Bubba Chandler continues to show immense upside in recent stretch
Just what is the upside of the 21 year old Bubba Chandler?
Paul Skenes should graduate this weekend, as he currently has 46.1 innings pitched in the majors.
Once he does, there will be a new number-one prospect in the Pirates' system, and after the last couple of weeks, that question has quickly been answered.
Since returning from a brief injury stint, Bubba Chandler has dialed up the strikeouts while keeping the walks in check.
Chandler posted a 5.84 ERA across 24.2 innings pitched through his first seven games of the season. Most of the damage was due to his walks, which was an incredibly high 16.8% rate. The strikeouts were good (28%), but the control prevented him from succeeding.
After returning from the injured list, Chandler is striking out hitters at a higher rate (32.4%), and he’s also just walked four batters in 29.1 innings pitched (3.4%).
With the two runs allowed on Thursday, his ERA is also sitting at 2.76 in that span.
He’s turned it up even more over the last two starts, striking out double-digits in both games, totaling 21 in 13.2 innings pitched against Bowie and Akron.
Against Bowie, Chandler struck out seven batters in a row in the middle of a streak of 16 overall outs. On Thursday, he had two separate streaks of five batters retired in a row by strikeout.
Purely dominant stuff from a player we always knew had an incredible amount of upside, it was just a matter of putting it all together.
Once Skenes graduates, Chandler will be the only consensus top 100 prospect in the Pirates’ system, with Termarr Johnson dropping off Baseball America’s list.
That got me thinking: having Skenes graduate will mean there will be a new top pitching prospect in baseball. How far away is Chandler, and could he eventually elevate his game to that level?
Going off of Baseball America, Chandler is currently the 16th-ranked pitching prospect (once Skenes comes off the list), sitting at 71st overall.
He is the sixth youngest name on the list, with Noble Meyer being the only teenager (going by Opening Day age). Three players are on the injured list, with others rehabbing and on their way back. Luis Perales needed Tommy John, which will keep him off the field for quite some time.
A few names are struggling this year or are seen more as ‘high-floor, low-upside’ prospects that should never really challenge being the ‘top pitching prospect’ in baseball.
As we’ve seen the last couple of starts, Chandler oozes talent, and when he has it all working for him, he’s nearly impossible to hit. Even getting the ball into play can be challenging at times.
While Jackson Jobe and Noah Schultz are the easy candidates to take and hold on to being the top pitching prospect after Skenes graduates, a combination of upcoming potential graduations (Christian Scott, Drew Thorpe, and Max Meyer have all seen time in the majors this season) and his continued development, it’s easy to see a scenario where Chandler flies up lists by the end of the season.
Could he be the top pitching prospect in all of baseball? Watching him pitch the last couple of times, it’s hard not to see some scenario where that is the case.
He has an elite fastball that can blow by hitters and has plus life to it. His change-up continues to emerge as his go-to secondary pitch, and even his breaking pitches are being thrown with more crisp movement.
There’s been a continued amount of tuning of his delivery, whether it be the foot movement or the elimination of the over-the-head with his arms in his wind-up.
It doesn’t hurt he’s also one of the most athletic prospects in the minors.
We knew it would take some time for him to start putting things together, and while we are beginning to see the fruits of his focus solely on pitching, you can’t help but think there’s even more to see at just 21 years old.
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21 swinging strikes yesterday. And the two runs scored after he left with two on and two out.
Not at all my interest in debbie downing him while he's on a heater, but we just watched Jared Jones pull a month of 70-grade command out of nowhere before regressing right back to where he's always been.
I like what Longenhagen wrote on Chandler, dev has gone about as well as you could expect so far and good command projection into his 20s. I'm just not quite there yet.