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. 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 powerfully built Kelly, 19, is a squat but loose righty who sits 93-95 mph and throws quality strikes with his fastball. Ke'Bryan Hayes, Oneil Cruz, Mitch Keller, Travis Swaggerty, Tahnaj Thomas and. That creates backspin and carry on his fastball and big depth on his curve. 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. 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 document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { Thats something to watch as Jones continues to progress through the minors. 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. The clubs hit rate on these trades per prospect isnt great, but the hit rate per trade has been better than that because of their risk-mitigating approach. His fastball velo is up a tick since 2021, now comfortably sitting in the 95-96 mph range and routinely touching 98. A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. De Los Santos contact metrics are a hair south of average, and thats the biggest indicator that theres real risk here, but boy, there is also real ceiling. wNS9+ With @longenhagen Discussing the @fangraphs Pirates Top Prospect List You found it controversial, so we discussed it Subscribe & Listen http://linktr.ee . 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. That said, it's getting harder. Carter Bins, C Fangraphs Releases Their List of the Top 100+ Prospects 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. 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. His breaking ball is his best pitch and he could be a lefty relief piece. His changeup is deceptive against batters in both boxes, but in particular against righties, who have a 40% chase rate on the offering. If a clearer path at third base existed in this org, that might have been enough for us to do it. 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. Opinions around Shim vary because he offers less physical projection than is typical in the international talent space, even for an older pitcher. 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. 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. It felt like the Pirates were slow-playing him a little too much after the pandemic (Nolasco was easily physical enough to go to Low-A in 2021), but perhaps they simply knew he wasnt ready to parse full-season pitching. 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. He could get a cup of coffee in 2023. Theyve tripled since his claim-staking 2019 DSL season and Nolsaco Kd at a whopping 34% rate in the 2022 Florida State League. 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. 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. His swing is already geared for lift, but he doesnt currently have the raw juice to make the most of it. 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. Selbys fastball sits 96-98 mph and he looks to blow it past hitters up in the zone. Hard-Throwers 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 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. 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. Thomas 2022 was a tale of two seasons. After bouncing around many websites covering hockey, he . Injured Arms The organization will be thrilled if . 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. This FV grade is commensurate with a mid-first round high school infield prospect. 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. Blanco is a gigantic corner outfield/1B prospect who had the most present raw power in the January 2022 international signing class. Not Quite Enough Hit Tool As FanGraphs sourced TrackMan/Hawkeye data from team personnel after the season, De Los Santos hard hit rate and peak exit velocities stood apart from most of his peers, especially when limiting the sample to the DSLs age-appropriate players. Hunter Stratton, RHP As a wrap-up, the Pirates have. 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. He used his upper-90s fastball for in-zone whiffs, relying on his above-average slider as a chase pitch. 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. He has above-average bat-to-ball skills and very little power. Even though both Davis and Rodriguez are near-ready catching prospects, they arent redundant, and in fact they complement each other well. 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. Oliver Mateo, RHP 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. 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. 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. Thats a very walkable path. 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. 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. Pittsburgh Pirates Top 43 Prospects by Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin February 9, 2023 Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports Top Prospects Team Lists 2023 2022 AL NL Below is an analysis. 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. Triolo earned industry praise for his defensive aptitude and high marks for his baseball IQ and instincts. 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. The top six were already know from this list, because Fangraphs had six Pirates in their top 100 prospects. Scouting reports are. Ercolani, an 18-year-old righty from San Marino, had a velo spike during the winter and has been up to 97 mph in the bullpen recently. 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. If you want to read me wax poetic about that you can check out my end of year review. 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. 11/ . He was promoted to Bradenton and fell into a rhythm where each pitching appearance was buttressed by an off day before and after it, with the 19-year-old DHing in the intervening days. A core scouting rule of thumb is to take the long view with catchers who have impact offensive potential. FanGraphs Prospects. Its now fair to expect that the current version of Nicolas will be capable of holding down a spot toward the back of Pittsburghs rotation by the middle of 2024. Grant Hartwig is one of the most promising under-the-radar prospects in the New York Mets system. Oneil Cruz, SS Video Signed: July 2nd. 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 11-15 group consists of Jared Jones, Ji-hwan Bae, Anthony Solometo, Kyle Nicolas and Jared Triolo. 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. 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. His slot also helps generate two-plane sweep on his breaking ball. His delivery also creates an odd angle on a mid-80s cutter/slider, which Solometo commands to his glove side. RotoGraphs. The Pirates got a deal done for a cool million, nearly twice the slot amount in the fourth round. The Royals designated Webb for assignment in mid-November and he elected free agency before signing with the Pirates. His acrobatics and creativity at third base make him a plus defender there. He and Solometo have the same flavor of stuff wrapped in different packages. It could stand to have more consistent depth, but the flashes are there, and remember that Kennedy is barely 18. Hes 19 and struggled over the winter in Australia. 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. It plays nicely with Flowers plus slider, and he has enough changeup feel to parachute one in against lefties once in a while. In April and May, he posted a strikeout rate of 15.9% and a walk rate of 14.5%; from June to September, he improved those marks to 28.5% and 6.9%, respectively. 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. Plaz had a cartoonish line in the DSL (he slugged over .700), but hes very burly and physically mature for a 17-year-old, so wed like to see him do it stateside. Eddy Yean, RHP 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. Massey, going on 23, is a very loose, projectable college prospect from Minnesota. 2023 Updated In-Season Projections 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.