Alessandro Ercolani, RHP 4/5 starter. 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. 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. A double-plus hit tool leads the way for Termarr Johnson, a 5'7" 175 lb left-handed hitter who calls Jose Ramirez to mind on a quick visual evaluation. These rankings include six Pittsburgh Pirates prospects cracking the FanGraph top 100. 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. DeVito is a bird of a feather that has flocked together in the Pirates system: a promising arm with in-zone swing-and-miss, but one whose unsteady command has prevented him from capitalizing on that whiff rate. He entered the 2022 spring as a high-probability 40 FV prospect who some scouts thought belonged in the 40+ tier because of pitching approach changes Barco could make in pro ball that might enable a breakout, but he ended up blowing out his UCL and having Tommy John in May. He has a pronounced bat wrap. Tony Sanchez / C 6. 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. Clubs like the Pirates arent making buyers trades, so they have little to no incentive to move a potentially great young player, which in turn means teams have little incentive to scout said player. If this were a high school draft prospect, you would already know his name based purely on how explosive De Los Santos is in the batters box. Grant Hartwig is one of the most promising under-the-radar prospects in the New York Mets system. The husky Nunez swings really hard and generates big peak exit velocities. Matt Gorski, OF That makes it seem all but inevitable that Chandler will eventually ditch the bat to optimize his development on the mound. In August of 2022, Jun-Seok announced he would skip the September KBO draft in order to sign with an MLB club right away. 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. Thats a very walkable path. Any Top 100 prospects, regardless of their ETA, are also included on this list. Quick backfield looks at him have his tools in more of an extra outfielder bucket for now. Neil Walker / 2B 5. ago Throw in the visual twitch and athleticism, and this is the player Spotifys algorithm would recommend to FanGraphs if prospects were musical artists. 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. ago I'm surprised how far Nick Gonzalez and Hudson Head dropped in a few years. 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. 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. Pittsburgh to add him to their 40-man roster after the season, indicating that hell be a big league relief option in 2023. DeVito brandishes a five-pitch arsenal headlined by a filthy splitter, but he struggled to locate any of his pitches well enough for them to really complement each other. His fastball remains in the mid-90s but continues to underperform in terms of its bat-missing ability due to its hittable line. He projects as a quick-moving no. Major League and Minor League Baseball data provided by Major League Baseball. While prospect list ultimately isn't what makes a player great, it is . 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. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb. This is the case with De Los Santos. Jameson Taillon / SP 4. His player page shows him above average in UZR/150, OAA and RAA (although only 1 in each of the latter two). He did not hit well after the injury, but thats typical of hitters coming off a wrist fracture, and a second IL stint due to the wrist was an indication that it was bothering Davis throughout the year. It could stand to have more consistent depth, but the flashes are there, and remember that Kennedy is barely 18. 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. That makes changeup development, or anything that might help him deal with righties, important, and indeed thats already underway Solometo has begun to more heavily incorporate a mid-80s changeup into his pitch mix. Jimenez has a very good sweeping, upper-70s curveball and creates plus action on a changeup that he sells with fantastic arm speed. 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. 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. Here's a link to the Top 25.. Link to the Top 50.. Link to the Top 75.. 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. Both feel like high-floored backend or long relief types who need to walk an atypical path to an impact role. It had exploded even further when he was seen following the pandemic shutdown, as he sat 95-97 mph and was touching 101 during the 2021 regular season. 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. He threw it 16% of the time (up from 9% the previous season) and induced a 53% whiff rate with this power-action, mid-80s change. 