A second base-only defensive fit puts the onus on Pegueros bat to perform at an everyday level. Hes poised for a big league bullpen role this season and has a repertoire thats deep and nasty enough that he should be considered a late-inning option. Short but not small, his lack of length and size is actually an advantage for Johnsons swing, as he can enjoy a bat path geared for power and lift without it being too long. Last year, Fraizers 2021 performance at Greensboro (which included 20 homers) convinced us that he had a chance to be a big deal, but his plate discipline was a big problem against Double-A pitching. Chen was the 22nd-ranked player on the 2019 International Player section of The Board and was generally seen as the best signable high school prospect in Taiwan. 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. Pittsburgh Pirates Top 61 Prospects | FanGraphs Baseball Jerez has above-average power and a 70 arm. Blanco is a gigantic corner outfield/1B prospect who had the most present raw power in the January 2022 international signing class. 2023 Updated In-Season Projections A much deeper overview can be found here. Top 51 Prospects: Pittsburgh Pirates by Eric Longenhagen February 24, 2021 Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Pittsburgh Pirates. 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. Eddy Yean, RHP The Pirates got a deal done for a cool million, nearly twice the slot amount in the fourth round. Dodgers: FanGraphs Lists Four LA Prospects on Top 100 List Even though hes so young, youre not really projecting on his frame in a positive way so much as it feels possible Kennedy could have impact command at maturity, because his delivery is so effortless and the quality of his fastball strikes so advanced. The 11-15 group consists of Jared Jones, Ji-hwan Bae, Anthony Solometo, Kyle Nicolas and Jared Triolo. When healthy, he was a hard-throwing 40 FV reliever. . Nicolas has consistent glove-side command of his entire repertoire, and he tends to live on that half of the plate exclusively. A draft-eligible sophomore in 2022, Harrington is an athletic, pitchability righty with a tailing low-90s fastball and a power-sink changeup in the mid-80s. Thats hard enough to do for any batter, let alone one whose schedule also includes the grueling demands of pitching development. 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. 1/ . Its going to be fascinating to watch him develop, and if it doesnt work, hell probably still be a viable reliever. 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. Matt Gorski, OF brewers top prospects fangraphs 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. RotoWire News: Gonzales will join the Pirates' major-league camp this spring. Webb dealt with a forearm strain that delayed the start of his 2022 season. Priesters four-seamer is divisive. 2018 Brewers batting, pitching, and fielding traditional and advanced stats. When Smith-Njigba takes a comfortable, max-effort hack, its obvious that he has big power, and his exit velo data reinforces the visual evaluation. 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. Pirates Draft Prospect Watch: Big Weekend for LSU's Dylan Crews John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. He throws precise, high-quality strikes with the heater, and the pitch has enough tailing action to have stayed off of A-ball barrels. 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. Massey, going on 23, is a very loose, projectable college prospect from Minnesota. He might end up becoming the player the industry hoped Francisco Meja would become. Updated Top 30 Pirates Prospects List from MLB Pipeline He pitched five innings of relief over two games in early May for the Pirates without allowing a run. Malone, a former first round high schooler who was part of the Starling Marte trade with Arizona, has barely pitched since he was acquired, and dealt with shoulder injuries in 2022. He was throwing as hard as ever when he returned but still got shelled, and was quite wild at Double-A before he was sent to Arizona to audition to keep his 40-man spot with Kansas City. He spent more of his big league time in the outfield than at his native second base. Lopez swings exceptionally hard and makes some mechanical compromises to do so, but not in a way that has impacted his performance yet. Lolo Sanchez, CF M.J. Melendezs 2019 and Bo Naylors 2020 are recent examples of otherwise good-hitting catchers who had a terrible offensive season in the mid-minors that was followed by an immediate and significant rebound the following year. 