIs and two runs in Saturday’s win over Binghamton.

Osuna is a big guy at 6-foot-2 and 213 pounds, so there’s power potential there. The Venezuelan, who began his pro career at age 17 in 2010, hit 16 homers as a 19-year-old at low-A West Virginia in 2012, and as he continues to mature, more power should come.

“He’s going to be exciting with the bat,” Prince said. “He’s got a very strong arm in the outfield, he’s going to be accurate with it. And he’s going to bring a work ethic with these younger kids that are here now that he was with last year. He knows what he’s about, and he’ll compete every day.”

The Curve obviously have a terrific pitching staff, but they also have a very good offensive team, and it’s not just the starting players delivering. They’ve gotten great production from many guys, most notably Josh Bell (.349) and Max Moroff (.328), but every day there are threats up and down the order.

Big contributions from utility players like Dan Gamache (.289) and Adam Frazier (.315) sometimes can go unnoticed on such a good team, but on this club they are merely examples of how deep the Curve offense is.

It’s going to be interesting, though, to see what the team looks like on a day-to-day basis now that Broxton is gone and there are so many players who can and will be asked to play numerous positions.

Broxton was the center fielder and leadoff man. Now, Willy Garcia, Frazier and Andy Vasquez will all get time in center, and Saturday night Gift Ngoepe moved into the leadoff spot.

Osuna will get a lot of time at the corner outfield spots and maybe even some at first base. Frazier and Gamache can play all over, too.

There are a lot of similarities between this outstanding team and the Curve’s 2010 Eastern League championship club, but the biggest difference is that team five years ago pretty much had a set lineup all year. That won’t be the case the rest of this season.

“We’re just going to move them around,” Prince said. “There ain’t going to be no set patterns. Everybody will get some playing time to make sure they get their at-bats, and we’ll continually move them around.”

As for Broxton’s promotion, Prince couldn’t be happier to see the young man move up the minor league ladder.

“He did a tremendous job. Good for Keon. Outstanding for the young man,” Prince said. “I heard he hit a home run in his first at-bat in Indianapolis. Good for him. I hope he continues growing what he was doing here because he’s going to help the big league team in September.”

That could be right around the time this Curve team is battling for another EL title, and if so, it will be a testament to the job the Pirates have done building the strong minor league foundation.

Cory Giger is the host of “Sports Central” weekdays from 4-6 p.m. on ESPN Radio 1430 WVAM.

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