MLB pipeline will be updating their top 30 lists in the upcoming week so I thought I would take an educated guess as to who will be falling off the list completely. With 6-7 new names sure to be (draftees, DR guys etc) it means at least 6-8 have to come off!
1. Bralyn Brazoban
2. Tres Gonzalez
3. Jesus Castillo
4. Jace Bowen
5. Enmanuel Terrero
6. Kristian Curtis
7. Shalin Polanco
Interesting to hear if there are any other surprises coming up assuming a few will
Leave in the upcoming days due to trades. Any opinions?
Can you add a bit to this? What is he doing differently?
The baffling thing —- and the reason I was pretty down on him —- is that he dominated in major league spring training and all expectations were that he would open the season in AA. Then he was terrible for two months one level down.
I’m guessing Murph will do one of his great video scouting posts some day and it will be obvious to the eye, but overall movement/effort is WAY toned down.
I hate to play armchair sports psychologist, but both this year and last he seemed to start out just trying to do too much. Big leg kick, huge coil, max effort swing every time.
His swings last year from about July on were noticeably different than earlier in the campaign and it looks to me eye like he’s done it again this year.
I know what he needs NOT to be doing, and that's trying to pull every pitch. The reports when he was struggling said he couldn't hit anything over the outer third of the plate, which was absolutely accurate from the many times I've seen him.
Yep, and that was true right after he was drafted. In fact, I was encouraged watching him in the FCL and at Bradenton because he was driving some balls the other way. Then starting last year, it was totally a dead pull approach, and that continued into this year. The negative reports on him were not based just on the stats, which anybody who'd actually seen him would have known. I haven't watched enough of him online the last two months to know whether he's changed that, or whether he's just gotten better at reaching pitches on the outer part of the plate, but something's obviously changed.
The oddest thing for me is that he never actually approached a 50% pull rate even on those times. He sure as hell *looked* like he was trying to yack one every swing but unless the classifications were way off the actual results weren’t pull-heavy. No I can’t reconcile that, either.
The are quick to judge because they know most prospects fail. I wish I had a dollar every time I was told this. But top prospects are a subpset of all prospects. An industrious person could look at the failure rate for those players considered top prospects. The failure rate for top prospects would differ from the failure rate for all prospects. One could drill down further by separating pitchers and position players or by separating position players into their positions. This would not be a waste of time.
Consider Joey Bart. San Francisco fans likely consider him a bust. Pirates fans consider him to be found money.
Pirates' fans might consider Pedro Alvarez a bust. Was he? Not really, although El Toro never met the expectations that Pirates fans had for him.
This whole area is riddled with fog. Top picks are expected to perform like Skenes. UT Skenes is rare. So rare he's a unicorn. If he had an offense behind him he could win the cy young award this year. Even Mike Trout did not perform when he was first in the majors.
Jhonny Severino with a run scoring double to tie the game at 3 and put another runner in scoring position. Single with two outs (Tirado) scored the winning run.
Mid season FG top 100 only has 2 Pirates. Bubba the 24th best prospect in the game is a little surprising. Also, Griffin as the pirates 3rd best prospect and they have him as a RFer.
Bingo, minors in general. Lists are always nearly meaningless but more so now than ever.
I don’t get butthurt over a guy like Harrington not making a Top 100 but there’s also probably 10 arms on that list that you could argue are interchangeable with him. Just a ton of mediocre talent.
On a serious note they have him as a right fielder for an absolutely idiotic reason. He played RF for team USA, somehow without mentioning Slade Caldwell was the teams CFer and is a pretty sure fire one at that. Griffin that played primarily short stop in none team USA games is also knocked for being stiff.
It's cool they still have Spencer Jones at 25 overall. He has 11 homeruns at double A to go along with his 135 strikeouts in 315 at bats. If Plaz could just up his strikeout total from 53 in 170 at bats with his 13 homeruns, he might be able to crack the pirates top 41.
Exactly! Been that way for a long time. They were right on Jasson Dominguez, but not so much on Jones. I liked the third prospect CF of the Yankees because I thought the Pirates could get him for less, which is the name of the game with BC. Unless something strange happens, BC and the Bucs will be trying a desperation attempt at the last minute!
I felt with how he labored and hard hits getting hit foul or solid contact for sharp outs that Ortiz shouldn’t have come out for the 6th and I was surprised. Then we lost the lead. Had to just turn the tv off and go to bed…
Very tough loss last night after holding a 3-0 lead. Overview: Bart needs to block a basically easy pitch to block, which allows the winning 4th run to score from third. Sewald is not a MLB closer based on his stuff he was throwing. We should be able to get to him in the remaining 5 games with Dbacks. Only Cruz hit him, nice AB with 2 strikes. Taylor looked bad (even though ball 3 was called a strike), Cutch and Nicky too. Sewald had blown 3 games earlier in July.....he throws a soft curve ball that if sitting on it should not be a problem taking it deep.
