Dombkowski is a lefty whose high-80s fastball plays up thanks to his low arm slot and excellent command over his above-average secondaries. Instead, Triolo looks like hell be a superutility guy. He could get a cup of coffee in 2023. RotoGraphs. In April and May, he posted a strikeout rate of 15.9% and a walk rate of 14.5%; from June to September, he improved those marks to 28.5% and 6.9%, respectively. It sounds like Brannigan is going to develop as a two-way player. His slot also helps generate two-plane sweep on his breaking ball. Acquired in a. Readers should note that taking an aggressive line with players like this has yielded predictably mixed results in the past (so far, so good: Kevin Alcantara, Marco Luciano, Alexander Canario, Jordy Vargas, etc. He had all the markers of a major league-ready Top 100 prospect prior to the injury, largely due to the progression of his changeup and its usage. as compiled by Ben Clemens and the FanGraphs staff. From the left side of the plate, Rodriguez has an exceptional ability to rip his hands through pitches on the inner edge of the zone. Hes now 23 but could still be a fifth outfielder. The clubs hit rate on these trades per prospect isnt great, but the hit rate per trade has been better than that because of their risk-mitigating approach. If he does end up having relevant chase issues, he might track like a left-handed hitting Brendan Rodgers, but Johnsons makeup and personality are so universally lauded that its fair to expect him to make relevant adjustments and become a key cog on Pittsburghs next competitive team. Head, who was part of the Joe Musgrove trade, has Kd at a 33% clip in A-ball and might also be in the midst of a swing change that gets rid of his arm bar. The Pittsburgh Pirates are hiring. Its a shorter, less natural looking delivery than what Flowers had as an amateur, but hes been able to throw strikes with it. Barcos long, low arm slot creates a flat approach angle, but hes not really inclined to climb the ladder and pitch at the top of the zone right now, instead living on the arm-side third of the plate with sink and tail. He has the talent to be an everyday player, but has to improve in one or two key areas (throwing accuracy, slider recognition) for that to be his outcome. Selbys fastball sits 96-98 mph and he looks to blow it past hitters up in the zone. Still tracking like a high-probability backup catcher, Gutierrez set a career-high in homers in 2022 amid an uptick in strikeouts that his underlying data (just a 10% swinging strike rate) indicates will bounce back to career norms. His acrobatics and creativity at third base make him a plus defender there. He also mixes in the occasional changeup or curveball, which accounted for a combined 11% of his offerings at Low-A. RT @NorthShoreNine: wNS9+ With @longenhagen Discussing the @fangraphs Pirates Top Prospect List You found it controversial, so we discussed it Subscribe & Listen . In some respects, its easy to assess DSL players. His swing is already geared for lift, but he doesnt currently have the raw juice to make the most of it. window.FGWebsite_head_section.buildProspectsListControls(); But at other times, he had difficulty maintaining the velocity as the innings wore on, which was compounded by his ongoing command inconsistency. Pirates 2B Termarr Johnson | 18 | A | 2025. Even with that in mind, any team would be happy to sign a teenager with this kind of stuff for just $750,000 of their bonus pool. He would slot among Priester and Ortiz on this list had he completed a totally healthy 2022. Solometo certainly has superficial frame-based projection, but his athleticism and explosiveness are comfortably below whats typical of someone who finds more and more velocity deep into their 20s. He practically straddles the plate and was hit by 20 pitches during an injury-shortened regular season, then was somehow beaned seven more times in just 17 Arizona Fall League games. This is the case with De Los Santos. Jackson Glenn, 2B. Youll occasionally see a low-90s changeup from Hernandez as well, but hes a relief prospect all the way and likely to stick in Pittsburghs bullpen despite below-average command. But Jones athleticism and physical strength drove confidence that he could maintain plus fastball velocity across a starters workload in pro ball (which so far has been true), and his natural breaking ball bite gave him at least one likely plus pitch to go with it. Hes on track to debut in 2025 as a starter if those issues improve and as a reliever if they do