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. Quants and front office analyst types are more bearish, citing issues with Priesters fastball playability. His swing is quite uphill from the left side and he can tend to swing underneath fastballs up and away from him, but overall he is very difficult to make whiff inside the strike zone despite his steep-launch style of contact. Top 100 Prospects For 2023 Fantasy Baseball: Spring Training Snapshot 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. It should be noted that DeVitos development has been plagued by stops and starts caused first by the pandemic and then by an ulnar nerve issue that shortened his 2021 season. Harry Ford is one of the top prospects in the Seattle Mariners organization, and he is also unique among his peers. He was passed over in the 2022 Rule 5 Draft despite his stuff quality because hes so raw as a strike-thrower. It comes out of his hand from a high arm slot that looks like the kind optimized for data-friendly ride, but the pitchs downhill angle makes it less of a weapon at the letters and actually makes it very vulnerable within the strike zone. His delivery has a relief-only look to it. With Endy Rodriguez around, it may not matter a ton. He went 2-for-4 with two singles, two runs and an RBI on Friday night against Kansas State. 4/5 on a contender. The top 38 spots on the list are all 55 FV or higher. and play-by-play data provided by Sports Info Solutions. He signed for $900,000 and barely played in the 2022 DSL. Grant Hartwig is one of the most promising under-the-radar prospects in the New York Mets system. As a wrap-up, the Pirates have. He showed a tendency to expand the zone and make some sub-optimal contact as an amateur and in his 2022 pro sample, but there are times when Johnson does this and rather than frustrate scouts and analysts, he impresses them with his ability to identify and adjust to breaking balls, his barrel feel, and his hand-eye coordination. After the season, he again played winter ball, this time in Puerto Rico with Carolina, where Cheng struggled. Pittsburgh to add him to their 40-man roster after the season, indicating that hell be a big league relief option in 2023. Chandlers pitching performance wasnt as lights-out as it had been pre-promotion, but it was still a display of the rightys potential. Indeed, of his offerings, only his four-seamer had a whiff rate above the big league average, and he struggled to keep that pitch competitive, only throwing it for a strike 57% of the time. Hes already taken a sizable step in the breaking ball department in just two pros seasons. Middle infielder Termarr Johnson, who the Pittsburgh. He has now struck out nearly 30% of the time during each of the last two seasons, but hes still performed comfortably above the league average at each stop because of the quality of the contact he does make. This impressive performance inspired his offseason 40-man addition. In some respects, its easy to assess DSL players. Pittsburgh Pirates Top 43 Prospects | FanGraphs Baseball That pitch plays up against lefties for reasons that are probably obvious, but it isnt a nasty pitch in a vacuum. Juan Jerez, 3B Their top ten, in. He also has a promising sweeper slider, but he lacks typical physical projection for a teenage pitcher. Fangraphs Reveals Their Updated Top Pirates Prospects List Cristofer Melendez, RHP It felt like the Pirates were slow-playing him a little too much after the pandemic (Nolasco was easily physical enough to go to Low-A in 2021), but perhaps they simply knew he wasnt ready to parse full-season pitching. He could get a cup of coffee in 2023. White was seen early and often as an underclassman since he went to a Philadelphia high school with University of Virginia outfielder Chris Newell, and would frequently match up against the Siani brothers during varsity play. FanGraphs Prospects. Nolasco had two years of surface-level statistical success in rookie ball and the huge exit velos to match, but now after three pro seasons, his strikeout rates show a troubling upward trend. A two-way high school player, Jones was clearly a superior prospect as a pitcher, as he was one of the most electric on-mound athletes to roll through the high school ranks over the last decade. Webbs velocity began to climb in 2019, when he went from sitting 89-92 mph to sitting 90-94 and touching 96. Theyve tripled since his claim-staking 2019 DSL season and Nolsaco Kd at a whopping 34% rate in the 2022 Florida State League. Given their respective shapes, its easy to see how those pitches play off of one another, and they were the reason Burrows presented a traditional relief look prior to his changeups development. Barring a velo bump or another significant alteration to some of the more concerning elements of his profile, he looks like a single-inning up/down reliever. The 2021 edition of this list featured some carping about Eric Longenhagen ranking Gabriel Moreno in the 100, because he was the exact kind of player who might not have been highly regarded in earlier eras of public prospect evaluation but who had all the markers of future success. Pittsburgh Pirates: Top 10 Players Under Age 26 (as of 4/1/11) 1. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. Mechanically, Burrows adds additional length to his 6-foot-2 stature with an over-the-top delivery. 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. It can be found here. Neil Walker / 2B 5. Still 17 years old as of initial list publication, De Los Santos DSL barrel rate (its more a proxy for a barrel rate the exit velo and launch benchmarks arent exactly the same as Statcasts Barrels, but its the same idea) is so high that it actually breaks an age-adjusted 20-80 scale, grading out as an 83. Meanwhile, put on the tape, limited though it may be, and youll see an explosive young athlete with a prototypical baseball frame and premium bat speed, sizzling line drives all over the field. Drew Maggi looks to make Majors with Pirates - mlb.com But the improvement on his slider means he could solidify a role as a middle reliever, especially if the converted infielder is able to re-establish the fastball velos he flirted with a few years ago. The Royals designated Webb for assignment in mid-November and he elected free agency before signing with the Pirates. That said, it's getting harder. On the showcase circuit, he was less whiff-prone than is typical for a multi-sport guy from the Northeast, though he was a pull-only hitter and struggled to contact fastballs in the upper/outer quadrant of the zone. Let's Identify Some Hitter Sleeper Candidates | FanGraphs Baseball His four-seamer was around the same velo as it had been at the alt site, sitting comfortably at 93 mph and maxing out at 95. Anthony began writing over 10 years ago, starting a personal blog to cover the 2011 MLB draft, where the Pirates selected first overall. Triolo earned industry praise for his defensive aptitude and high marks for his baseball IQ and instincts. Its bat-missing capabilities are limited to the bottom arm-side portion of the zone, where this two-seam-ish fastball tends to finish. Pittsburgh graduated two top-50 prospects in 2022 (Oneil Cruz and Roansy Contreras) and still has a top-five system, or close to it, because of the three potential stars atop the group and the many upper-level, core role-playing hitters who should arrive in the big leagues soon. Defensively, Nunez has transitioned from full-time third baseman to mostly first base, with a handful of innings in the other corner of the infield still mixed in. The high-waisted Lopez has a wide range of athletic/mobility outcomes that will impact where he ultimately ends up on defense. Not counting his time at the alt site in 2020, last season was Boltons first time back in competitive action since 2019. While it may seem like a lot of time has passed since he put his name on the prospect map with his otherworldly 2018 DSL performance, Nunez is still very young; hell turn 22 during spring training, where hes a non-roster invitee. Carter Bins, C The timing of his surgery is more detrimental than that of the other college pitchers, as it ups the odds that he wont (or will barely) pitch in 2023. Unlike the other lists released yesterday, Fangraphs has not posted their top 100 prospects list yet, so we didn't already have some idea of the top of their list. They had a ton of depth and a need to fill their Triple-A roster with external veterans in case of injury, and its likely that they mis-evaluated some of their own players who they should have protected, players like Trey McGough, Cristian Charle, Joelvis Del Rosario, Austin Roberts, Wilkin Ramos, Jared Oliva, and Peter Solomon, all of whom have either been on past prospect lists or were flagged for interesting performance or characteristics during this list cycle. Out over the plate, he has a tendency to stay inside fastballs and lift them toward the opposite field gap. Not Quite Enough Hit Tool Podcasts: . Pittsburgh Pirates 2021 Top 50 Prospects January 1, 2021 Kyle Brown General, MiLB, NL Central, Pirates, Top 50 Lists 2 Graphic design by John Stewart, @jonance on Twitter The Pirates had a woeful time in 2020 once the season got going. Mason Martin, 1B Diego Cartaya (37) - Catcher Cartaya is listed a little higher in The. Its a pretty big lost year of reps for a multi-sport player looking to get traction with the bat in pro ball. Given how good he is at third, it seems likely that Triolo will be a good defensive second baseman if given enough time, and hes a fine emergency option at short (Kyle Farmer has played there a ton and Triolo is about that good). His mother spent her childhood in London, while his father "a real Brit; he still has an . Chen began his career with 26 consecutive walk-free innings in the 2021 Florida Complex League, then spent all of 2022 at Bradenton, where he had a solid second pro season, carrying a 3.76 FIP across 98 innings. His fastball remains in the mid-90s but continues to underperform in terms of its bat-missing ability due to its hittable line. He spent much of