He pitched five innings of relief over two games in early May for the Pirates without allowing a run. Podcasts: . Eddy Yean, RHP His overall pitch recognition, especially against breaking balls, has become a more noticeable issue. 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. 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. Ke'Bryan Hayes, Oneil Cruz, Mitch Keller, Travis Swaggerty, Tahnaj Thomas and. Jose Tabata / OF. Oneil Cruz, SS Video Signed: July 2nd. His mother spent her childhood in London, while his father "a real Brit; he still has an . 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. Chandler started the 2022 season on the complex, where he showed two-way promise, slashing .231/.444/.654 over 36 plate appearances while annihilating opposing batters, issuing 27 strikeouts and giving up just three hits without allowing a run over 15.1 innings. Roelmy Garcia, RHP Defensively, he has mostly played second base so far in his professional career, with just a handful of starts at short. His footwork on throws to second is clunky and variable, which often impacts his throw times and accuracy, but the pure arm strength is in there. An extreme groundball pitcher in a small sample, he allowed just two home runs in 35.2 innings of work in 2022. 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. Matt Fraizer, CF So the question is, was there actual improvement in his ability or is this just noise in the signal? 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. Grant Hartwig is one of the most promising under-the-radar prospects in the New York Mets system. His slot also helps generate two-plane sweep on his breaking ball. He barely played in 2022 due to hamstring, elbow, and hip flexor injuries that cost him all but a couple of games. 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. Webb dealt with a forearm strain that delayed the start of his 2022 season. 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. Any Top 100 prospects, regardless of their ETA, are also included on this list. Davis plate crowding helps enable his pull-heavy approach. Many scouts are champing at the bit over Priesters prototypical frame and four- or five-pitch mix, depending on whether you consider his fastballs two distinct pitches. As a wrap-up, the Pirates have. 4/5 on a contender. This impressive performance inspired his offseason 40-man addition. 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. Those risks apply here. 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. Pittsburgh Pirates Top 10 Prospects Updated by Marc Hulet September 10, 2018 The Pirates system doesn't have immense depth or a long line of high-impact players but the big league club could. To be fair, he was only about average in terms of OAA. Anthony began writing over 10 years ago, starting a personal blog to cover the 2011 MLB draft, where the Pirates selected first overall. in the minor league phase of the 2022 Rule 5 Draft. This also may have been part of why the Pirates lost so many players (11!) All major league baseball data including pitch type, velocity, batted ball location, 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. 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. A successful 2022 pro debut (47.2 IP, 9.63 K/9, 3.59 BB/9, 2.64 ERA) driven by very advanced fastball command contrasts with skepticism about how Solometos stuff will play against older and better hitters. Selbys fastball sits 96-98 mph and he looks to blow it past hitters up in the zone. 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. 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. 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. 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. We. After spending most of the year at Triple-A, where he hit .289/.362/.430, Bae spent the last couple weeks of the 2022 season as an everyday member of the big league club, where he seems likely to stick throughout the coming season as a lefty-hitting 2B/OF. 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. Vilade spent some time near the top of the Rockies list due to his feel for contact. 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. Might the changeup develop over time into a plus pitch? Uribe, 20, is a projectable lefty with a 92-93 mph fastball and high-spin breaking ball. In cases like these, sometimes the things that initially pique your interest, like data and/or available video, are enough to excite on their own even as you acknowledge that the error bars are as wide as can be because of the relative dearth of reinforcing club opinions. A much deeper overview can be found here. He also has a promising sweeper slider, but he lacks typical physical projection for a teenage pitcher. Hes been up to 100 mph, sits 96, and has solid glove-side command of a mid-80s slider. JP Massey, RHP In some ways, this makes aspects of De Los Santos data even more impressive, because hes turning around soft DSL pitching with ridiculous pace. He also threw a smattering of changeups in 2022, though it amounted to fewer than a dozen across his 50.2 innings of work at Double-A, and the changeup didnt show up at all when the Bahamian took the mound for Great Britains WBC squad. 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. 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. Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports. Harry Ford is one of the top prospects in the Seattle Mariners organization, and he is also unique among his peers. Robert_roberts82 1 min. 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. 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. His Adonis-like physique helps him generate plus pull-side power, and he will show it to you without overswinging he simply lacks bat control and breaking ball recognition. He has a delivery similar to Ubaldo Jimnezs, where his front side flies way open and he tilts out, which helps Kellington get to a vertical arm slot. 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 has become meaningfully stronger over the last year and has more of a balanced, low-ball swing now, as opposed to the slash-and-dash style of contact in his pro debut. That said, it's getting harder. When healthy, he was a hard-throwing 40 FV reliever. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. His chase rates were at or below league average across the board, further emphasizing the troubling command. His range and footwork are great, while his actions and arm are fine. Gonzales has begun to track like Keston Hiura, Carter Kieboom, and Jeter Downs, and his swing shares mechanical similarities with both Hiura and Kieboom. A core scouting rule of thumb is to take the long view with catchers who have impact offensive potential. The reason why he graded out so positively was due to his arm, gunning down runners like crazy, which was fantastic, and his tool grade for his armwas a 40. That's nearly 30% of all their picks coming up as noteworthy prospects. 