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. Hayden Wesneski is a 25-year-old starting pitcher in the Chicago Cubs system. Hes already taken a sizable step in the breaking ball department in just two pros seasons. 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. Jones checked all but two scouting boxes as a high school pitcher. His slot also helps generate two-plane sweep on his breaking ball. 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. Reports, tool grades, . His maxed-out frame is cumbersome on the infield, but his footwork at first base has improved a ton since he started playing there, and weve updated our previous DH-only projection. He pitched five innings of relief over two games in early May for the Pirates without allowing a run. Updated: Saturday, March 4, 2023 4:51 PM ET, Park Factors 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. All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. His size creates some stiffness and imbalance during his swing, which can lead to him putting suboptimal contact in play. Sanchez runs pretty well. Injured Arms 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. The 11-15 group consists of Jared Jones, Ji-hwan Bae, Anthony Solometo, Kyle Nicolas and Jared Triolo. His breaking ball is now a mid-80s power breaker thats up to 88-89 at peak and generates plus chase and whiff rates. 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. March 3, 2023. The top 38 spots on the list are all 55 FV or higher. He commands it consistently enough to his glove side to project as a starter. Jesus Castillo, SS This FV grade is commensurate with a mid-first round high school infield prospect. Lopez swings exceptionally hard and makes some mechanical compromises to do so, but not in a way that has impacted his performance yet. Drafted: 1st Round, 2022 from Mays HS (GA) (PIT), Signed: July 2nd Period, 2018 from Dominican Republic (NYM), Drafted: 1st Round, 2021 from Louisville (PIT), Signed: July 2nd Period, 2018 from Dominican Republic (PIT), Drafted: 1st Round, 2019 from Cary-Grove HS (IL) (PIT), Signed: July 2nd Period, 2017 from Dominican Republic (ARI), Drafted: 10th Round, 2018 from Waterford HS (CT) (PIT), Drafted: 3rd Round, 2021 from North Oconee HS (PIT), Drafted: 2nd Round, 2019 from Houston (PIT), Signed: July 2nd Period, 2017 from South Korea (PIT), Drafted: 2nd Round, 2020 from La Mirada HS (CA) (PIT), Signed: July 2nd Period, 2022 from Dominican Republic (PIT), Drafted: 1st Round, 2022 from Campbell (PIT), Drafted: 2nd Round, 2020 from Ball State (MIA), Drafted: 16th Round, 2018 from Randolph-Macon College (PIT), Drafted: 8th Round, 2019 from Seton Hall (ATL), Signed: July 2nd Period, 2018 from Venezuela (PIT), Signed: July 2nd Period, 2023 from South Korea (PIT), Drafted: 2nd Round, 2021 from Gloucester Catholic HS (PIT), Drafted: 2nd Round, 2022 from Florida (PIT), Signed: July 2nd Period, 2018 from Cuba (STL), Drafted: 1st Round, 2020 from New Mexico State (PIT), Signed: July 2nd Period, 2015 from Dominican Republic (LAD), Signed: July 2nd Period, 2019 from Pei-Ke High School (Taiwan) (PIT), Drafted: 4th Round, 2022 from Troy HS (NY) (PIT), Drafted: 2nd Round, 2021 from Malvern Prep HS (PIT), Drafted: 1st Round, 2020 from South Carolina (PIT), Drafted: 15th Round, 2021 from South Alabama (PIT), Drafted: 1st Round, 2018 from South Alabama (PIT), Signed: July 2nd Period, 2016 from Venezuela (PHI), Drafted: 3rd Round, 2022 from Notre Dame (PIT), Signed: July 2nd Period, 2019 from Taiwan (PIT), Signed: July 2nd Period, 2016 from Bahamas (CLE), Drafted: 4th Round, 2019 from Florida State (PIT), Drafted: 11th Round, 2016 from Valley View HS (PA) (PIT), Drafted: 4th Round, 2017 from Rockwall Heath HS (TX) (NYY), Drafted: 34th Round, 2016 from Lees Summit HS (MO) (KCR), Drafted: 6th Round, 2017 from Tracy HS (CA) (PIT), Drafted: 4th Round, 2021 from U-32 HS (PIT). His two-plane slider has nasty, late break and his changeup might have late projection because his arm action is so clean and loose. 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. Andres Silvera, RHP. Hes an arm strength reclamation project with a shot to pitch in Pittsburghs bullpen. 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. 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. Cristofer Melendez, RHP Melendez (sitting 97) and Mateo (sitting 95) are upper-level relievers with poor control. ), and some of the recent, perhaps overzealous examples (Maikel Escotto, Rodolfo Nolasco) are in this system. His changeup is deceptive against batters in both boxes, but in particular against righties, who have a 40% chase rate on the offering. An extreme groundball pitcher in a small sample, he allowed just two home runs in 35.2 innings of work in 2022. Hudson Head, CF