Neal Huntington: Pirates don't plan to call up Tyler Glasnow this year

General manager Neal Huntington made it very clear Sunday afternoon that the Pirates do not intend to call up top prospect Tyler Glasnow, a 6-foot-8 right-hander, this season. Glasnow, 22, has a 0.81 ERA in six starts for Class AAA Indianapolis.

A fifth-round pick in 2011, Glasnow went 5-3 with a 2.43 ERA in 12 starts for Class AA Altoona before being promoted in late July.

"Couldn't be more excited about Tyler Glasnow, his growth and his development from the beginning of this year and his time with the Pirates,“ Huntington said. ”We are completely looking forward to what he can be at the major league level. Performance and success in AAA does not always translate to the big leagues. He's got weapons. The consistency and the ability to utilize those weapons, the ability to come up and get major league hitters out versus AAA hitters out — completely different spectrum.

“Have left the door open, just because he's doing some really good things, but he continues to remind us there are still some really good things he needs to do. At this point, he's not on our radar to come up here in September or October, because we still feel there's some development left to go. We've tried to leave the window open to keep progressing, but he is not in our plans as we sit here right now. Excited about what he will become. Can't wait to see him on a big league mound in Pittsburgh or wherever he ends up as he's pitching for us and against someone else, but not a guy we're planning on as we sit here today."

The Pirates rotation has been very strong the past few weeks, and right-hander A.J. Burnett is expected to return in mid-September, giving the Pirates six starters for five spots. Is all that weighed when making this decision to not rush Glasnow to the majors?

"As we've tried to say since Day 1 being here, our goal is to bring a prospect to the big leagues when we feel he's ready to come up here and compete,” Huntington said. “In the environment that we'd ask somebody to come up in September, it's about winning every single game and putting ourselves in a position to win as many of these final 34 games as we can to close this three-game loss-column deficit to win the division.

”It's a lot to ask a young player to come up and help you win a game in April, let alone to come up and help you win a playoff-caliber game in September. Our goal is to put our guys in positions to be successful. Our goal is to bring up young players when they're ready to help us win. When we get to that point with Tyler, we'll absolutely look to bring him up. We just don't necessarily see that happening this September or October."