the season leading off for Altoona, where he slashed .282/.376/.419 and stole 24 stolen bases. Drafted 91st overall by the Toronto Blue Jays in 2021 out of a Huntington Beach junior college, the 20-year-old southpaw not only finished last season in Double-A, he dominated at all three levels where he saw action. A two-way high school prospect, Flowers was primarily a center fielder at Florida State but transitioned to the mound full-time in pro ball. Atlanta Braves Stats | FanGraphs Baseball 76. His range, footwork, ability to bend, and overall athleticism are all plus, and it made sense to try to develop him as a shortstop for as long as possible, but Peguero finally saw time at second base in 2022 and a permanent move there will hopefully help him throw more confidently and accurately. ), and some of the recent, perhaps overzealous examples (Maikel Escotto, Rodolfo Nolasco) are in this system. Hes going to be a star if he ends up with even average raw power, and even if he doesnt, were talking about a switch-hitting catcher who can make an impact on both offense and defense. Davis was on the IL multiple times in 2022 with issues stemming from a small nondisplaced fracture of his left wrist that he suffered when he was hit by a pitch in May. Cy Nielson, LHP Top 51 Prospects: Pittsburgh Pirates | FanGraphs Baseball But he was then shut down and had TJ, which ended his season early enough that he could be back in 2023. 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. 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. by Retrosheet. document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { 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. They all received. 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. Neither his slider nor changeup is fully baked quite yet, but if either (or both) become viable, they would bring with them a higher probability that Priester slots in as a mid-rotation starter. 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. Both feel like high-floored backend or long relief types who need to walk an atypical path to an impact role. Hes 19 and struggled over the winter in Australia. Scott, Siani, and Campana all have big physical tools and have all struggled badly from a bat-to-ball standpoint. by Handedness, 25th on the Pirates list at the end of 2022, Effectively Wild Episode 1966: Joe West, Young Man, Ben Cherington on Pittsburghs Two Top Prospects. Swaggerty matched the nine home runs he posted in 2019, but this time, he did so against better pitching, in fewer at-bats, and in a much less hitter-friendly park, and he improved on his walk rate by a couple of ticks. Scouting reports were. Those games were taking place amid weight-lifting and practice for the coming football season and then during the season itself, so Whites balance of strength and flexibility might change as he trains just for baseball. Solometos fastball sits in the 88-92 mph range. Hes now 23 but could still be a fifth outfielder. Cubs pitching prospect Hayden Wesneski is proving he belongs in his latest Spring Training outing. 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%. While prospect list ultimately isn't what makes a player great, it is . Fast-Rising Blue Jays Prospect Ricky Tiedemann Talks Pitching His pop times are routinely in the 1.85-1.95 range in part because Endy has a strong arm, but also because hes almost always leaving his crouch before he even receives the pitch on steal attempts, which hastens his exchange. Gonzales had a 68% Z-contact% as a 23-year-old at Double-A. Currently, Kennedys best attribute is multi-faceted fastball utility. In August of 2022, Jun-Seok announced he would skip the September KBO draft in order to sign with an MLB club right away. Samaniego looks like a typical second lefty out of a bullpen, sitting 92-94 mph with a deceptive, whippy arm action, and locating his fastball with precision on the arm-side part of the plate. The Pittsburgh Pirates are hiring. The power might be enough to make him a 1-WAR player if given regular at-bats in the big leagues, but as a second base-only defender, its hard to find an on-roster role for a player like this if they arent hitting enough to play there all the time. Ricky Tiedemann is one of the fastest-rising pitching prospects in the game. Pre-draft rumors pegged Kennedy as a tough sign given a strong commitment to LSU. Hernandez showed up to 2022 spring training with a harder breaking ball than he had previously shown, and as the season went along, he added to his fastball as well. ago I'm surprised how far Nick Gonzalez and Hudson Head dropped in a few years. 