Jerez has above-average power and a 70 arm. 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%. All Win Expectancy, Leverage Index, Run Expectancy, and Fans Scouting Report data licenced from TangoTiger.com. Thomas 2022 was a tale of two seasons. After bouncing around many websites covering hockey, he . He appears tentative on routine throws and still isnt a sure-handed defender. He did not pass. 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. 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. 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. That said, it's getting harder. Hes been able to maintain nearly average contact rates despite a pull-heavy approach to contact. 2023 Offseason Tracker. 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. Yean, 21, was once a 40+ FV prospect in Washingtons system. This is the case with De Los Santos. 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. He maintained his patient approach in Altoona, and when the Double-A season ended, he was sent up to Indianapolis for the last five games of the Triple-A season. Not exactly on topic, but Id love to get some thoughts on the recently graduated Jack Suwinski. Oliver Mateo, RHP 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. To be fair, he was only about average in terms of OAA. 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. 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. Ryan Vilade, LF Jameson Taillon / SP 4. 2023 600 PA / 200 IP Projections Steamer600. The bumps and bruises suffered from catching can sometimes level players for whole seasons, and Davis had a lot of them in 2022. 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. 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. Priesters four-seamer is divisive. It can be found here. Jose Tabata / OF. Instead, Triolo looks like hell be a superutility guy. While he was already throwing quite hard, Ortiz came into even more velocity in 2022 and averaged 97 mph on his fastball, up two ticks from 2021. 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. His finishing pitch, though, is his slider, a nasty upper-80s sweeper that generated a 50% whiff rate and 38% chase rate in 2022. 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. in the minor league phase of the 2022 Rule 5 Draft. ago 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. . 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. Escotto, 20, was a 40+ FV prospect after his huge DSL season and later became part of the Jameson Taillon trade, but he struggled very badly in 2022 and needed to be demoted back to Low-A. The organization will be thrilled if . Dombkowski is a lefty whose high-80s fastball plays up thanks to his low arm slot and excellent command over his above-average secondaries. While especially adept at launching pitches on the inner third, Johnson also shows some ability to shorten up and cover the top and outer edge of the strike zone. 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. 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. Vilade spent some time near the top of the Rockies list due to his feel for contact. He walked more than a batter per inning in 2022. From that point on, however, Triolo walked more and struck out less, such that both rates sat in the mid-teens, while flipping the slugging switch on to the tune of 13 doubles, five triples, and eight home runs over the course of the same number of games. The depth charts found on the Team Pages are based on projected playing time, NOT the current status of a team's roster. Flowers has pitched very well in the mid-minors (he carried a 2.88 ERA with Altoona in 2022) and hes been especially good at avoiding walks for a pure relief prospect. 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. Silvera, 18, is a physically mature righty who missed a ton of DSL bats even though he only sits 88-90. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Scouting. RotoGraphs. 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. If a clearer path at third base existed in this org, that might have been enough for us to do it. The recent track record of hitters this size isnt favorable, with only Franmil Reyes really panning out, but its exciting to watch Blanco take BP and see how loose and athletic he is for his size. RotoWire News: Gonzales will join the Pirates' major-league camp this spring. Juan Jerez, 3B His slow, mid-70s curveball is easy to identify out of his hand, but it has lovely shape and depth of break, so perhaps it can be sculpted into a more traditional big league breaking ball. 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. If he continues missing bats at High-A in 2023, though, Pittsburgh may be forced to add him. It sounds like Brannigan is going to develop as a two-way player. 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. 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. 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. RotoGraphs. Pegueros lack of throwing accuracy from shortstop is concerning. 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. For instance, hes struggled badly on defense, wracking up 46 errors combined the last two seasons. Hudson Head, CF You can see the power and athleticism in Davis lower half throughout other aspects of his game, and its an indication that he has the ability to polish this stuff up and control the running game. 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. Its unlikely hell make enough of an offensive impact to be a primary catcher, but hes very likely to spend time on big league 40-man rosters as a second or third catcher. Format = Team Position Player | Age on 4/1/23 | Highest level played | ETA. Jesus Castillo, SS They all received. Anthony began writing over 10 years ago, starting a personal blog to cover the 2011 MLB draft, where the Pirates selected first overall. Hayden Wesneski is a 25-year-old starting pitcher in the Chicago Cubs system. 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. 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. Even though both Davis and Rodriguez are near-ready catching prospects, they arent redundant, and in fact they complement each other well. He also mixes in the occasional changeup or curveball, which accounted for a combined 11% of his offerings at Low-A. 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. Rodriguezs arm is comfortably plus. The powerfully built Kelly, 19, is a squat but loose righty who sits 93-95 mph and throws quality strikes with his fastball. This impressive performance inspired his offseason 40-man addition. 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 projects as a quick-moving no. . While he has a low three-quarters slot that creates natural tail on his heater, Kennedy can still create riding life at the letters. On Friday, FanGraphs released updated rankings. 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. Solometos fastball sits in the 88-92 mph range. His mother spent her childhood in London, while his father "a real Brit; he still has an . Signed as an undrafted free agent in 2021, the 25-year-old right-hander has a degree in microbiology and premedical studies from Oxford, Ohio's Miami University, and he has worked as a . 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. If it does, he should be a 50, and that grade was discussed during the Pirates list-making process. 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. Jimenez has a very good sweeping, upper-70s curveball and creates plus action on a changeup that he sells with fantastic arm speed. Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports. 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. 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. 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.