I wonder how much Bradenton is going to change after the FCL Pirates win the league title on Monday. You'll have a combo of those players, then draft picks, ready to play. Things are about to get interesting for transactions...
I know Bradenton gonna take any pitcher they can get their hands on. Gonna be interesting in how they handle the hitters. Wonder if we see less debuts than usual then?
Pitching prospects on the FCL team are in short supply. Mueth, Matoma, maybe Carlos Castillo.
I'm not sure they're going to promote any hitters. The Marauders are loaded with guys who've struggled to get past the lowest levels. I get the impression that a bunch of their guys are in last-chance mode.
Really hard to guess what they'll do with college draftees. I had a discussion about this the other day with the guy who does the Florida Prospect Report. See him all the time at FCL games and LECOM. With no FCL available and the short-season leagues long gone, we're in uncharted territory. Maybe they just run a summer version of fall instructs for the draftees.
Thomas Harrington is another Pirate pitching prospect "sleeper" who will be in AAA either later this year or to start 2025. Although he and Jackson Jobe are only a year apart in age (Harrington 23, Jobe 22), Harrington was drafted out of College with the 36th pick by the Pirates in 2022, and Jobe was selected by Detroit out of HS as the 3rd Pick in the 2021 Draft.
Jobe is the #11 MLB Prospect, and Harrington is not listed in the Top 100 MLB Prospects. I think that had more to do with Paul Skenes and Bubba Chandler starting the year in the Top 100 Prospects, but Harrington is deserving of being in that group. Harrington is 2-2, 2.24 ERA in 68 IP at AA; Jobe is 2-1, 1.41 ERA in 38 IP at AA. K/BB/9 Harrington is 9.7/1.3/9 and Jobe is 11.7/4.9/9. Almost 5 Walks for every 9 innings will jump up and bite a pitcher, so I would much prefer a 9.7/1.3/9 to a 11.7/4.9/9. It is very possible that both will be in MLB in 2025. Looking at possibly the youngest Rotation in MLB in 2025 of Keller, Skenes, Jones, Chandler, Harrington, with 3 or 4 others who are also very deserving of pitching in an MLB Rotation. Don't forget about Hunter Barco or Bailey Falter as the LHSP in the group!
Harrington seemed to avoid his fastball last night, maybe it just wasn't there. The velocity was only 89 to 92 with only a couple going higher. Still pitched well but struggled in his last inning.
His last pitch was 96mph in his last game, sitting 94 with a plus slider and plus change-up. Still needs to have better control to stay a starter long term. His velocity was 91 to 95 earlier this year. He was 94 to 96 touching 98 as a reliever in college.
Considering he's already over 30 innings more than he pitched in a season at age 21, that's plausible with a strong sent of bullshit lol.
Reed's velocity comes and goes. Some games he sits at 91-93, others in the mid-90s. Maybe not surprising considering that, in college, he was almost always a reliever and topped out at 40 IP.
I've thought the velocity works pretty well for him, though, because hitters don't seem to distinguish well between his FB and slider.
Another one of the pitching "Sleepers" that BC has a knack of finding - we just cannot transfer that knack to finding hitters! If the Pirates pitching developmental group is not recognized as being top 5 in MLB, there's a problem.
I thought that Ortiz did well for the Pirates for being on the road in Arizona. A very close game with the Pirates being without the services of their best hitter, Bryan Reynolds. The Pirates lineup is just not able to make up for that loss at this point. With Ji-Hwan Bae up, the Pirates could possibly experiment at least for the period of time until Reynolds returns. Re-arrange the lineup and start to take notice of the batters who are hitting in July - Pirate OPS numbers in July
Reynolds - 987 OPS
Tellez - 979 OPS
Cruz - 861 OPS
Suwinski - 800 OPS
Cutch - 698 OPS
Bart - 679 OPS
Joe - 560 OPS
Gonzales - 552 OPS
Hayes - 537 OPS
Adjustments in the order? Cutch has done well at leadoff, but if Bae is used as a leadoff, could Cutch handle a move to the middle of the order? Or, thinking that Bart is going to remain with the Pirates into 2025, and he could also be a middle of the order addition. Love to see Connor Joe go on a nice streak, but although his OPS is low, he has been putting the ball in play.