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. After coasting through the low and mid-minors, he finally hit a speed bump in 2022, posting his first below-average statline as a 21-year-old at Double-A Altoona. Nunez started 2022 at St. Louis Double-A affiliate before being dealt to Pittsburgh as part of the Jos Quintana deal at the trade deadline. ), and some of the recent, perhaps overzealous examples (Maikel Escotto, Rodolfo Nolasco) are in this system. He sits in the upper 80s right now but has promising underlying traits and plenty of time to develop. Prospects Coverage | FanGraphs Baseball In addition to sending Bradley back to Boston, the Milwaukee Brewers are also sending two of their top-30 prospects. Looking forward to fangraphs being wrong Campman92 5 min. Hudson Head, CF Born Harrison Michael Ford, in Atlanta, 20 years ago this week, the right-handed-hitting catcher is the son of English immigrants. Connor Scott, RF Across the 2022 calendar, Davis had nearly as many HBPs as he did extra-base hits, to which the wrist fracture likely contributed. 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. 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. 2023 Updated In-Season Projections He appears tentative on routine throws and still isnt a sure-handed defender. His swing is already geared for lift, but he doesnt currently have the raw juice to make the most of it. Here hes projected as a no. His slider lacks nasty, biting movement, but his arm slot makes it tough on lefty hitters, and his command of it gives it back-foot utility against righties. His changeup is deceptive against batters in both boxes, but in particular against righties, who have a 40% chase rate on the offering. Cy Nielson, LHP While prospect list ultimately isn't what makes a player great, it is . A fresh start with a new org (he was a waiver claim this offseason) might help him find a swing that produces more power. You can really see his athleticism and remarkable hip/shoulder separation on his throws down to second. That pitch plays up against lefties for reasons that are probably obvious, but it isnt a nasty pitch in a vacuum. Across his 94.1 innings, he racked up 111 strikeouts against just 31 walks, with a 1.21 WHIP. 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. Cubs pitching prospect Hayden Wesneski is proving he belongs in his latest Spring Training outing. 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. As for the top three prospects on all six lists, their average rankings: Termarr Johnson - 28.2 Endy Rodriguez - 38.5 Henry Davis - 52 John Dreker + posts John started working at Pirates. 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 His breaking ball has inconsistent length and he has a relief-only mechanical look, but hes throwing quite hard. His swing decisions and ability to make contact out front and tap into his latent power improved throughout the season. Terrero is a compact outfielder with a well-rounded skill set and strong rookie-level line. Garcia is only 19 but is already sitting 96. Theyve tripled since his claim-staking 2019 DSL season and Nolsaco Kd at a whopping 34% rate in the 2022 Florida State League. Gonzales had a 68% Z-contact% as a 23-year-old at Double-A. His delivery evokes Madison Bumgarners long, slingin lefty arm stroke, and Solometos east/west feel for location is Bum-ish, but dont mistake this for a true comp, as Bumgarner had already made 24 big league starts at Solometos age. 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. After pitching well at the U-18 World Championships and at a Nike showcase in Asia, he signed for about $1.25 million, which is pretty sizable for a late-market signee. Still, his tendency to roll his wrists over early in his swing, breaking up his attack angle, resulted in a groundball rate above 50%. The older brother of Ohio State wide receiver phenom Jaxson Smith-Njigba, Canaan is another of the many prospects acquired from the Yankees for Jameson Taillon. 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 still on a path toward a glove-reliant bench role but is closer to having meaningful pop than he was last year. 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. FanGraphs released their top 100 prospect rankings on Wednesday. Pedro Alvarez / 3B 2. He absolutely towers over his father, who was twice a Baseball America Top 100 prospect but spent most of his pro career in Japan. Melendez (sitting 97) and Mateo (sitting 95) are upper-level relievers with poor control. Gutierrez has soft, quiet hands, he doesnt tip pitch type or location with runners on base, and he will drop to one knee when he receives some pitches as a means of framing them. 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. In August of 2022, Jun-Seok announced he would skip the September KBO draft in order to sign with an MLB club right away. It plays nicely with Flowers plus slider, and he has enough changeup feel to parachute one in against lefties once in a while. Either way, he played over half the season in the outfield and was roughly average, which is much better than I would have expected after the reporting on him previously called him a positionless defender. That puts pressure on his plate discipline to improve, since right now Lopez is a little too proactive at the plate and might be exposed at the upper levels. 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. Overall, the Pirates adding six prospects to their top 50 list is pretty impressive. Thats something to watch as Jones continues to progress through the minors. He has the stuff to continue developing as a starter just in case things click, but the bullpen is Jimenezs more likely future destination. 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. Juan Jerez, 3B Injured Arms In most cases, corner-only outfielders who play consistent big league roles have better actualized their raw power in games. 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. 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. 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. Prospects 2022 Top 100 Prospects. Ricky Tiedemann is one of the fastest-rising pitching prospects in the game. Hes different from Kieboom (lever length) and Kiura (simpler footwork) in meaningful ways, but that entire group (and Downs) has had issues with letter-high fastballs, which Gonzales often swings underneath. Campana, soon to be 21, is the youngest of this group. 