not. Hernandez sat 93-96 mph in 2021 and when seen prior to Dodgers list publication last season, then kept throwing harder throughout the summer and ended up averaging 95-97 and touching 101 while with Double-A Tulsa. Shim is a big, physically mature righty with huge present arm strength, creeping into the upper 90s. Top 35 Prospects: Pittsburgh Pirates by Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel November 26, 2018 Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Pittsburgh Pirates. His two-plane slider has nasty, late break and his changeup might have late projection because his arm action is so clean and loose. Now 24 and neither protected from nor claimed during the 2022 Rule 5 draft, its imperative for him to start throwing strikes more consistently in order to find his way to a big league bullpen. Oliver Mateo, RHP His delivery is violent and scary, especially given the injury track record, though not all of his injuries in the past have been to his arm. Bolton was able to stay healthy for the entirety of 2022, which was an accomplishment in itself given that his professional career has been plagued by injury since it began. Ke'Bryan Hayes, Oneil Cruz, Mitch Keller, Travis Swaggerty, Tahnaj Thomas and. He and Solometo have the same flavor of stuff wrapped in different packages. Solometos fastball sits in the 88-92 mph range. Triolo earned industry praise for his defensive aptitude and high marks for his baseball IQ and instincts. Jose Tabata / OF. Priesters four-seamer is divisive. White was a multi-sport star in high school and after initially making a verbal commitment to Clemson solely for baseball, he eventually became a two-sport commit to Penn State to play wide receiver and center field. He used his upper-90s fastball for in-zone whiffs, relying on his above-average slider as a chase pitch. The Pirates claimed him off waivers and quickly lost him to the Diamondbacks in the minor league phase of the 2022 Rule 5 draft. Barco is a low-slot lefty with advanced command and several underlying pitch traits that give clubs hope of more upside even though he looks like a lower-variance backend starter prospect on the surface. Throw in the visual twitch and athleticism, and this is the player Spotifys algorithm would recommend to FanGraphs if prospects were musical artists. He can play a fine shortstop. Gonzales has begun to track like Keston Hiura, Carter Kieboom, and Jeter Downs, and his swing shares mechanical similarities with both Hiura and Kieboom. Jesus Castillo, SS He sits in the upper 80s right now but has promising underlying traits and plenty of time to develop. Even if sliders are a chronic issue for Davis, hell likely still get to enough power to produce better than the average everyday catcher. Matt Fraizer, CF Ricky Tiedemann is one of the fastest-rising pitching prospects in the game. He missed basically all of September and was shelled in the only start he made coming off the IL. However, Priester makes up for it with his preferred secondaries a huge, arcing curveball that Priester has had forever, and a more recently developed mid-80s slider both of which have garnered swing-and-miss rates well above the big league average. There isnt suddenly big power here or anything like that, but its the start of a physical step that was likely necessary for Cheng to take to play major league ball. Reports around his once-stellar defense have dimmed, and were hoping its due more to rust and lost time than to an actual regression in ability. He hit his stride in mid-August with back-to-back scoreless starts in which his four-seamer averaged over 96 across a combined nine innings a high water mark for the season and a true glimpse of his upside. Could Solometo eventually throw harder? DSL data is noisy, in part because pitchers there dont yet throw enough strikes or with much velocity compared to more advanced levels of the minors. It can be found here. Signed as an undrafted free agent in 2021, the 25-year-old right-hander has a degree in microbiology and premedical studies from Oxford, Ohio's Miami University, and he has worked as a . His delivery also creates an odd angle on a mid-80s cutter/slider, which Solometo commands to his glove side. Righties get a nice long look at everything Solometo does, and he could be very platoon-vulnerable against big leaguers. His arm action looks longer and looser than it was in his injury-shortened 2021, and his upper body appears more closed, which might be helping him hide the ball longer than before. He finished 