Overall, there is a ton of in-zone swing-and-miss happening here. Webb dealt with a forearm strain that delayed the start of his 2022 season. FanGraphs Top 43 Pirates prospects blogs.fangraphs Vote 3 comments Best Add a Comment Robert_roberts82 14 min. 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. He has a pronounced bat wrap. Its a pretty big lost year of reps for a multi-sport player looking to get traction with the bat in pro ball. His two-plane slider has nasty, late break and his changeup might have late projection because his arm action is so clean and loose. 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. After the season, he again played winter ball, this time in Puerto Rico with Carolina, where Cheng struggled. Milwaukee Brewers Batting Postseason Stats 2021. Diego Cartaya (37) - Catcher Cartaya is listed a little higher in The. 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. These rankings are now available on The Board on the 2023 Fantasy Rankings tab, where you can also see the Top 120 Dynasty Rankings!. 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. If a clearer path at third base existed in this org, that might have been enough for us to do it. Rodriguezs arm is comfortably plus. He pitched for Panamas U18 team in September and showed a good changeup and fair slider as well. Even though he was sitting 96-98 in Arizona, Webbs fastball doesnt play like an upper-90s pitch right now, and his mid-80s breaking ball quality is highly variable (lots of 30s, some 50s). 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. He can already land his breaker in the zone and its angle should help it become a viable back-foot offering to righties. Cy Nielson, LHP Here are the Pirates' 2023 Top 30 prospects March 1, 2023 Pirates' Chandler going all in on pitching February 28, 2023 Pirates return No. Lolo Sanchez, CF Davis skills and offensive style are tailored like those of Evan Gattis. Theyre finding them. Pedro Alvarez / 3B 2. 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. He was passed over in the 2022 Rule 5 Draft despite his stuff quality because hes so raw as a strike-thrower. His arm action is very long, and he bends at his torso as he lunges toward the plate, allowing for more extension during his release, but also creating an uncomfy angle that adds stress to his shoulder. The Pirates have three of those 38 players, with Termarr Johnson ranked 21st, Endy Rodriguez 22nd and Henry Davis 38th. Carter Bins, C Anthony began writing over 10 years ago, starting a personal blog to cover the 2011 MLB draft, where the Pirates selected first overall. 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. Jimenez has a very good sweeping, upper-70s curveball and creates plus action on a changeup that he sells with fantastic arm speed. It sounds like Brannigan is going to develop as a two-way player. 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. But theres big arm speed here and big riding life to Shims fastball. 1/ . He might end up becoming the player the industry hoped Francisco Meja would become. Isaias Uribe, LHP While hes played a bunch of shortstop, he is much more likely to wind up on the edge of 3B/1B than he is to see middle infield time at maturity. Scouting reports were. Before he was drafted he was considered, at least at FanGraphs, a more likely reliever due to the quality of his stuff. He also mixes in the occasional changeup or curveball, which accounted for a combined 11% of his offerings at Low-A. Big league sliders might force Davis to make an adjustment, but so far his contact performance has been solidly average. The site listed four Dodgers prospects on their list. 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. He and Solometo have the same flavor of stuff wrapped in different packages. Whether his ability to go get it in center field bounces back is the X-factor that will determine his ability to play a long-term big league role. 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. From a heuristics standpoint, you cant do much better than Rodriguezs profile. His defensive versatility will allow the Pirates to play in-game matchups that take advantage of Baes speed and ability to put balls in play. Sanchez runs pretty well. 4/5 starter. His multi-tasking fastball plays at the letters due to angle and also gets a groundball when located down, but at just 91-94 mph, its still a below-average pitch. His breaking ball is now a mid-80s power breaker thats up to 88-89 at peak and generates plus chase and whiff rates. A core scouting rule of thumb is to take the long view with catchers who have impact offensive potential. His fastball velocity is down, in the 92-94 mph range, a far cry from Priesters upper-90s peak. The depth-drive approach has extended to the amateur side of things, where the Pirates tend to spread out their bonus pool to at least a couple of over-slot prospects every year. window.FGWebsite_head_section.buildProspectsListControls(); Jesus Castillo, SS Their top ten, in. Chandlers pitching performance wasnt as lights-out as it had been pre-promotion, but it was still a display of the rightys potential. Andres Silvera, RHP. 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. Matt Fraizer, CF 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. 