Enmanuel Terrero: Tale of two halves, exit velocity readings define 2023 season
Enmanuel Terrero: Tale of two halves, exit velocity readings define 2023 season
Depending on what part of the season you look at, it may give you a different impression of Enmanuel Terrero
One of the first big jumps that a baseball player has to make is the move into full-season ball, for Pirates’ prospects, that’s generally in Bradenton at the Single-A level.
After being one of the better hitters at just 19 years old in the Florida Complex League during the 2022 season, Enmanuel Terrero made the jump to Bradenton this past year.
While in the FCL, Terrero drew more walks than strikeouts, posted a 153 wRC+, and picked up seven extra-base hits in 153 plate appearances while slashing .330/.446/.443.
Not on many radars, Terrero didn’t get off to the best start in Bradenton, failing to pick up a hit in his first five games played.
For the rest of the first half of the season, Terrero emerged as one of the better hitters in the lower levels for the Pirates. Terrero picked up 17 extra-base hits in 276 plate appearances for the first three months of the season, slashing .299/.402/.436 while posting a 13.4% walk rate and 133 wRC+.
That quickly started to get him some recognition around some outlets, even jumping into MLB Pipeline’s Top 30 prospects for the Pirates, currently ranking 29th.
The second half of the season was a little rougher on Terrero as the strikeouts crept up, with a 30.6% rate from July through the end of the schedule. He did miss time due to an injury, not playing at all in August, and only getting in 85 more plate appearances the rest of the way.
He still had a strong walk rate (11.8%) but a wRC+ of just 59.
Maybe at first glance, Terrero would seem to be a contact/speed guy over power, he did only hit just eight home runs this past season. A further look at his base exit velocity numbers shows that his batted balls averaged just 83.2 mph, which is below average and in line with more contact-oriented hitters like Tres Gonzalez.
But where Gonzalez and other hitters with lower EV metrics don’t follow up, Terrero has had instances where he’s hit the ball fairly hard.
His max EV was 109.4 mph, one of the top readings of players I’ve been able to track, and more than some notable players - Josiah Sightler, Henry Davis, and Endy Rodriguez (the last two were based on their minor league numbers).
Terrero also had a 95th-percentile reading of 105.1 mph, the same as Cal Mitchell, which was right under Jack Brannigan and better than Canaan Smith-Njigba, Liover Peguero, Nick Gonzales and Bradenton teammate Shalin Polanco.
There’s added potential there for Terrero to hit for more power, as the upper-end readings were among the best in the system.
While he didn’t hit lefties great overall, he maintained a strong zone contact rate of 85.1% and a chase rate of just under 30% (29.6).
Terrero cooled off at the end of the year, but a lot of that could have been due to the injury that kept him out all of August. He doesn’t have the biggest frames, but he did flash a little power during the first part of the season.
He made strides in trying to unlock and use it in games, increasing his line drive rate from 12.3% in 2022 to 20.1% in Bradenton. That meant getting the ball off the ground more, going from a 61.7% ground ball rate to 54.2%. If he can continue that trend and get the ball out of the infield more (25% infield flyball rate), the power can start to show through.
He should get the push to Greensboro in 2023, which may be the best environment to let it fly, so we will see if Terrero can continue making the proper adjustments to get back to the first half of the season version.
Enmanuel Terrero is part of that foursome of OF's that should be in GBO for the 2024 season. Terrero will play as a 21 year old in RF/LF, Rodolfo Nolasco will play as a 22 year old in RF/LF, and Shalin Polanco, 20 and Lonnie White, Jr, 21 are primary CF's that can also play the corners.
LWJR is a RH hitter rated as the best of the group by Fangraphs who had him as our No. 28 Prospect, even though he missed a lot of time due to minor injuries prior to 2023. His slash at A in '23 was 259/395/488/883 OPS with impressive BB/K numbers of 32/56 (16%/28%) to go along with that near .500 Slugging percentage. His Tool Grades for the future are Hit 40, Raw Power 55, Game Power 50, Run 70, Fielding 60, Throw 50. Enmanuel Terrero did not make the Fangraphs Top 43 of the Pirates, but was noted as one of the "Very Young Prospects to Monitor".
They just signed Ali Sanchez to a major league contract as well. I guess backup catcher is filled.