2022 at Altoona and has a chance to be in the big leagues at some point this season. Rodriguezs arm is comfortably plus. Before he was drafted he was considered, at least at FanGraphs, a more likely reliever due to the quality of his stuff. Instead, Lopez picked up some reps in the Dominican Winter League, just a few games against the most advanced competition he has yet seen, and is poised to spend 2023 as a 21-year-old at Altoona. Whats more, theres a chance Triolo hits enough to simply be an everyday option at second (or if he turns out to be okay in center). De Los Santos contact metrics are a hair south of average, and thats the biggest indicator that theres real risk here, but boy, there is also real ceiling. Luigi Hernandez, RHP. More glove-side fastballs might help him set up his sweeping slider more effectively, as that pitch has good-looking movement but wasnt a dominant offering in college. Still, his strikeouts come primarily on in-zone swing-and-miss, so its important for the strike-throwing to improve for him to capitalize on his ability to overpower hitters as he continues to advance. That's nearly 30% of all their picks coming up as noteworthy prospects. This is one of those prospects fantasy players should value more highly than this because of his potential home run output, whereas defensive limitations cause us to value his real-world roster fit in this range. Uribe, 20, is a projectable lefty with a 92-93 mph fastball and high-spin breaking ball. As the Pirates improve and fall into the middle of the draft order, opportunities to do this might dwindle since they cant create a big pool space surplus as easily, but their steady stream of competitive balance picks should give them at least some opportunity to explore creativity in the draft room just about every year. Milwaukee Brewers Batting Postseason Stats 2021. He can already land his breaker in the zone and its angle should help it become a viable back-foot offering to righties. Drafted as a shortstop, he fell down the defensive spectrum pretty quickly but without finding a way to lift the ball and hit for power in games. Poised to compete for a rotation spot when 2023 camp breaks, Ortiz is one of a few high-upside Pirates youngsters who look like theyd fit in a contenders rotation. This FV grade is commensurate with a mid-first round high school infield prospect. FanGraphs Prospects. Hell also show you a 92-96 mph fastball that plays down a bit due to its shape and Jimenezs lack of command, which caused him to walk 5.8 per 9 IP in 2022. In the past, Ortizs high-effort delivery and sub-optimal fastball shape put him on the starter/reliever line, but hes thrown plenty of strikes across multiple seasons while simultaneously developing more velocity and comfortably projects as a starting pitcher now. The type of contact he makes is unlikely to ever lead to home run power commensurate with a true everyday player, but Bae makes enough stinging, all-fields contact that he projects to hit plenty of doubles and triples. Hes already taken a sizable step in the breaking ball department in just two pros seasons. These rankings are now available on The Board on the 2023 Fantasy Rankings tab, where you can also see the Top 120 Dynasty Rankings!. Ercolani, an 18-year-old righty from San Marino, had a velo spike during the winter and has been up to 97 mph in the bullpen recently. Amid a couple of short IL stints in 2022, Selby put up impressive numbers split between Double- and Triple-A and then looked great in the Arizona Fall League. Pegueros lack of throwing accuracy from shortstop is concerning. In his time at Bradenton, Chandler struck out 33 batters over 26 innings, and while his walk rate was an unacceptably high 15.8%, thats actually down a notch from what he was allowing over a larger sample on the complex. Oneil Cruz, SS Video Signed: July 2nd. Unfortunately, he then lost the 2020 season to the pandemic and most of 2021 to a shoulder injury he sustained just 12 games into the season. He then played for Taiwans National Team at the WBSC U23 World Cup and helped los Caimanes de Barranquilla win the Colombian Winter League and later the Caribbean Series. It could stand to have more consistent depth, but the flashes are there, and remember that Kennedy is barely 18. March 3, 2023. Ryan Vilade, LF Matt Gorski, OF All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. Scouting reports were. 2022 Pittsburgh Pirates Summary Stats Schedule Player Usage Depth Chart The depth charts found on the Team Pages are based on