10 Observations: More Looks At The Florida Complex League Pirates Team

In this weeks edition, an added look at the FCL Pirates team with their regular season winding down and more 2023 draft picks start to make appearances.

Murphy 8/15: It’s funny that sometimes it can be easy to get enamored when someone is lighting up the metrics charts with certain pitches.

With the layout of the FCL broadcast, the top quadrant shows the game from the centerfield camera, below it is the metrics of the pitch, as well as exit velocity numbers.

If you ignored the top part, Tyler Kennedy’s fastball really jumps off the page. Then you watch the video part and he really struggles to place it. Both outs he recorded were strikeouts, but he also walked three. It’s been a rough start to his pro career, but you can see what the Pirates are hoping to accomplish here.

Tyler Kennedy Photo Credit: WTM

Murphy 8/15: I will admit that I’m not as high on Po-Yu Chen as others, even as he starts to find a rhythm here down the stretch, but watching a bit of him on Tuesday makes you want to buy in a little bit more.

He only completed three innings on Tuesday, but had his splitter working for him, helping him strike out five batters.

Nola 8/17: With the caveat of it’s a small sample size, Mason Martin’s second tour of Triple-A has gotten off to a much better start. Through Wednesday evening, he’s carrying a .278/.366/.417 slash in 11 games and 41 plate appearances. He hasn’t hit a home run yet, but has collected three doubles and a triple. Martin has always done well in the department of drawing walks, which currently sits at 12.2% in Indianapolis after walking 18.2% of the time in Altoona. The obvious area of concern to keep an eye on is his K%. As of now through 11 games, it’s sitting at only 24.4%, which would be some sort of miracle if he could maintain that. With that said, he had a 35.7% while with Altoona, that would be around his usual career numbers. So, the wRC+ sitting at 99 isn’t anything to marvel at, but I think it’s worth keeping an eye on whether he’s taken steps forward with improved contact.

Murphy 8/17: Finally got to watch Jaden Woods pitch for the first time on Thursday. At least what I was able to see while he was in college, and then going off what I read, I really thought it was going to be the slider that really stood out for me.

While it wasn’t overpowering (90-92), he showed great command on the sinker across his two innings of relief. He picked up two whiffs and six called strikes on 15 total sinkers thrown. Still not sure he’s anything more than a reliever, but with that kind of command, along with that slider, he could be a good one nonetheless.

Murphy 8/18: Didn’t come away impressed with Carlson Reed’s fastball, although he strung together a really strong outing on Friday in the FCL. Looks to be another sinker/slider type reliever for the Pirates, likely as a reliever.

He spun in some decent change ups, though, and if I had to pick one of the college ‘relievers’ they took in the draft this year, he’s probably the one I’d like to see get a shot as a starter. The sinker had some good run on it, which induced some ground outs, and hit 95.

Maybe the fastball isn’t great, but a sinker/slider/change up guy might be able to get away with him as a starter in the lower levels.

Murphy 8/18: Feels like Thomas Harrington started to rely heavily on the fastball/slider once getting to Greensboro, it was easy to forget at just how good his change up is. He gave us a good reminder of that in his start this past week, getting a lot of swing and miss and weak contact to go with it.

It’s still been hard to gauge Harrington, he feels like Quinn Priester in terms of higher floor, but also but maybe the upside is higher because the fastball plays a little better so far?

WTM 8/19: Magdiel Cotto — the Pirates’ 11th round pick out of the University of Kentucky — made his pro debut today for the FCL Pirates. Cotto is a big lefty who, like most of the college pitchers drafted by the Pirates, struggled with control problems. In his debut he gave up a hit and fanned two in one inning, with no walks — a walk-less inning is a distressingly rare occurrence at the lower levels of the Pirates’ system. Anyway, Cotto threw mostly fastballs. There were no gun readings, but the reports on him of 93+ seem justified. The pitch has a lot of arm-side run.

Magdiel Cotto Photo Credit: WTM

WTM 8/19: From the same FCL game, Isaias Uribe had a bad stat line (2.2 IP, 6 H, 3 ER), but it was more indicative of the risks of being a pitch-to-contact guy. With Jun-Seok Shim back on the IL, Uribe is one of two pitchers on this team — the other is another lefty, Michael Kennedy — who can be counted on to last more than an inning or so without imploding. In this one, he breezed through two innings. In his third frame, the leadoff hitter rolled a swinging bunt toward third that refused to go foul, and the next guy hit a check-swing bloop to left for another cheap single. Uribe got a break when the third batter hit a 3-0 pitch for a soft liner to first. Another soft single loaded the bases, then a passed ball (incorrectly scored a wild pitch) brought in one run. Uribe got a strikeout looking, then intentionally walked the Orioles’ best hitter. Unfortunately, he went to a full count on the next guy, due to being too fine rather than wild, and gave up a two-run double. Uribe is a pretty good prospect, the main issue being getting better at putting hitters away.

Isaias Uribe Photo Credit: WTM

Nola 8/19: Recently we discussed Vertical Approach Angle (VAA), and one of the names I specifically spoke about was Quinn Priester. I think it'll be interesting to follow along, but in his Saturday evening start, Quinn leaned on his sinker for 30 of his 79 pitches. It averaged 93.0 mph, topping out at 94.9 mph. More importantly, it generated six swings and misses on 16 swings. It was fouled off nine times with the one ball-in-play registering at 62.6 mph. In addition, Quinn got 11 swings and misses combined on his slider and curveball, with only one against his four-seam.

Murphy 8/20: Joshua Loeschorn pitched three, one-hit innings, on Sunday, striking out two. Lower level relievers are a dime a dozen, and it’s going to be a rough path for the 20th round pick from 2022, but I usually come away impressed with his pure stuff whenever I watch him.

He throws a heavy sinker with a lot of run on it, and pairs it well with a slider that got a lot of chase when I was able to track it in Bradenton. The velocity isn’t anything special, but if he can keep the ball on the ground, it may not matter.