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. 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. On defense, Rodriguezs size is both a feature and a bug. LSU played . Blanco is a gigantic corner outfield/1B prospect who had the most present raw power in the January 2022 international signing class. 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. (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.) That creates backspin and carry on his fastball and big depth on his curve. Davis plate crowding helps enable his pull-heavy approach. He has basically been the same guy since he entered pro ball, sitting 94-95 with ineffectual shape and a pretty good slider. This also may have been part of why the Pirates lost so many players (11!) Prospects Coverage | FanGraphs Baseball In addition to sending Bradley back to Boston, the Milwaukee Brewers are also sending two of their top-30 prospects. 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. 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. 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. When an opposing pitcher releases the ball, the scoop in Johnsons bat head is pointing at the mound with his back elbow hiked way up above his shoulder in a position that seems to defy the rules of normal human physiology. A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every teams list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. Across the 2022 calendar, Davis had nearly as many HBPs as he did extra-base hits, to which the wrist fracture likely contributed. All major league baseball data including pitch type, velocity, batted ball location,
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. 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. How impactful a starter may depend on how his changeup, currently a tertiary offering, develops at the big league level. Its not a great look to lose half a minor league rosters worth of players in the Rule 5, but that whole group might produce one or two big league role players, which is a small price to pay if theyre byprospects of a bigger group from which the Pirates can pick and choose before exposing the rest to that arcane process. Brennan Malone, RHP. Joness velocity and breaking ball quality (a power, mid-80s slider with vertical action) give him the floor of a really good reliever, especially if he can somehow throw harder an inning at a time. 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. Hes a good enough defender that hed probably being playing shortstop had he ended up at Arizona State, but in pro ball the keystone is Johnsons likeliest defensive home given his maxed-out, stocky build and what projects to be somewhat limited range. When we last saw Swaggerty for a full season of play, he was a 21-year-old whose nine home runs in 120 games was far lower than youd expect from someone with so much raw power playing in a hitter-friendly park. 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. Oliver Mateo, RHP 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. Hes still on a path toward a glove-reliant bench role but is closer to having meaningful pop than he was last year. His mother spent her childhood in London, while his father "a real Brit; he still has an . 76. Still, the teenage pitcher demo is bust-prone and, anecdotally, this seems especially true when the prospect in question already throws really hard at age 17 or 18. Quick backfield looks at him have his tools in more of an extra outfielder bucket for now. Andrew McCutchen / OF 3. 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. Instead, Triolo looks like hell be a superutility guy. Robert_roberts82 1 min. The Pirates got a deal done for a cool million, nearly twice the slot amount in the fourth round. 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. His changeup is deceptive against batters in both boxes, but in particular against righties, who have a 40% chase rate on the offering. That fact isn't apparent on his Baseball-Reference or FanGraphs pages, but for about 48 hours, Maggi, who homered to break up the Yankees' shutout bid in the ninth inning of the Pirates' 9-1 split-squad loss on Thursday, enjoyed life in the Majors. 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 also has a promising sweeper slider, but he lacks typical physical projection for a teenage pitcher. 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. They all received. Maikol Escotto, 2B He did not pass. His low-80s slider, which has late, two-plane bite, has improved considerably and is now an above-average big league pitch. 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. After bouncing around many websites covering hockey, he . Pro teams are more open to east/west fastball operation and the Pirates might be able to coax more sweep out of Harringtons slider, though Campbell does a pretty good job developing pitchers, so there may be less developmental meat on the bone here than youd guess considering hes coming from a smaller program. 11/ . His delivery also creates an odd angle on a mid-80s cutter/slider, which Solometo commands to his glove side. 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. His acrobatics and creativity at third base make him a plus defender there. Pre-draft rumors pegged Kennedy as a tough sign given a strong commitment to LSU. 