projected playing time, NOT the current status of a team's roster. Theres an All-Star-caliber hit and power combination here, and while a bigger pro data sample might reveal some approach-related issues, Johnson has been one of the best hitters his age for going on a half decade and feels like a relatively high-probability high school hitting prospect. An extreme groundball pitcher in a small sample, he allowed just two home runs in 35.2 innings of work in 2022. While he was already throwing quite hard, Ortiz came into even more velocity in 2022 and averaged 97 mph on his fastball, up two ticks from 2021. Not Quite Enough Hit Tool Castillo is a loose rotator without a lot of bat speed, but he seems to find a way to put the bat on the ball and the power might come if he gets stronger. Hes now a career .303/.394/.533 hitter and has had meaningful statistical success up through Double-A, where he spent about a month toward the end of 2022. That pitch plays up against lefties for reasons that are probably obvious, but it isnt a nasty pitch in a vacuum. 4/5 starter. ), and some of the recent, perhaps overzealous examples (Maikel Escotto, Rodolfo Nolasco) are in this system. He has the strength to do damage the other way, but save for the occasional pitch on the outer edge, hes geared to pull. They all received. Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Pittsburgh Pirates. If you split his season exactly in half, the improvement is obvious. Diego Cartaya (37) - Catcher Cartaya is listed a little higher in The. Besides Johnson and Harrington, two other 2022 draft picks made the top 30. He throws precise, high-quality strikes with the heater, and the pitch has enough tailing action to have stayed off of A-ball barrels. The Pirates have three of those 38 players, with Termarr Johnson ranked 21st, Endy Rodriguez 22nd and Henry Davis 38th. ago They do not like solemeto or Gonzalez. Gorski had a nutty statline at Greensboro and indeed has plus raw power, but its tough to project a real role for a 25-year-old who struck out as much as he did at High- and Double-A. He ultimately went fourth overall to Pittsburgh, and because hes a relatively advanced hitter with a mature build, theres a good chance the Pirates move Johnson through the minors pretty quickly if he hits the ground running offensively. But he was then shut down and had TJ, which ended his season early enough that he could be back in 2023. He was passed over in the 2022 Rule 5 Draft despite his stuff quality because hes so raw as a strike-thrower. It had exploded even further when he was seen following the pandemic shutdown, as he sat 95-97 mph and was touching 101 during the 2021 regular season. The emergence of a consistently above-average third offering reignited Burrows projection as a starter (he had been projected as a reliever here in previous seasons, in part due to injuries), and of his 24 outings in 2022, only two came out of the bullpen and just four were shorter than three innings. Bins is athletic for a catcher and has a good arm, but his receiving and contact skills are both 30s. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. Pittsburgh to add him to their 40-man roster after the season, indicating that hell be a big league relief option in 2023. The depth-focused style of their rebuild in which the Pirates often got many mid-tier prospects back in trade rather than just one key piece has had some profound positive impacts on this system (its arguably why they have Cruz, Endy Rodriguez, Contreras, and four of their 40+ FV prospects or better on this years list) even as many of the pro departments targets have started to fizzle out at the upper levels. Lolo Sanchez, CF From 2017-21, Webbs strikeout rate more than doubled as a result of his uptick in arm strength. Gonzales hands work in a short, explosive loop. The top of this draft class right now is LSU outfielder Dylan Crews, who had a big weekend. Massey, going on 23, is a very loose, projectable college prospect from Minnesota. With Endy Rodriguez around, it may not matter a ton. Major League and Minor League Baseball data provided by Major League Baseball. Because theyre about the same age as high school draft prospects, apples-to-apples projection and tools comparisons are feasible, which then allows you to triangulate where theyd be selected in a draft based on those comparisons and get a sense of how to FV them. If you want to read me wax poetic about that you can check out my end of year review. . Thats hard enough to do for any batter, let alone one whose schedule also includes the grueling demands of pitching development. 