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 bumps and bruises suffered from catching can sometimes level players for whole seasons, and Davis had a lot of them in 2022. His low-80s slider, which has late, two-plane bite, has improved considerably and is now an above-average big league pitch. Solometos fastball sits in the 88-92 mph range. 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. The top six were already know from this list, because Fangraphs had six Pirates in their top 100 prospects. But theres big arm speed here and big riding life to Shims fastball. All UZR (ultimate zone rating) calculations are provided courtesy of Mitchel Lichtman. The Pirates have three of those 38 players, with Termarr Johnson ranked 21st, Endy Rodriguez 22nd and Henry Davis 38th. He fills out the bottom half of the zone with his slider, itself an impressive bat-misser, thanks again to Dombkowskis command. His low, short-armed slot is like a righty version of Reiver Sanmartins delivery. Jones checked all but two scouting boxes as a high school pitcher. 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. Hes on track to debut in 2025 as a starter if those issues improve and as a reliever if they do not. Pegueros pull-heavy style of contact leaves him vulnerable to breaking balls on the outer half, even ones that catch a lot of the plate. Before he was drafted he was considered, at least at FanGraphs, a more likely reliever due to the quality of his stuff. Scott, Siani, and Campana all have big physical tools and have all struggled badly from a bat-to-ball standpoint. A second base-only defensive fit puts the onus on Pegueros bat to perform at an everyday level. 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. 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. Their top ten, in. For instance, hes struggled badly on defense, wracking up 46 errors combined the last two seasons. His delivery also creates an odd angle on a mid-80s cutter/slider, which Solometo commands to his glove side. 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. 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. He has a wide arsenal, including a changeup and a two-seamer, but tends to rely more heavily on pairing his riding fastball and curveball to keep hitters off balance. Currently, Kennedys best attribute is multi-faceted fastball utility. Mlodzinski started for most of his 2022 season at Double-A but was called upon for middle-inning relief on a few occasions, and though it was only a handful of appearances, he was more effective as a reliever than as a starter. His carrying tool is still his defense, especially his receiving, which is crafty and advanced. Ryan Vilade, LF 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. 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. Some aspects of that optimistic projection still exist, while others have changed or are currently absent, but the tools package here is still on par with the middle of the everyday second baseman player population, and were hoping that young Peguero will polish up his games current smudges. document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { That creates backspin and carry on his fastball and big depth on his curve. 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. 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. Aspects of the offensive profile that made him exciting in the first place are still here, led by Pegueros compact but authoritative swing, which is especially good at punishing pitches at the very top of the strike zone. Ortiz rocketed through the system in 2022, skipping High-A and spending most of the season with Double-A Altoona before making his big league debut across four starts in September and October. Hes already taken a sizable step in the breaking ball department in just two pros seasons. Finding a great changeup (or maybe a split?) He will be an unmistakable fixture on Pittsburghs backfields for the next couple of years and is a power-hitting corner prospect of extreme variance. He was passed over in the 2022 Rule 5 Draft despite his stuff quality because hes so raw as a strike-thrower. 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. Hes 19 and struggled over the winter in Australia. Priesters four-seamer is divisive. 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. Hes been a fast-mover thus far and looks likely to continue that pattern, with a chance to show up on the big-league roster later this season, though a 2024 big league debut is more likely. 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. His on-mound athleticism enables plus long-term command projection, though for right now Harrington really only locates his fastball to his arm side. 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. All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. 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. Luigi Hernandez, RHP. Back with former Astros pitching coach Brent Strom in Arizona . Climbing the minor league ladder often comes with offensive slumps, many of which are cured as hitters accrue at-bats at the more advanced level. Its a shorter, less natural looking delivery than what Flowers had as an amateur, but hes been able to throw strikes with it. As you can probably imagine of a Division-I football commit, White is already very physical, buff to the point where he looked a little bit stiff during his pre-draft summer. 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. Endy had an incredible 2022 statline .323/.407/.590 most of which was generated at hitter-friendly Greensboro. Hes on the 40-man roster and will likely get a chance to sink or swim on the big league roster in 2023. He projects as a quick-moving no. by Retrosheet. It can be found here. His fastball velo is up a tick since 2021, now comfortably sitting in the 95-96 mph range and routinely touching 98. 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. Top Prospects. His finishing pitch, though, is his slider, a nasty upper-80s sweeper that generated a 50% whiff rate and 38% chase rate in 2022. A proactive bullpen move could put him in position to debut in 2024. 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. Webbs velocity began to climb in 2019, when he went from sitting 89-92 mph to sitting 90-94 and touching 96. Be warned that he may hit for huge power at Greensboro in 2023, but the key thing to watch is his strikeout rate. He can already land his breaker in the zone and its angle should help it become a viable back-foot offering to righties. His letter-high, heater-heavy style of pitching, like Gerrit Coles, results in lots of fly balls and he may have long-term vulnerability to the home run.