Morning Rundown: Another Pirates prospects list, Yariel Rodriguez news, Pipeline Top RHP

More Prospects lists for the Pirates system, news on Cuban righty Yariel Rodriguez and MLB Pipeline releases their top RHP prospects

Photo Credit: WTM

Just Baseball released their Top 15 prospects in the Pirates system on Monday, and another 11 to watch going into 2024.

To very little surprise, Paul Skenes was rated as the team’s best prospect, with Termarr Johnson and Jared Jones rounding out the top three.

Overall, the list looked like this;

Skenes

Termarr

Jared Jones

Bubba Chandler

Anthony Solometo

Jun-Seok Shim

Thomas Harrington

Braxton Ashcraft

Mike Burrows

Mitch Jebb

Zander Mueth

Tsung-Che Cheng

Jackson Wolf

Michael Kennedy

David Matoma

Of the 15 players listed, only three are hitters, which is not overly surprising as the Pirates are very deep in pitching prospects.

Many of the names are what you would expect, with two very interesting inclusions - Shim at six and Matoma at 15.

Shim was their big get during the last International signing period and made his professional debut this past season. Lingering injuries limited him to eight innings in the Florida Complex League last year, but he did strike out 13 batters in that time on the mound.

They mention on the podcast, to go along with the article, that he may have some of the most upside on the mound of any pitcher in the system not named Skenes.

Matoma pitched in the Domician at 17 years old last year and didn’t allow an earned run in 16.2 innings pitched. He also hit 101 mph with his fastball in one of his games, as reported by John Dreker.

The fastball was a carrying trait for Just Baseball, as well as his age.

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The Pirates had long been rumored to be in the running for Cuban right-handed pitcher Yariel Rodriguez and were one of the few teams to view him as a potential starter.

According to Ken Rosenthal, however, it seems the Toronto Blue Jays are the favorite to land the free-agent pitcher, and immigration issues could be one of the current hold-ups.

While they have signed Martin Perez and traded for Marco Gonzales, the Pirates could still be in the market for a starting pitcher with Johan Oviedo, who is set to miss the entire season due to Tommy John.

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MLB Pipeline is starting to roll out their Top 10 prospects at each position, and to no shock, have Paul Skenes as the top-rated right-handed pitcher.

There were three players from the NL Central that also made the list - Skenes, Jacob Misiorowski, and Rhett Lowder. Skenes and Lowder were both 2023 first-round picks.

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Baseball America will drop its first Top 100 list of the season today, while Baseball Prospectus released its Top 101 on Tuesday. The Pirates had two players on that list and another in “The Next 10’ corresponding article.

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Every Monday during the offseason, we will be doing a mailbag article. Please send in your questions to have them answered! Either comment below with ‘mailbag’ entered in the message or email us at bucsondeckqa@gmail.com.

I look forward to answering what you guys have!