Is it just me, or does Omar Alfonzo show up on the top exit velocity chart every day? A 20-year-old catcher with a .751 OPS in the FSL is a strong showing. Average league age is 21. Average league OPS is .679. That being said, I expected him to be higher because he's always hitting the ball well
He has a laser lock on the hole between first and second. There's a reason he has a .346 BABIP despite being a slow runner. Even with shifts banned, he'll have trouble with better defenses as he moves up. Def needs to elevate more. If he does, he could have quite a lot of power.
I fear not much will happen besides maybe a churn of a few replacement-ish guys. If it’s a priority, you go get what you need, not wait to see what’s in the clearance bin after all the good stuff is sold.
MLB pipeline will be updating their top 30 lists in the upcoming week so I thought I would take an educated guess as to who will be falling off the list completely. With 6-7 new names sure to be (draftees, DR guys etc) it means at least 6-8 have to come off!
1. Bralyn Brazoban
2. Tres Gonzalez
3. Jesus Castillo
4. Jace Bowen
5. Enmanuel Terrero
6. Kristian Curtis
7. Shalin Polanco
Interesting to hear if there are any other surprises coming up assuming a few will
Leave in the upcoming days due to trades. Any opinions?
Yes! No Jazz
He would have still been an upgrade for the pirates but glad we didn't get him. Miami got their catcher that can't really catch but can hit a bit.
Remarkable difference in Termarr’s swing since the season started. With a little more maturity he’ll start there and stay there.
Can you add a bit to this? What is he doing differently?
The baffling thing —- and the reason I was pretty down on him —- is that he dominated in major league spring training and all expectations were that he would open the season in AA. Then he was terrible for two months one level down.
So any specifics you can add would be helpful.
I’m guessing Murph will do one of his great video scouting posts some day and it will be obvious to the eye, but overall movement/effort is WAY toned down.
I hate to play armchair sports psychologist, but both this year and last he seemed to start out just trying to do too much. Big leg kick, huge coil, max effort swing every time.
His swings last year from about July on were noticeably different than earlier in the campaign and it looks to me eye like he’s done it again this year.
Maturity/confidence in doing more with less.
I know what he needs NOT to be doing, and that's trying to pull every pitch. The reports when he was struggling said he couldn't hit anything over the outer third of the plate, which was absolutely accurate from the many times I've seen him.
Which is so weird because when he was drafted every single scouting report said he used the whole field.
Yep, and that was true right after he was drafted. In fact, I was encouraged watching him in the FCL and at Bradenton because he was driving some balls the other way. Then starting last year, it was totally a dead pull approach, and that continued into this year. The negative reports on him were not based just on the stats, which anybody who'd actually seen him would have known. I haven't watched enough of him online the last two months to know whether he's changed that, or whether he's just gotten better at reaching pitches on the outer part of the plate, but something's obviously changed.
The oddest thing for me is that he never actually approached a 50% pull rate even on those times. He sure as hell *looked* like he was trying to yack one every swing but unless the classifications were way off the actual results weren’t pull-heavy. No I can’t reconcile that, either.
Because when you try to pull the ball and make poor contact, you tend to slice it to the opposite field.
TJ seems to be breaking out. He just turned 20 which gives him plenty of time to lock in his swing.
At the begining of the season he looked to be a busted prospect.
Probably because fans are even more quick to judge than they should be with prospects.
The are quick to judge because they know most prospects fail. I wish I had a dollar every time I was told this. But top prospects are a subpset of all prospects. An industrious person could look at the failure rate for those players considered top prospects. The failure rate for top prospects would differ from the failure rate for all prospects. One could drill down further by separating pitchers and position players or by separating position players into their positions. This would not be a waste of time.
Consider Joey Bart. San Francisco fans likely consider him a bust. Pirates fans consider him to be found money.
Pirates' fans might consider Pedro Alvarez a bust. Was he? Not really, although El Toro never met the expectations that Pirates fans had for him.
This whole area is riddled with fog. Top picks are expected to perform like Skenes. UT Skenes is rare. So rare he's a unicorn. If he had an offense behind him he could win the cy young award this year. Even Mike Trout did not perform when he was first in the majors.
This is phenomenal, Stephen.
Thanks!
Hopefully for the Pirates org.
FCL Pirates win 4-3! On to the 3-game championship series! Would love to get Mueth 1 more start.
IF it goes to game three I guess there’s a chance. It’d be on 4 days rest for him
I think it's just one game.
Says best of 3 on the app
Hope so. Then there'd be at least one game at PC.
Looking like two. Tigers are up 3-0 in the tenth and the Pirates would have home field advantage over them.
Jhonny Severino with a run scoring double to tie the game at 3 and put another runner in scoring position. Single with two outs (Tirado) scored the winning run.
