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By Cory Giger
sports@altoonamirror.com
There's a phrase that's used a lot in minor league baseball, and it's a good description of this year's Curve season: Organizational win.
The Curve compiled an overall record of 71-66. They went 33-36 in the first half of the Eastern League season, then played much better in the second half, going 38-30, but still missed out on the playoffs.
From a record standpoint, none of that is overly impressive. Not for a franchise that's used to success, having made the playoffs nine times and winning two league championships.
Everybody thought this would be a much, much stronger season for a team that was expected to include a whole bunch of the Pirates' top prospects.
I wrote last month about the gigantic "what if" component of this season. If all the players we expected to see play in Altoona this summer had played together, it would have made for an awesome team. But it never really played out that way because of injuries and unexpected promotions.
What did play out, though, was still pretty good and very important.
Because, from the Pirates' perspective, this was indeed a highly successful Curve season, based on the fact that many of the prized young prospects enjoyed fine summers and took one big step toward being potential mainstays in Pittsburgh in the coming years.
From a team perspective, this was a historic season for the Curve in some ways. They set single-season franchise records for home runs (143) and stolen bases (162).
Individually, Andres Alvarez became the first 20-20 man in franchise history, finishing with 20 homers and 21 steals, while Aaron Shackelford's 26 home runs are the second most in team history.
When it comes to prospects, a whole slew of them looked impressive.
Pitchers Mike Burrows, Quinn Priester and Luis Ortiz turned a lot of heads, and Ortiz even made it up to the big leagues and had a great debut with the Pirates. Catcher Endy Rodriguez looked sensational in the second half, while Jared Triolo, Matt Gorski, Liover Peguero, Blake Sabol, Malcom Nunez and some other position players did lots of encouraging things.
Elite prospects Henry Davis and Nick Gonzales had to deal with injuries that cost them significant playing time, and neither was able to live up to the lofty expectations everyone had for them entering the season. Still, both were able to get back to playing and got key development time, which can only help their careers.
The Pirates are counting on this batch of prospects to be a big part of the foundation for the coming years, and from what we saw in Altoona, there is a lot of hope with many of these guys.
Kudos to manager Kieran Mattison, who did an outstanding job with the club this season. Sure, he wanted to win more and would have without so many fluky things happening, but Mattison deserves a lot of credit for keeping the team focused.
Off the field, the Curve had an outstanding season. The franchise averaged 4,330 fans in season No. 23 and still have never had a season under 4,000 per game. I continue to believe that is the most important thing about the franchise -- that the fan support has remained so strong after nearly a quarter of a century.
Next year will bring about higher-paid minor league players through a historic union, and it will be fantastic to see all these prospects be able to enjoy better personal lives instead of making poverty wages. Whether there will be further minor league contraction down the road remains to be seen, but we won't have to worry about any of that for a while.
All in all, 2022 was a very memorable season for the Curve, and a season that ultimately could help the Pirates immensely thanks to the fact that this Double-A campaign was a big organizational win.
Cory Giger has covered the Curve for the Mirror since 1999 and is the longest-tenured beat writer for one team in the country.