In late September Dejan Kovacevic reported that Pirates Instructional League players are training like Navy SEALS down in Florida, much to their chagrin and possibly to their developmental detriment. At the time it was blown off by the Pirates as a short-lived little thing. Today Kovacevic has another report showing that, no, it was not short-lived.

Rather, as recently as last week, Pirates minor league coaches and instructors woke up Pirates prospects in the middle of the night shouting “it’s Hell Week!” and put them through more crazy PT and hazing such as scavenger hunts, two-mile runs and “relay races in which they ran back and forth filling garbage cans with sand.” The non-baseball drills would lead up until hours before they had to play scheduled instructional league games.

Worse: Gregory Polanco, one of the Pirates’ top prospects, aggravated an injury when he was made to sprint across the outfield “through an above-ground pool of ice water, then leaped into a sand pit.”

What in the Hell are the Pirates doing? Who is in charge and why are the team’s prospects being treated like military recruits and/or fraternity pledges? Isn’t the idea of the instructional league to instruct? As in baseball instruction?