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. Overall, the Pirates adding six prospects to their top 50 list is pretty impressive. 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). His carrying tool is still his defense, especially his receiving, which is crafty and advanced. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Grant Hartwig is one of the most promising under-the-radar prospects in the New York Mets system. by Retrosheet. The top 38 spots on the list are all 55 FV or higher. He clearly wasnt comfortable in center field during his brief time there last season, but he only played there once every couple of weeks and he isnt a firm no at the position, even if he is bad there right now. Thats something to watch as Jones continues to progress through the minors. 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. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. His quality of contact is very good when he does make it, and is already on par with the typical starting major league second baseman even though hes barely 22. 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. Chen is a very advanced righty with a deep repertoire led by his plus changeup. Burrows had success as a starter throughout a 2022 season split between Double- and Triple-A before shoulder inflammation effectively ended his season. He has the strength to do damage the other way, but save for the occasional pitch on the outer edge, hes geared to pull. ), and some of the recent, perhaps overzealous examples (Maikel Escotto, Rodolfo Nolasco) are in this system. Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Pittsburgh Pirates. as compiled by Ben Clemens and the FanGraphs staff. 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. The depth charts found on the Team Pages are based on projected playing time, NOT the current status of a team's roster. The Royals designated Webb for assignment in mid-November and he elected free agency before signing with the Pirates. Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports. Hes still the contact-first, chop-and-spray hitter hes always been, an approach to hitting enabled and bolstered by his speed, which allows him to beat out infield singles. 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. He was one of the younger players available in the 2022 draft and yet at a listed 205 pounds, Kennedy is more physically mature than most of his peers, even some who are a year or two older than he is. He has the stuff to continue developing as a starter just in case things click, but the bullpen is Jimenezs more likely future destination. Looking forward to fangraphs being wrong Campman92 5 min. Thats the situation were projecting here. Born Harrison Michael Ford, in Atlanta, 20 years ago this week, the right-handed-hitting catcher is the son of English immigrants. In some respects, its easy to assess DSL players. Hes been up to 100 mph, sits 96, and has solid glove-side command of a mid-80s slider. 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. 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. D-backs Dodgers Giants Padres Rockies: Offseason Tools. Major League and Minor League Baseball data provided by Major League Baseball. FanGraphs Prospects. If you split his season exactly in half, the improvement is obvious. Righties get a nice long look at everything Solometo does, and he could be very platoon-vulnerable against big leaguers. Defensively, he has mostly played second base so far in his professional career, with just a handful of starts at short. It plays nicely with Flowers plus slider, and he has enough changeup feel to parachute one in against lefties once in a while. Across his 94.1 innings, he racked up 111 strikeouts against just 31 walks, with a 1.21 WHIP. Still right on the cusp of graduating from prospect eligibility, Kranick made four appearances in the minors to start the 2022 season before being called up to the major league bullpen. Lopez is a huge-framed infielder who hit .286/.329/.476 and launched 19 homers in just 106 games as a 20-year-old at hitter-friendly Greensboro in 2022. He pairs it with two above-average secondaries: a high-80s slider with sharp, downward movement that garnered a 48% chase rate against righties, and an 11-5 curveball with a shape that mimics the slider, only slower and looser, which helps keep batters off balance and enables him to pitch backwards. He projects as a quick-moving no. In August of 2022, Jun-Seok announced he would skip the September KBO draft in order to sign with an MLB club right away. Throw in the visual twitch and athleticism, and this is the player Spotifys algorithm would recommend to FanGraphs if prospects were musical artists. His feel for throwing strikes would come and go, and hes only 6-feet-1, a little smaller than the prep pitching prototypes who you often see getting $2 million or more in the draft. Silvera, 18, is a physically mature righty who missed a ton of DSL bats even though he only sits 88-90. Jerez has above-average power and a 70 arm. FanGraphs Prospects. . Connor Scott, RF Prospects 2022 Top 100 Prospects. Back with former Astros pitching coach Brent Strom in Arizona . While prospect list ultimately isn't what makes a player great, it is . JP Massey, RHP He has an interesting long-term body projection and breaking ball combination. So the question is, was there actual improvement in his ability or is this just noise in the signal? 