10 Observations: FCL observations, David Matoma, promotions?

Weekly look around the Pirates' system

Murphy 5/13: Got to see a little more than an inning from Reinold Navarro on Tuesday before the stream cut out, which came with some pitch data.

He was 93-96 with the fastball, getting anywhere from 17 to 21 inches of induced vertical break. He threw 27 pitches before things got cut off, 21 were fastballs. He got whiffs on four of the six sliders he threw. He had seven total whiffs on 27 pitches (25.9 SwStr%).

Navarro also walked four, so there’s some consistency to be had, but the stuff looks good.

Murphy 5/13: I get the feeling that David Matoma was rushed to Bradenton due to the need for some extra arms. The fastball can be electric, but even out of the bullpen, he still doesn’t seem quite ready for the level.

There’s nothing wrong with that, as he just turned 19 before the season started, putting him in line with some of the prep players from the 2024 draft class. Levi Sterling, part of that class, began the year in the Complex.

The talent should eventually come through, but there probably needs to be some patience with him.

NolaJeffy 5/14: The old adage is that “You can never have too much pitching”, but the Pirates organization is beginning to test that theory. This likely constitutes a larger article, but that will have to wait for another day. Setting aside the big league rotation, the Triple-A rotation has five starters that are all either ranked among the top 100 prospects or have recently been. Funny enough, since writing this, Hunter Barco left his start with an injury that Jonathan Mayo is reporting as a shoulder injury that should hopefully be only one missed start, but there is also the news reported by John Perrotto that Jared Jones is likely headed for Tommy John.

All that said, on Wednesday, Alessandro Ercolani — who hasn’t even been 21 for a whole month yet — threw five scoreless innings against the Harrisburg Senators, lowering his ERA to 4.18 on the season. Wilber Dotel got roughed up a bit in his start, but the 22 year old has a 3.31 ERA through 35.1 IP with 47 strikeouts. Garrett McMillan was recently promoted and is already 24, but he debuted with five scoreless innings against the Eastern League’s #1 offense last week, then followed it up with one earned run in five innings against Harrisburg. Not to mention Po-Yu Chen has followed up his respectable 2024 season as a 22 year old and 4.03 ERA in 134.0 IP, with a 4.55 ERA — had a 2.82 ERA through five starts before giving up 9 ER in 9.1 IP — in 31.2 IP and 34 strikeouts to only 10 walks.

With a MLB club that is in dire need for any kind of offensive contributions it can find, it surely would behoove the Pirates to begin thinking about trading from their pool of pitchers.

WTM 5/14: The FCL Pirates have a handful or so of interesting pitchers and one, lefty Ronaldys Jimenez, I saw for the first time on Tuesday. He came from the Padres for Martin Perez; the Pirates supposedly included money in the deal because their scouts really wanted Jimenez. He’s very similar to Reinold Navarro, just not quite as good at this point. He’s a somewhat stocky guy who throws hard, probably just a click less so than Navarro, with a slider that looks pretty good but not quite as sharp as Navarro’s. They both need a lot of improvement with command, but again Navarro is ahead of Jimenez there. Jimenez is 19, Navarro a year younger.

WTM 5/14: I mentioned earlier that the FCL Bucs have something akin to a regular lineup, which is unusual at this level. Usually there’ll be 2-3 prospects in the lineup most days and a bunch of other guys shuffling through, but this team seems to have settled more or less on nine guys, which hopefully means that the Pirates see them all as potential prospects. Two of them are Kendrick Herrera and Cristian Jauregui. Herrera is an infielder who’d normally be at short, but Wyatt Sanford is there most days, so Herrera is playing more at second. Jauregui is a speedy outfielder who profiles as a center fielder, but he’s playing mostly left so far in deference to Edward Florentino.

Herrera and Jauregui both looked pretty challenged at the plate in exhibitions in March, at least when I saw them. They also both had a tough time in the first few FCL games, Herrera starting the season 1-for-8 and Jauregui 0-for-8. Both looked a lot more comfortable the last time I saw them. Through May 13, Herrera had four hits in his last 11 times up, and Jauregui was 3-for-5. They’re both worth keeping an eye on, especially Herrera, because he’s very good defensively.

WTM 5/15: Unfortunately, in the FCL last Tuesday the final batter of the third inning hit starter Reinold Navarro solidly on the shin with a line drive. (The Bucs got the third out on the play due to a TOOTBLAN by the other team.) Navarro was down a while in obvious pain. He was eventually helped off, using the leg without putting much weight on it. There’s been no further information on him.

Murphy 5/15: Interesting pair of numbers when looking at Omar Alfonzo this year. The strikeout rate is 32%, which is unusually high for him, but his Swinging Strike rate is also under 10%.

So, he’s striking out at a way higher rate than usual, but isn’t swinging and missing.

I don’t want to see anyone’s strikeout rate over 30%, but the SwStr% suggests that there could be some positive regression on the way.

WTM 5/17: If you’ve been reading John Dreker’s updates on the Pirates’ international signings, you know that, with pitchers, they’ve been trying to focus on guys who’ve shown an ability at an early age to throw strikes. There’s a reason for that. Through May 17, the FCL Pirates are averaging exactly one walk per inning, easily the worst rate in the league. Their team WHIP of 2.06 is by far the worst, with nobody else higher than 1.78. They’ve got some good arms with a lot of velocity, but right now, it’s not leading to good results.

WTM 5/17: Altoona had a rough start to its season, winning only three of the first ten games. Through Saturday, though, the Curve had recovered well, running their record to 20-18. A lot of the recovery can be attributed to two guys who lately have been at the top of the order: Mitch Jebb and Kervin Pichardo. Jebb, the second-round draft pick in 2023, was hitting 362/422/483. On the season, his OBP was .411. Pichardo, obtained in exchange for Jackson Wolf, was hitting a blistering 368/395/684 after opening the season on the IL. Pichardo’s been in pro ball since 2019, but he’s still only 23, which isn’t a bad age for AA. Hopefully, this will be the year when the bats don’t all go to Altoona to die.

Murphy 5/18: I get asked about promotions, a lot, on Twitter. Like A LOT, A LOT. So much I added ‘I don’t know when a prospect is getting promoted’ in my bio there.

But I was reminded of last year, when everyone called for Charles McAdoo to get promoted. The Pirates kept him in Greensboro until the end of the ‘first half’ of the season, when they locked up a spot in the High-A playoffs.

I’m not predicting any pending promotions, but they may try to repeat that this year. That would mean some roster shuffling in late June.