Bucs on Deck: Top 25 Breakout candidates for the 2025 season
Breakout candidates from our 2025 Pirates' Top-25 Prospects list
With our Top-25 prospects list dropping later this week, we decided to look at some breakout candidates for the upcoming 2025 season. Nola, WTM, and I each picked one player from our Top-25 list (as voted by the three of us) as our potential ‘breakout’ prospect for the upcoming season.
Up next will be a breakout player who is not on our Top-25 list, which is followed by each writer giving three players to watch for the 2025 season (that isn’t in the Top 25).
WTM: Omar Alfonzo, C/1B
I’m tempted to pick Tony Blanco, Jr., here, but I have a lot of concern about his ability to stay on the field, so I’ll go with Alfonzo. We already have him at #12, but he hasn’t attracted that much notice yet from the national sites. He also got passed over in the Rule 5 draft, although that’s not a surprise for a catcher in class A. Alfonzo took a step forward last year, which he spent mostly at Bradenton then finished at Greensboro. It’s maybe cheating a bit to pick him for a breakout because he’ll be going in 2025 mostly from a severe pitchers league, the Florida State League, to a park in Greensboro that inflates home run totals.
Even though Bradenton has one of the better-hitting parks in the FSL, overall, the move should help Alfonzo. It’ll also help if he can avoid the one bad slump he had, in which, for some reason, he started swinging at everything. That’s not his norm. Even when he was struggling in his first exposure to the Florida Complex League, his plate discipline was solid. The potential for power is greater than what he’s shown so far. He has the ability to turn on and pull pitches frequently and he puts up very good exit velocities. The main thing he needs to do is put the ball in the air more.
His receiving could improve, which isn’t exactly unusual for a class-A catcher, but he has a good arm. The 2025 season will be the time for him to establish himself firmly as a good prospect.
Murphy: David Matoma
Generally, I try to hold off on buying too much into players this low in the system until I get to see them pitch and/or get additional data on them.
I’ve gotten both on Matoma already, and he passed both tests on them. I’d argue that he has the second-best fastball in the system, trailing only Bubba Chandler—who might also have the best four-seamer in all the minors.
He can get it up to triple-digits and has flashed plus shape characteristics. There is some more information that I won’t get until he hits Bradenton, which should be at some point in 2025, which could help me buy even more.
The secondary stuff needs work, but it showed promise. I truly believe if the Pirates can find a way to work him in as a starter, he’d be a top-100 prospect. Most outlets have him as a reliever, which, given his size, makes sense.
Regardless of his usage, Matoma has the arm to be one of the best pitching prospects in a system full of them, and 2025 feels like a good time for him to take the first step toward that.
NolaJeffy: Wyatt Sanford
The Pirates went prep-heavy to begin the 2024 draft, and I think a name that may get lost in the shuffle will be Wyatt Sanford. There’s obviously the big name in the Pirates first selection Konnor Griffin, and then Levi Sterling will be a name often mentioned in part due to the Pirates gift of finding and developing promising young arms.
On the surface, Sanford reads similarly to an oft-targeted profile of the Pirates’ front office, in that he’s considered a contact over power bat. One thing that particularly sticks out, as something that has long been avoided in recent acquisitions, is the fact that Sanford is easily projected to remain at the marquee position in the infield. There are going to be a lot of “shortstops” in the lower levels, but there should be no question of whether or not Sanford will have to slide off the position (outside of fellow 2024 draftee Griffin proving he’s more than capable, and never relinquishing the position).
The biggest indicator of Sanford’s future projections will be whether he finds a little more power in his bat. Listed at 6’1” and 175 lbs, he isn’t considered to have much more room for “good weight” to be added. He had particularly worked on increasing his bat speed leading up to his senior season in high school, but it led to some concerns when his contact ability took a hit (sound familiar?). Given that the defense and contact ability are present, if he should show some more authority with the bat when the season begins, I think he’d move up charts very quickly.
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I love the Wyatt Sanford pick. His father reached the majors and developed some power in the minors. I wouldn't be surprised if his profile upticks over the next few years.
I think we had literally just finished discussing Alfonzo's quality of contact, and maybe even just after BA had a write-up on him, that he struck out in (possibly embellishing) about 9 of his next 10 ABs. Was wild, but then he got back on track.