Nice come from behind win!
Mid season FG top 100 only has 2 Pirates. Bubba the 24th best prospect in the game is a little surprising. Also, Griffin as the pirates 3rd best prospect and they have him as a RFer.
Weakest crop of minor league talent in at least a decade, right?
Probably more like 15 years. Decade ago they had guys like Bell, Glasnow & Taillon.
Oh, I think you meant the minors in general. Yes, I agree
Bingo, minors in general. Lists are always nearly meaningless but more so now than ever.
I don’t get butthurt over a guy like Harrington not making a Top 100 but there’s also probably 10 arms on that list that you could argue are interchangeable with him. Just a ton of mediocre talent.
On a serious note they have him as a right fielder for an absolutely idiotic reason. He played RF for team USA, somehow without mentioning Slade Caldwell was the teams CFer and is a pretty sure fire one at that. Griffin that played primarily short stop in none team USA games is also knocked for being stiff.
It's cool they still have Spencer Jones at 25 overall. He has 11 homeruns at double A to go along with his 135 strikeouts in 315 at bats. If Plaz could just up his strikeout total from 53 in 170 at bats with his 13 homeruns, he might be able to crack the pirates top 41.
Aaron judge comparisons will take you far, apparently
Yep, Jones needs to limit his strikeouts to 9 over his next 130 or so at bats or he's endanger of losing that comparison.
My prediction is as soon as he's traded out of pinstripes, his prospect status will drop dramatically lol.
Exactly! Been that way for a long time. They were right on Jasson Dominguez, but not so much on Jones. I liked the third prospect CF of the Yankees because I thought the Pirates could get him for less, which is the name of the game with BC. Unless something strange happens, BC and the Bucs will be trying a desperation attempt at the last minute!
Just make Axel a Yankees’ prospect.
Sign first, worry about position later.
I felt with how he labored and hard hits getting hit foul or solid contact for sharp outs that Ortiz shouldn’t have come out for the 6th and I was surprised. Then we lost the lead. Had to just turn the tv off and go to bed…
Very tough loss last night after holding a 3-0 lead. Overview: Bart needs to block a basically easy pitch to block, which allows the winning 4th run to score from third. Sewald is not a MLB closer based on his stuff he was throwing. We should be able to get to him in the remaining 5 games with Dbacks. Only Cruz hit him, nice AB with 2 strikes. Taylor looked bad (even though ball 3 was called a strike), Cutch and Nicky too. Sewald had blown 3 games earlier in July.....he throws a soft curve ball that if sitting on it should not be a problem taking it deep.
I wonder how much Bradenton is going to change after the FCL Pirates win the league title on Monday. You'll have a combo of those players, then draft picks, ready to play. Things are about to get interesting for transactions...
I know Bradenton gonna take any pitcher they can get their hands on. Gonna be interesting in how they handle the hitters. Wonder if we see less debuts than usual then?
Pitching prospects on the FCL team are in short supply. Mueth, Matoma, maybe Carlos Castillo.
I'm not sure they're going to promote any hitters. The Marauders are loaded with guys who've struggled to get past the lowest levels. I get the impression that a bunch of their guys are in last-chance mode.
Probably should give Falter or Jones a rehab start there on Monday. The Yankees used Lagrange today, Jones is only a year older lol.
Might not even be actual prospects.
Tejada threw 6 innings the other day. Might just need guys like that.
Hope we get to see some of Ager and Hartle. Also hope they look more like the 2023 versions.
Hartle was throwing in the Cape League, so I think he’s a possibility. Hadn’t checked on Ager.
Really hard to guess what they'll do with college draftees. I had a discussion about this the other day with the guy who does the Florida Prospect Report. See him all the time at FCL games and LECOM. With no FCL available and the short-season leagues long gone, we're in uncharted territory. Maybe they just run a summer version of fall instructs for the draftees.
It really is bad that mlb is so short sighted on the minor leagues with the short-season leagues. It's already showing throughout the minors.
Thomas Harrington is another Pirate pitching prospect "sleeper" who will be in AAA either later this year or to start 2025. Although he and Jackson Jobe are only a year apart in age (Harrington 23, Jobe 22), Harrington was drafted out of College with the 36th pick by the Pirates in 2022, and Jobe was selected by Detroit out of HS as the 3rd Pick in the 2021 Draft.