2023 Opening Day Tracker. The top six were already know from this list, because Fangraphs had six Pirates in their top 100 prospects. Cederlind, 27, spent 2022 recovering from Tommy John, and he had renewed soreness during his rehab, which is part of why he missed the whole year. Every once in a while he will show you the power, and hes very good at hitting pitches out away from him to the opposite field with authority, but you can get him out if you can execute location against Gonzales, and big league pitchers often do. Hernandez, also 19, sat 93-96 in 2022 and has a good-looking two-planed slider, but a relief-only delivery and a mature build. The husky Nunez swings really hard and generates big peak exit velocities. He went 2-for-4 with two singles, two runs and an RBI on Friday night against Kansas State. He has a career .387 OBP but hasnt been able to actualize his plus raw power in games, driving the ball into the ground at a whopping 66% clip in 2021 and a 54% rate in 2022. He mixed in four pitches, with his four-seamer and slider accounting for 88% of his pitches, and the changeup and two-seamer bringing up the rear. Across his 94.1 innings, he racked up 111 strikeouts against just 31 walks, with a 1.21 WHIP. As a wrap-up, the Pirates have. It shows above-average arm-side action on occasion, but hes only throwing it 12% of the time. These rankings include six Pittsburgh Pirates prospects cracking the FanGraph top 100. He still has a pretty exciting hit/power combination for a player his age, showing a proclivity for big contact to dead center and the opposite-field gap, the latter in part due to his length, which causes him to be late. Isaias Uribe, LHP He was ranked 25th on the Pirates list at the end of 2022, but we were blown away after watching him on video and seeing some of his underlying DSL data during the construction of this list. The top 38 spots on the list are all 55 FV or higher. To that point in the season, his mid-teens walk rate had inspired guarded optimism regarding an improved approach, though Nunez also may have become intentionally passive, as his raw swing% was a minuscule 40%. He showed a velo spike (92-96) at the onset of the 2022 college season before his arm strength and command regressed. His command and changeup are both still works in progress, but his 2022 fastball strike% (68%) is an encouraging sign, and again, Jones has a special level of athleticism that should enable him to hone both over time. FanGraphs Top 43 Pirates prospects blogs.fangraphs Vote 3 comments Best Add a Comment Robert_roberts82 14 min. Hes a fun one cause he had 20 grade defense apparently but scored positive defensively and 30 grade speed but ran nearly 29 feet/second. Updated: Saturday, March 4, 2023 4:51 PM ET, Park Factors Silvera, 18, is a physically mature righty who missed a ton of DSL bats even though he only sits 88-90. Antwone Kelly, RHP In most cases, corner-only outfielders who play consistent big league roles have better actualized their raw power in games. He spins the hell out of everything that leaves his hand, in particular his slider, which averaged over 2,700 rpm, but his inability to fine tune his command puts a damper on its utility (his walk rate was an untenable 12.4% across his 75.2 innings of work). Johnson was a well-regarded prospect basically as soon as he reached high school, and there were scouts who were so excited when they first watched him hit that they considered him a future top 5-10 pick when he was only a freshman. (One weird scouting note: Peguero chokes up with two strikes, but only with his top hand, creating separation between his two hands la Kevin Youkilis.) The organization will be thrilled if . Grant Hartwig is one of the most promising under-the-radar prospects in the New York Mets system. While his walk and strikeout rates were both descent through the first half of 2022, only nine of his 57 hits through mid-June went for extra bases (eight doubles and a home run). The high-waisted Lopez has a wide range of athletic/mobility outcomes that will impact where he ultimately ends up on defense. Johnson often ends his swing with his torso having made a full 180 degree rotation, sometimes swinging with such ferocious bat speed that he loses his balance and faceplants in the batters box. Hes not a great defender right now, and probably wont ever be better than a 40-grade glove, but Davis frames high strikes well and has plus raw arm strength.