Pittsburgh Pirates 2023 breakout player of the year: Braxton Ashcraft

Strong return to mound after Tommy John surgery

This year didn’t have the obvious choice that we had last year in Endy Rodriguez, but in the end, Braxton Ashcraft walks away as the Bucs on Deck Pirates minor league breakout player of the year for 2023.

He was always going to be limited due to this being his first year back from Tommy John surgery, but no matter where he pitched, Ashcraft was dominant.

Not only was he one of the best at striking out batters, he also demonstrated some of the best control in the system.

While in Double-A, he allowed just three earned runs - all of which coming in a single game. In total, across three levels, Ashcraft struck out 63, walked just 11 and held hitters to a .239 average in 52.2 innings pitched.

He quickly caught the attention of the national media, seeing his name pop up on the team’s top 30 prospect list for both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline.

When it comes to BA, he made the biggest single jump in their midseason rankings, going from unranked to the Top 15.

Ryan Palencer - Jack Brannigan

Brannigan was absolutely on the prospect radar after being a third round pick. It’s the power that he displayed in 2023 that made him a breakout player for me. As a corner infielder, the power tool is a necessity and he was lacking in his first pro season last year. However, his 19 home runs and 14 doubles in 87 games over two levels are very encouraging, even if 12 of the long balls came with Greensboro.

NolaJeffy - Lonnie White Jr.

I thought this would be the easy category. I was going to say Bubba Chandler, based off of how he finished the season versus how he began. Chandler obviously already came with notoriety, but the way he finished the season, I think he showed he is worthy of Top 100 consideration and might even push for top pitching prospect in the system status. Tsung-Che Cheng was probably the front-runner for this category, till Double-A grounded the Greensboro induced power output.

Braxton Ashcraft is another strong pick, but I personally feel he was “breaking out” in 2021 before going down with injury. It was poor timing more than anything.

Honestly, I want to make a fourth category: “Comeback Prospect of the Year”. I ended up going with Lonnie White Jr., as he felt a combination of the other aforementioned. He came with notoriety of a high upside prep bat taken in 2021 draft, but he had only amassed 38 at bats up until 2023. With health finally on his side, it felt he really took off. He had only 200 plate appearances with Bradenton, but he kept getting stronger as the season went on.

He debuted with the Bradenton Marauders in July, and had only a .686 OPS in that first month. Then 1.018 OPS in August, and .937 in September. July saw a K% of 35.6%, dropped to 22.4% in August, and 26.2% in September. While maintaining a strong 16% BB-rate. He ended up collecting eight home runs, 30 RBI, and 12 stolen bases with less than half the plate appearances that Marauders home run leader Rodolfo Nolasco ended with (444 plate appearances).

WTM - Braxton Ashcraft

Coming into this season, Ashcraft hadn’t pitched since 2021, when he had Tommy John surgery midway through a season at the high A level.  He’d been moving along slowly at that point. 

He’d struggled in short season ball in his first full year, then had a 5.35 ERA after jumping to high A that was skewed by a couple bad outings before he went out.  This year, he moved quickly through three levels, starting 19 games, eight of them in AA with a 1.35 ERA.  He WAS on a very low pitch count, so he threw 52.2 IP.  Most impressive were his walk and K rates. 

He had a 1.9 BB/9 and 10.8 K/9 for the year, 2.3 and 10.4 for Altoona.  For a Tommy John return year, that’s impressive.  And he was making steady progress; at Altoona, opponents managed just a 194/253/292 line against him.  He’s Rule 5-eligible, so the Pirates will have to add him to the 40-man roster this off-season.

My picks

1. Bubba Chandler

2. Anthony Solometo

3. Thomas Harrington