Jobe is the #11 MLB Prospect, and Harrington is not listed in the Top 100 MLB Prospects. I think that had more to do with Paul Skenes and Bubba Chandler starting the year in the Top 100 Prospects, but Harrington is deserving of being in that group. Harrington is 2-2, 2.24 ERA in 68 IP at AA; Jobe is 2-1, 1.41 ERA in 38 IP at AA. K/BB/9 Harrington is 9.7/1.3/9 and Jobe is 11.7/4.9/9. Almost 5 Walks for every 9 innings will jump up and bite a pitcher, so I would much prefer a 9.7/1.3/9 to a 11.7/4.9/9. It is very possible that both will be in MLB in 2025. Looking at possibly the youngest Rotation in MLB in 2025 of Keller, Skenes, Jones, Chandler, Harrington, with 3 or 4 others who are also very deserving of pitching in an MLB Rotation. Don't forget about Hunter Barco or Bailey Falter as the LHSP in the group!
Harrington seemed to avoid his fastball last night, maybe it just wasn't there. The velocity was only 89 to 92 with only a couple going higher. Still pitched well but struggled in his last inning.
Not a good start down in the FCL. Pirates down 3-0 in the third inning. Couple of errors helped runners scored
Yordany creates a run with his speed. The comeback has started. They can't lose today, I've already talked trash to a relative who is a Yankees fan
Leading now.
YDLS using his speed
Severino with an extra base hit.
FCL season to a T so far
Melkel I got word from Fangraphs folks that EL had Carlson Reed off lists mostly "due to velocity issues" if of interest.
His last pitch was 96mph in his last game, sitting 94 with a plus slider and plus change-up. Still needs to have better control to stay a starter long term. His velocity was 91 to 95 earlier this year. He was 94 to 96 touching 98 as a reliever in college.
Considering he's already over 30 innings more than he pitched in a season at age 21, that's plausible with a strong sent of bullshit lol.
Reed's velocity comes and goes. Some games he sits at 91-93, others in the mid-90s. Maybe not surprising considering that, in college, he was almost always a reliever and topped out at 40 IP.
I've thought the velocity works pretty well for him, though, because hitters don't seem to distinguish well between his FB and slider.
Totally agree, when his change up is really on it's close a plus plus. I'm actually surprised his control is as good as its been.
A thing overlooked is his age, he's a young 21 compared to his draft class.
I thought he was a straight to the bullpen guy coming out of college.
Another one of the pitching "Sleepers" that BC has a knack of finding - we just cannot transfer that knack to finding hitters! If the Pirates pitching developmental group is not recognized as being top 5 in MLB, there's a problem.
Glad it was competitive, sad it wasn’t a win; hopeful it isn’t the start of a fade from contention, fearful that it is.
Tale of a Pirates fan in mid-summer. 🤷♂️
I thought that Ortiz did well for the Pirates for being on the road in Arizona. A very close game with the Pirates being without the services of their best hitter, Bryan Reynolds. The Pirates lineup is just not able to make up for that loss at this point. With Ji-Hwan Bae up, the Pirates could possibly experiment at least for the period of time until Reynolds returns. Re-arrange the lineup and start to take notice of the batters who are hitting in July - Pirate OPS numbers in July
Reynolds - 987 OPS
Tellez - 979 OPS
Cruz - 861 OPS
Suwinski - 800 OPS
Cutch - 698 OPS
Bart - 679 OPS
Joe - 560 OPS
Gonzales - 552 OPS
Hayes - 537 OPS
Adjustments in the order? Cutch has done well at leadoff, but if Bae is used as a leadoff, could Cutch handle a move to the middle of the order? Or, thinking that Bart is going to remain with the Pirates into 2025, and he could also be a middle of the order addition. Love to see Connor Joe go on a nice streak, but although his OPS is low, he has been putting the ball in play.
Do we get an FCL Playoffs game thread or just post here? 10AM start today in a win or go home game against the hated Yankees
Is it just me, or does Omar Alfonzo show up on the top exit velocity chart every day? A 20-year-old catcher with a .751 OPS in the FSL is a strong showing. Average league age is 21. Average league OPS is .679. That being said, I expected him to be higher because he's always hitting the ball well
Naw he’s definitely up there quite a bit. Issue seems to be being able to elevate the ball consistently
He has a laser lock on the hole between first and second. There's a reason he has a .346 BABIP despite being a slow runner. Even with shifts banned, he'll have trouble with better defenses as he moves up. Def needs to elevate more. If he does, he could have quite a lot of power.
Pirates are pretty close to toothless on offense with Reynolds and Rowdy on the shelf.
Time to bring in some reinforcements Ben!
Past time…. But yes.
I fear not much will happen besides maybe a churn of a few replacement-ish guys. If it’s a priority, you go get what you need, not wait to see what’s in the clearance bin after all the good stuff is sold.