Pirates 2021 Top Moments Finals: Draft haul vs. Max Kranick’s debut

We’ve gotten to the finals of our poll. After some interesting first round matchups, the semifinals were both blowouts. In the first semi bracket, Oneil Cruz’s debut went up against Max Kranick’s debut, and there was no doubt in Pittsburgh Pirates land on this one.

Cruz got to the semis by handily defeating Roansy Day in the opening round, while the Kranick debut defeated the Jacob Stallings walk-off homer to advance to the semis.

But it was Kranick’s debut who owned this round, defeating the Cruz debut 82 percent to 18 percent.

In our other matchup, we had Ben Cherington’s highly-regarded draft haul going up against Will Craig’s “There were two outs” error. The draft haul advanced over two Pirates All-Stars in the first round, while Craig’s gaffe squeaked by back-to-back walkoffs in our closest opening round matchup.

But this semifinals was taken by the draft haul, which defeated Craig’s infamous mistake by a 72 percent to 28 percent. That brings us to today.

Finals: Max Kranick’s debut vs. Draft haul

You can catch Jake’s full write up on Kranick’s debut here, but you know the story by now. Kranick ended up hitting before he threw his first pitch thanks to Pittsburgh’s bats, he had a 1-2-3 first inning, snagged his first career strikeout an inning later, and grabbed his first career win in a 7-2 Pirates victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. Kranick’s performance was a sign of hope for the future in franchise desperately in need of some.

Austin took care of the full write up on the draft haul, and you can find that one here. But it was such a comprehensive masterclass from Cherington that we’re still talking about it all these months later. Also because we’re Bucs fans and what else are we going to discuss?

Henry Davis, Anthony Solometo, Lonnie White, and Bubba Chandler all came to the Pittsburgh system due to careful manipulation of the team’s bonus pool money, as the Pirates loaded up with multiple top talents on draft day. It hopefully set Pittsburgh up for success in the future.

So there’s your two finalists, BD. Now it’s on you to tell us which one is the winner!