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. 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. Johnsons swing bears some mechanical resemblance to Bryce Harpers, especially its lower half usage and finish. As a wrap-up, the Pirates have. He showed a velo spike (92-96) at the onset of the 2022 college season before his arm strength and command regressed. The 11-15 group consists of Jared Jones, Ji-hwan Bae, Anthony Solometo, Kyle Nicolas and Jared Triolo. Middle infielder Termarr Johnson, who the Pittsburgh. 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. The organization will be thrilled if . The effects of a pro strength and conditioning program might kick-start him down the path toward finding a more consistent release and sustaining the big velocity as a pro starter. All UZR (ultimate zone rating) calculations are provided courtesy of Mitchel Lichtman. A much deeper overview can be found here. 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. His swing may look different in 2023 and prompt a re-evaluation. 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. Gonzales has begun to track like Keston Hiura, Carter Kieboom, and Jeter Downs, and his swing shares mechanical similarities with both Hiura and Kieboom. Jackson Glenn, 2B. Once-Loved Outfielders Lopez swings exceptionally hard and makes some mechanical compromises to do so, but not in a way that has impacted his performance yet. When healthy, he was a hard-throwing 40 FV reliever. But given his age and the amount of runway still afforded to him, this was seen as a speed bump for his development rather than being of great concern at the time. The Pirates claimed him off waivers and quickly lost him to the Diamondbacks in the minor league phase of the 2022 Rule 5 draft. Thats a very walkable path. 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. Injured Arms His slider has a sweeping horizontal shape, but his inability to locate it has hampered its utility. 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. (2/2/2021) If his defense continues to look like it did in the 2022-23 Dominican Winter League during 2023 spring training, he may quickly be repositioned on this list. 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. Hard-Throwers 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. To be fair, he was only about average in terms of OAA. Priesters four-seamer is divisive. Mason Martin, 1B Like his other stuff, his feel for location is better than the movement hes creating on the pitch. Massey, going on 23, is a very loose, projectable college prospect from Minnesota. The Pirates are going to develop him at many different positions with the hope that he can provide a late-game upgrade at a couple different spots (hes already very good at third base), serve as righty power off the bench, and work in middle relief. 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. The top six were already know from this list, because Fangraphs had six Pirates in their top 100 prospects. This was a four-year rookie-level player who had suddenly been added to the Royals 40-man roster after the 2021 season even though he had all of 32 innings above Low-A. It could stand to have more consistent depth, but the flashes are there, and remember that Kennedy is barely 18. Currently, Kennedys best attribute is multi-faceted fastball utility. in the minor league phase of the 2022 Rule 5 Draft. His on-mound athleticism enables plus long-term command projection, though for right now Harrington really only locates his fastball to his arm side. 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. He spent much of the season leading off for Altoona, where he slashed .282/.376/.419 and stole 24 stolen bases. 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. 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. His player page shows him above average in UZR/150, OAA and RAA (although only 1 in each of the latter two). We added RosterResource's Depth Charts; these reflect a team's current. His breaking ball has inconsistent length and he has a relief-only mechanical look, but hes throwing quite hard. With Endy Rodriguez around, it may not matter a ton. Gonzales hands work in a short, explosive loop. This FV grade is commensurate with a mid-first round high school infield prospect. The pitch has natural tailing action, but Ortiz can also blow it past hitters at the letters when he wants, and his TrackMan data shows hes mixing in four- and two-seamers in the locations where theyre most effective. 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. He appears tentative on routine throws and still isnt a sure-handed defender. 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. The Pittsburgh Pirates are hiring. Cheng entered 2022 coming off an incredible season in which he slashed .311/.449/.492 with twice as many walks as he had strikeouts. 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. 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. 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. Here hes projected as a no. Obviously the 2021 draft was the big one, and seven players from that class are currently on the list.