Jose Tabata / OF. The Pittsburgh Pirates are hiring. 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. As of list publication, Rodriguez is one of just two catchers on Pittsburghs 40-man roster, and while its possible hes beaten out by a veteran non-roster invitee like Tyler Heineman, Rodriguezs defensive chops and versatility give him a shot to break camp with the big club, split time with Austin Hedges, and moonlight at one or two other positions before eventually seizing the primary catcher job. This FV grade is commensurate with a mid-first round high school infield prospect. Top Prospects Team Lists 2022 2021 AL NL Pirates Top Prospects Reading Options Detail Level Data Only Full Position Filter All 60 FV Prospects 1. Webb dealt with a forearm strain that delayed the start of his 2022 season. 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. 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. Hes still on a path toward a glove-reliant bench role but is closer to having meaningful pop than he was last year. This time around, the Top 100 has even more Moreno types, prospects who combine . Their top ten, in. Scouting. His breaking ball is now a mid-80s power breaker thats up to 88-89 at peak and generates plus chase and whiff rates. Uribe, 20, is a projectable lefty with a 92-93 mph fastball and high-spin breaking ball. Even though both Davis and Rodriguez are near-ready catching prospects, they arent redundant, and in fact they complement each other well. They have Hunter. 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. 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. 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. Jones spent 2022, his second full pro season, at High-A Greensboro, where he sat 94-98 mph across 122.2 innings and posted a 26.7% K% and 9.6% BB%. But as Triolos pro success with the bat continued at a high level, and with KeBryan Hayes manning the hot corner for the Pirates foreseeable future, the Pirates began searching for defensive alternatives in order to plug Triolo into their lineup. He went 2-for-4 with two singles, two runs and an RBI on Friday night against Kansas State. Matt Gorski, OF 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. Moreover, he has one of the more unusual profiles in professional baseball. Hes on the 40-man roster and will likely get a chance to sink or swim on the big league roster in 2023. He could get a cup of coffee in 2023. Neil Walker / 2B 5. He stayed healthy throughout 2022, throwing 70.1 innings, and was more effective out of the bullpen than in his late-season starts. He doesnt always look comfortable out there, but his speed makes him viable at all three spots, solidifying his role as a heavily-used role player even without the power production. Both can be in the lineup every night because of Rodriguezs defensive versatility and the universal DH, and a more liberal timeshare behind the plate might help keep them both healthier and more consistently productive on offense. Pre-draft rumors pegged Kennedy as a tough sign given a strong commitment to LSU. D-backs Dodgers Giants Padres Rockies: Offseason Tools. 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. Sergio Campana, CF Spending all season at Triple-A, he put up decent numbers, striking out roughly a quarter of opposing batters and allowing just four homers all season. Its bat-missing capabilities are limited to the bottom arm-side portion of the zone, where this two-seam-ish fastball tends to finish. Solometo was a very high-profile amateur pitcher, drafted in the second round but given a bonus commensurate with the 24th overall pick ($2.8 million) as one of several exciting high schoolers who Pittsburgh landed with the pool space freed up by Henry Davis under slot agreement. document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { 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. Like his other stuff, his feel for location is better than the movement hes creating on the pitch. Nicolas has consistent glove-side command of his entire repertoire, and he tends to live on that half of the plate exclusively. On Friday, FanGraphs released updated rankings. Smith-Njigbas on-base skills drive an above-replacement forecast here, but its tough to project a real big league role, and he may be an interesting candidate for teams in Asia. 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. The bumps and bruises suffered from catching can sometimes level players for whole seasons, and Davis had a lot of them in 2022. 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. 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. 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. Enmanuel Terrero, OF It shows above-average arm-side action on occasion, but hes only throwing it 12% of the time. He finished 2022 at Altoona and has a chance to be in the big leagues at some point this season. . Big league sliders might force Davis to make an adjustment, but so far his contact performance has been solidly average. Webbs velocity began to climb in 2019, when he went from sitting 89-92 mph to sitting 90-94 and touching 96. In most cases, corner-only outfielders who play consistent big league roles have better actualized their raw power in games. 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). Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports. Meanwhile, Chandlers post-promotion production at the plate plummeted to a sub-.200 batting average and an OPS of just .574, thanks largely to a strikeout rate just barely south of 40%; he launched just a single dinger in his 32 Low-A games compared to three in his 14 games on the complex. Thats the situation were projecting here. Melendez (sitting 97) and Mateo (sitting 95) are upper-level relievers with poor control. RT @NorthShoreNine: wNS9+ With @longenhagen Discussing the @fangraphs Pirates Top Prospect List You found it controversial, so we discussed it Subscribe & Listen . Lopez swings exceptionally hard and makes some mechanical compromises to do so, but not in a way that has impacted his performance yet. He did not pass. A fresh start with a new org (he was a waiver claim this offseason) might help him find a swing that produces more power. 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. 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. Ricky Tiedemann is one of the fastest-rising pitching prospects in the game. 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. All UZR (ultimate zone rating) calculations are provided courtesy of Mitchel Lichtman. Eddy Yean, RHP feels like the more realistic path to an eventual 45-grade role, or above. 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. Scouting reports are. Once-Loved Outfielders Triolo earned industry praise for his defensive aptitude and high marks for his baseball IQ and instincts. 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. Thats a very walkable path. Martin has plus-plus raw power and a 30-grade hit tool, not enough for first base but maybe enough for consideration overseas. In August of 2022, Jun-Seok announced he would skip the September KBO draft in order to sign with an MLB club right away. 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. Maggi is, by definition, a Major Leaguer. 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. His delivery has a relief-only look to it. 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. Matt Fraizer, CF 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. His finishing pitch, though, is his slider, a nasty upper-80s sweeper that generated a 50% whiff rate and 38% chase rate in 2022. Jesus Castillo, SS Its a pretty big lost year of reps for a multi-sport player looking to get traction with the bat in pro ball. His slider has a sweeping horizontal shape, but his inability to locate it has hampered its utility. 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. Here are the Pirates' 2023 Top 30 prospects March 1, 2023 Pirates' Chandler going all in on pitching February 28, 2023 Pirates return No. 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. All Win Expectancy, Leverage Index, Run Expectancy, and Fans Scouting Report data licenced from TangoTiger.com. 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. Gonzales has begun to track like Keston Hiura, Carter Kieboom, and Jeter Downs, and his swing shares mechanical similarities with both Hiura and Kieboom. He can already land his breaker in the zone and its angle should help it become a viable back-foot offering to righties. Theyre finding them. 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. Out over the plate, he has a tendency to stay inside fastballs and lift them toward the opposite field gap. 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. Connor Scott, RF This level of athleticism might be an indication that Rodriguez will find a way to mature into more raw power despite not having a traditionally projectable frame. 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 seems able to make some mid at-bat adjustments to this type of pitch but then ends up playing a guessing game with breaking balls. He spent much of the season leading off for Altoona, where he slashed .282/.376/.419 and stole 24 stolen bases. Hunter Stratton, RHP 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. 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. Pathways toward a more impactful role are most likely to be carved by Harringtons command outperforming this projection. Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Pittsburgh Pirates. 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. Campana, soon to be 21, is the youngest of this group. 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. His fastball velo is up a tick since 2021, now comfortably sitting in the 95-96 mph range and routinely touching 98. Opinions around Shim vary because he offers less physical projection than is typical in the international talent space, even for an older pitcher. For now, hes lithe enough for third, where he has a shot to be an everyday player based largely on his power projection. Solometos fastball sits in the 88-92 mph range. So compact and short to the baseball is Rodriguez that he can wait an extra beat to diagnose pitch types, which enables him to make in-flight adjustments to breaking balls, spoil the well-located ones, and crush the hangers. 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. Triolos swing and footwork in the box make him vulnerable in a couple of obvious ways (high heat, sliders away), and we dont think the 60-grade hit, 45-grade power profile that he has put on paper so far will hold quite that much water against big league arms. He and Solometo have the same flavor of stuff wrapped in different packages. 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. This impressive performance inspired his offseason 40-man addition. 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. His mother spent her childhood in London, while his father "a real Brit; he still has an . Major League and Minor League Baseball data provided by Major League Baseball. Ryan Vilade, LF He has a short arm action, which aids in his command, though refining his location will likely be the order of the day upon his return from injury as he continues to work out of the Pirates pen. JP Massey, RHP How impactful a starter may depend on how his changeup, currently a tertiary offering, develops at the big league level.