His swing is quite uphill from the left side and he can tend to swing underneath fastballs up and away from him, but overall he is very difficult to make whiff inside the strike zone despite his steep-launch style of contact. His delivery also creates an odd angle on a mid-80s cutter/slider, which Solometo commands to his glove side. Hunter Stratton, RHP 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. Alessandro Ercolani, RHP You can really see his athleticism and remarkable hip/shoulder separation on his throws down to second. Ke'Bryan Hayes, Oneil Cruz, Mitch Keller, Travis Swaggerty, Tahnaj Thomas and. A two-way high school player, Jones was clearly a superior prospect as a pitcher, as he was one of the most electric on-mound athletes to roll through the high school ranks over the last decade. This was a four-year rookie-level player who had suddenly been added to the Royals 40-man roster after the 2021 season even though he had all of 32 innings above Low-A. 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. He moved into a minor league relief role in 2022. 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. 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. wNS9+ With @longenhagen Discussing the @fangraphs Pirates Top Prospect List You found it controversial, so we discussed it Subscribe & Listen http://linktr.ee . In some respects, its easy to assess DSL players. Matt Gorski, OF 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. 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. 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. 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. Both feel like high-floored backend or long relief types who need to walk an atypical path to an impact role. 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. 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. Instead, Triolo looks like hell be a superutility guy. 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 delivery has a relief-only look to it. 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. 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. 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. Harry Ford is one of the top prospects in the Seattle Mariners organization, and he is also unique among his peers. He sits in the upper 80s right now but has promising underlying traits and plenty of time to develop. The type of contact he makes is unlikely to ever lead to home run power commensurate with a true everyday player, but Bae makes enough stinging, all-fields contact that he projects to hit plenty of doubles and triples. His swing decisions and ability to make contact out front and tap into his latent power improved throughout the season. As a wrap-up, the Pirates have. 4/5 starter. Selbys fastball sits 96-98 mph and he looks to blow it past hitters up in the zone. 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. Hes an arm strength reclamation project with a shot to pitch in Pittsburghs bullpen. Righties get a nice long look at everything Solometo does, and he could be very platoon-vulnerable against big leaguers. 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. Pittsburgh Pirates: Top 10 Players Under Age 26 (as of 4/1/11) 1. 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. His swing may look different in 2023 and prompt a re-evaluation. His finishing pitch, though, is his slider, a nasty upper-80s sweeper that generated a 50% whiff rate and 38% chase rate in 2022. To be fair, he was only about average in terms of OAA. 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. 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. A much deeper overview can be found here. Blake Cederlind, RHP Chandler started the 2022 season on the complex, where he showed two-way promise, slashing .231/.444/.654 over 36 plate appearances while annihilating opposing batters, issuing 27 strikeouts and giving up just three hits without allowing a run over 15.1 innings. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb. 2023 Opening Day Tracker. It can be found here. Silvera, 18, is a physically mature righty who missed a ton of DSL bats even though he only sits 88-90. Jesus Castillo, SS Enmanuel Terrero, OF 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. Counter to our past reports, his swing is rather stiff and some of Lopezs length makes him vulnerable to pitches in on his hands. Sanchez runs pretty well. The Royals designated Webb for assignment in mid-November and he elected free agency before signing with the Pirates. He was throwing as hard as ever when he returned but still got shelled, and was quite wild at Double-A before he was sent to Arizona to audition to keep his 40-man spot with Kansas City. Webbs velocity began to climb in 2019, when he went from sitting 89-92 mph to sitting 90-94 and touching 96. 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. Thats the situation were projecting here. If he moves to first base, this will become especially scary. Mason Martin, 1B 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. 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. The 2021 edition of this list featured some carping about Eric Longenhagen ranking Gabriel Moreno in the 100, because he was the exact kind of player who might not have been highly regarded in earlier eras of public prospect evaluation but who had all the markers of future success. He spent two years at a JUCO before heading to South Alabama in 2020, and he only pitched 21 total innings for the Jaguars due to the timing of his transfer. But given his age and the amount of runway still afforded to him, this was seen as a speed bump for his development rather than being of great concern at the time. Milwaukee Brewers Batting Postseason Stats 2021. Campana, soon to be 21, is the youngest of this group. So the question is, was there actual improvement in his ability or is this just noise in the signal? Even though both Davis and Rodriguez are near-ready catching prospects, they arent redundant, and in fact they complement each other well. 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. 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. He has basically been the same guy since he entered pro ball, sitting 94-95 with ineffectual shape and a pretty good slider. Priesters four-seamer is divisive. His fastball remains in the mid-90s but continues to underperform in terms of its bat-missing ability due to its hittable line. The FanGraphs prospect team presents their 2022 top 100 list . Pegueros pull-heavy style of contact leaves him vulnerable to breaking balls on the outer half, even ones that catch a lot of the plate. Thats a very walkable path. 11/ . The top six were already know from this list, because Fangraphs had six Pirates in their top 100 prospects. He went 2-for-4 with two singles, two runs and an RBI on Friday night against Kansas State. 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. Still right on the cusp of graduating from prospect eligibility, Kranick made four appearances in the minors to start the 2022 season before being called up to the major league bullpen. Chandlers pitching performance wasnt as lights-out as it had been pre-promotion, but it was still a display of the rightys potential. He absolutely towers over his father, who was twice a Baseball America Top 100 prospect but spent most of his pro career in Japan. Theyre finding them. 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. He fills out the bottom half of the zone with his slider, itself an impressive bat-misser, thanks again to Dombkowskis command.