Thats the situation were projecting here. 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. 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. A core scouting rule of thumb is to take the long view with catchers who have impact offensive potential. If you split his season exactly in half, the improvement is obvious. His 2022 performance deserves some age-related adjustment, but its possible we saw flaws in Pegueros game exposed by upper-level pitching. Currently, Kennedys best attribute is multi-faceted fastball utility. Shim is a big, physically mature righty with huge present arm strength, creeping into the upper 90s. Anthony began writing over 10 years ago, starting a personal blog to cover the 2011 MLB draft, where the Pirates selected first overall. Scouting reports were. Born Harrison Michael Ford, in Atlanta, 20 years ago this week, the right-handed-hitting catcher is the son of English immigrants. His overall pitch recognition, especially against breaking balls, has become a more noticeable issue. 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. It shows above-average arm-side action on occasion, but hes only throwing it 12% of the time. Nicolas spent most of his college career in the bullpen, but hes held up well as a starter in pro ball, developing two distinct breaking balls that hes using much more than he did at Ball State. 4/5 on a contender. Jackson Glenn, 2B. Connor Scott, RF Sergio Campana, CF 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. Enmanuel Terrero, OF Roelmy Garcia, RHP 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. Reports around his once-stellar defense have dimmed, and were hoping its due more to rust and lost time than to an actual regression in ability. 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. Thats something to watch as Jones continues to progress through the minors. He has a delivery similar to Ubaldo Jimnezs, where his front side flies way open and he tilts out, which helps Kellington get to a vertical arm slot. Mechanically, Burrows adds additional length to his 6-foot-2 stature with an over-the-top delivery. Thats a very walkable path. While prospect list ultimately isn't what makes a player great, it is . Counter to our past reports, his swing is rather stiff and some of Lopezs length makes him vulnerable to pitches in on his hands. 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. 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. While likely of low impact, Solometos feel to pitch will almost certainly enable him to be a big leaguer of some kind, either a backend starter or long reliever. He projects as a quick-moving no. 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. 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. Amid a couple of short IL stints in 2022, Selby put up impressive numbers split between Double- and Triple-A and then looked great in the Arizona Fall League. He has the strength to do damage the other way, but save for the occasional pitch on the outer edge, hes geared to pull. Rodriguezs arm is comfortably plus. Grant Hartwig is one of the most promising under-the-radar prospects in the New York Mets system. In the past, Ortizs high-effort delivery and sub-optimal fastball shape put him on the starter/reliever line, but hes thrown plenty of strikes across multiple seasons while simultaneously developing more velocity and comfortably projects as a starting pitcher now. He and Solometo have the same flavor of stuff wrapped in different packages. 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. But theres big arm speed here and big riding life to Shims fastball. Barco is a low-slot lefty with advanced command and several underlying pitch traits that give clubs hope of more upside even though he looks like a lower-variance backend starter prospect on the surface. Out over the plate, he has a tendency to stay inside fastballs and lift them toward the opposite field gap. Campana, soon to be 21, is the youngest of this group. The organization will be thrilled if . The barrel-chested Smith-Njigba has huge strength-driven power and a patient approach that borders on passive. document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { by Retrosheet. Aside from the persistent Bryan Reynolds trade rumors, the general industry sentiment is that the team is shifting from prospect collection mode and into a phase where those players start to arrive. (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.) He signed for $900,000 and barely played in the 2022 DSL. Blanco is a gigantic corner outfield/1B prospect who had the most present raw power in the January 2022 international signing class. Pedro Alvarez / 3B 2. His finishing pitch, though, is his slider, a nasty upper-80s sweeper that generated a 50% whiff rate and 38% chase rate in 2022. Quants and front office analyst types are more bearish, citing issues with Priesters fastball playability. Isaias Uribe, LHP There were only three big league hitters with 100 plate appearances who had sub-70% in-zone contact rates in 2022 (Chris Morel, Brett Phillips, Eli White). A few months later, the Pirates emerged as the word-of-mouth favorite to sign him; he inked a deal for $750,000 in January. 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. Drafted as a shortstop, he fell down the defensive spectrum pretty quickly but without finding a way to lift the ball and hit for power in games. He fills out the bottom half of the zone with his slider, itself an impressive bat-misser, thanks again to Dombkowskis command. Matt Fraizer, CF All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. Cubs pitching prospect Hayden Wesneski is proving he belongs in his latest Spring Training outing. Its possible Flowers strike-throwing consistency will make a big league manager feel secure going to him with consistency in the middle innings, but on stuff he projects more as a near-ready up/down reliever. Here's a link to the Top 25.. Link to the Top 50.. Link to the Top 75.. Once-Loved Outfielders John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. 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. 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. 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. His breaking ball is his best pitch and he could be a lefty relief piece. 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. If he continues missing bats at High-A in 2023, though, Pittsburgh may be forced to add him. 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. The FanGraphs prospect team presents their 2022 top 100 list . Martin has plus-plus raw power and a 30-grade hit tool, not enough for first base but maybe enough for consideration overseas. window.FGWebsite_head_section.buildProspectsListControls(); Oliver Mateo, RHP 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. Play-by-play data prior to 2002 was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted It can be found here. They have Hunter. 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. Jose Tabata / OF. Podcasts: . Whats more, theres a chance Triolo hits enough to simply be an everyday option at second (or if he turns out to be okay in center). From a heuristics standpoint, you cant do much better than Rodriguezs profile. 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. Pathways toward a more impactful role are most likely to be carved by Harringtons command outperforming this projection. 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. 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. 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 2022 was not as remarkable from a walk and strikeout standpoint but it was still good, as he hit .270/.376/.418 with 38 extra-base hits (pretty good for the Florida State League) and 33 steals at Low-A Bradenton. A draft-eligible sophomore in 2022, Harrington is an athletic, pitchability righty with a tailing low-90s fastball and a power-sink changeup in the mid-80s. Hes already taken a sizable step in the breaking ball department in just two pros seasons. in the minor league phase of the 2022 Rule 5 Draft. He pitched five innings of relief over two games in early May for the Pirates without allowing a run. Not exactly on topic, but Id love to get some thoughts on the recently graduated Jack Suwinski. 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. Traded from Arizona to Pittsburgh as part of the Starling Marte deal, Peguero had been a top 100 prospect for the last couple of years, tracking like a plus bat middle infielder. He also mixes in the occasional changeup or curveball, which accounted for a combined 11% of his offerings at Low-A. Garcia is only 19 but is already sitting 96. 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 Antwone Kelly, RHP Solometos fastball sits in the 88-92 mph range. They all received. He spent much of the season leading off for Altoona, where he slashed .282/.376/.419 and stole 24 stolen bases. Lolo Sanchez, CF 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. His slider lacks nasty, biting movement, but his arm slot makes it tough on lefty hitters, and his command of it gives it back-foot utility against righties. 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. He went 2-for-4 with two singles, two runs and an RBI on Friday night against Kansas State. His chase rates were at or below league average across the board, further emphasizing the troubling command. If it does, he should be a 50, and that grade was discussed during the Pirates list-making process. }); Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category. His two-plane slider has nasty, late break and his changeup might have late projection because his arm action is so clean and loose. Davis skills and offensive style are tailored like those of Evan Gattis. ago I'm surprised how far Nick Gonzalez and Hudson Head dropped in a few years. Its a shorter, less natural looking delivery than what Flowers had as an amateur, but hes been able to throw strikes with it. 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.