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. He re-emerged in 2022 as a 24-year-old at Triple-A, and had an offensive season commensurate with that of an extra outfield prospect, a lefty stick with more raw power than hed hit for in games, but enough bat to play a bench role provided hes capable of playing center field. All major league baseball data including pitch type, velocity, batted ball location, The top six were already know from this list, because Fangraphs had six Pirates in their top 100 prospects. The swing length and approach combination is scary enough to keep Lopez out of the 40+ FV tier even though he has this sort of upside. Hes on the 40-man roster and will likely get a chance to sink or swim on the big league roster in 2023. Besides Johnson and Harrington, two other 2022 draft picks made the top 30. This is the case with De Los Santos. We considered Glenn a high priority senior sign in the 2021 draft, but he needed to hit all the way up the minor league ladder and didnt do that in 2022. 2 prospect to Minors camp after injury February 24, 2023 Bucs invite top prospects Davis, Johnson, Priester to camp February 2, 2023 Shim realizes first part of dream as prospect signs with Bucs January 26, 2023 The component parts of a scouting, tools-oriented look De Los Santos frame, bat speed, and infield actions put him in that range, while the DSL data reinforces it somewhat. The average draft position (ADP) included is from Draft Champions leagues from January 19 to February 19 at the NFBC, which you can find here.These leagues draft 50 players and that's all they get for the year no pickups or drops. Despite all of that, Priester took a hit in a lot of the national prospect outlets, dropping off quite a few Top 100 lists. He spent two years at a JUCO before heading to South Alabama in 2020, and he only pitched 21 total innings for the Jaguars due to the timing of his transfer. His turn at the 2022 Futures Game gave viewers a glimpse of his heater/curveball combo, showcasing the carry on his mid-90s fastball in contrast to the vertical depth of the high-spin (2,800 rpm) curve. But at other times, he had difficulty maintaining the velocity as the innings wore on, which was compounded by his ongoing command inconsistency. The Pirates have three of those 38 players, with Termarr Johnson ranked 21st, Endy Rodriguez 22nd and Henry Davis 38th. 2023 600 PA / 200 IP Projections Steamer600. Finding a great changeup (or maybe a split?) Theyre finding them. In some ways, this makes aspects of De Los Santos data even more impressive, because hes turning around soft DSL pitching with ridiculous pace. 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. The Pirates snagged him in Decembers Rule 5 draft, making him only the second lefty reliever on their 40-man, so hell likely be called upon for consistent use out of the big league pen in 2023. From 2017-21, Webbs strikeout rate more than doubled as a result of his uptick in arm strength. That's nearly 30% of all their picks coming up as noteworthy prospects. Fangraphs Releases Their List of the Top 100+ Prospects None of his other pitches are above average in fact most of them are currently below average but Chen has plus command projection and a plus changeup, so hes pretty likely to pitch at the back of a big league rotation or as an innings-eating spot starter. While he hasnt continued producing the mid-to-upper-90s velocity he did during college relief outings, Nicolas still sits a respectable 92-95 mph and leans on his two above-average breaking balls, a low-80s curveball and a mid-80s slider. Traded from Miami during the 2021-22 offseason as part of the three-player package for Jacob Stallings, Nicolas spent 2022 with Altoona, where he worked 90 innings with a FIP and ERA close to 4.00. Counter to our past reports, his swing is rather stiff and some of Lopezs length makes him vulnerable to pitches in on his hands. Davis skills and offensive style are tailored like those of Evan Gattis. In most cases, corner-only outfielders who play consistent big league roles have better actualized their raw power in games. His swing may look different in 2023 and prompt a re-evaluation. If a clearer path at third base existed in this org, that might have been enough for us to do it. Major League and Minor League Baseball data provided by Major League Baseball. He moved into a minor league relief role in 2022. Kennedys delivery is simple, compact, repeatable, and easy-looking, and you can project heavily on his changeup because of this, though right now he often gets underneath it and it tends to cut on him. Fourth-round high school pitcher Owen Kellington was a participant in the 2021 Draft League and Combine, and looked like an interesting, slow-burning developmental prospect prior to a hamstring injury than ended his 2022 season. He was Rule 5 eligible after the season, and hitters who have performed that well at High-A tend to be added to their clubs 40-man roster, but Lopez doesnt have a crystal clear defensive home and his plate discipline needs a lot of seasoning, so he wasnt a real threat to be taken. 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.