Nick Gonzales made progress in 2024 with Pirates
Former first-round pick made strides in 2024
The first draft pick during the Ben Cherington era with the Pirates, Nick Gonzales has surely experienced the organization's ups and downs.
He didn’t move up the system like you would expect someone an advanced college bat may, struggling with spin and off-speed pitches. Gonzales made his major league debut in 2023 and struggled, hitting .209/.268/.348 in 35 games, posting a 63 wRC+, two home runs, and 13 RBI.
The biggest issue was swing and miss, especially against breaking (43% whiff) and off-speed (38.9% whiff) pitches. Gonzales hit a collective 6-54 (.111) against those pitches in 2024.
While he hit fastballs well, that kind of struggle against the rest of the pitches severely limited his pitches.
He didn’t make the team going into 2024 but he tore through Triple-A before eventually getting another shot in the majors.
Better contact against breaking and off-speed, especially the latter, helped Gonzales put together a much more solid season. In 94 games, he hit .270/.311/.398 (93 wRC+) with seven home runs and 49 RBI.
The strikeout rate was cut by nearly 10%, and thanks to his defense that graded above average, he put together a 1.3 fWAR (-0.1 in 2023). The whiff rates dropped to 27.2% against breaking pitches and 26.7% against off-speed. He even slugged .524 when facing off-speed.
Gonzales is a free swinger who doesn’t walk and doesn’t light up the exit velocity boards but has shown elite sprint speed times and has become a solid fielder at second base. He’s below average at both average exit velocity and hard-hit rate, and his chase rate is in the 15th percentile.
While he’s one of the better fastball hitters in baseball, the progress on hitting off-speed pitches helped cover 60% of the pitches he faced. He’s improved against breaking pitches, but the quality of that contact isn’t the best (even though he hit three of his seven home runs against them).
Gonzales shouldn’t enter the 2025 season as the undisputed starter at second base, but his progress at the major level should give him a leg up in the competition.
He’s not quite the prospect that some thought he’d be when he was drafted, but Gonzales has molded his game toward what has worked, allowing the steps forward he’s taken.
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Nick won't be a star but Im cautiously optimistic that he can be a regular 2 WAR second baseman with a half step offensive improvement along with his better than I expected defense. We need more ceiling offensively, but part of raising the floor is just not giving playing time to so many below league average players. Nick seems he can be a solid contributor at 2B and thats a win to me
Did not know Nicky G. had elite sprint speed.
Thought he was an above average base-runner similar to BRey....but interesting he's "elite".
With a pro-rata fWar of 2+ for a whole season, I think he has earned 2nd base job......but any kind of regression will make him vulnerable.