Pittsburgh Pirates' 2024 Minor League Previews: Altoona

Starting pitchers and middle infielders are the headliners for the Curve

Bubba Chandler Photo Credit: WTM

Altoona will feature two of the Pirates’ top prospects in the rotation, maybe three eventually. On the hitting side, there’ll be a large number of position players who’ve shown at least some ability or been highly regarded at one time.

This is good and bad, as it’s partly the result of a tendency for the team’s hitting prospects to hit a wall in AA, which in some cases could be called Greensboro Syndrome. Many of those position players will be trying to move forward on the prospect map.

Catchers

The starting catcher will be Abrahan Gutierrez, who came from the Phillies for Braeden Ogle. While with the Pirates, Gutierrez has been hampered a bit by the need to make way for Endy Rodriguez and Henry Davis. He seemingly got free of those two last year, only to be plagued by injuries that cost him over half the season.

Gutierrez has solid all-around skills, including a good eye at the plate, and did well in spring training, so this will be the time for him to establish himself at least as a depth option.

Gutierrez will be backed up by Dylan Shockley and Wyatt Hendrie. Shockley, a 34th-round draft pick from 2019, may be the best defensive catcher in the system. He’s almost certainly the best at stopping the running game.

Shockley hasn’t hit much, but it’s probably not easy to develop as a hitter when you’re getting shifted around between levels, playing about 30 games each season. Hendrie was a seventh-rounder in 2021. He’s a good defensive catcher but struggled at the plate in 2023, which he mostly spent at Greensboro.

Infield

The infield will not include Termarr Johnson and Jack Brannigan, at least initially, even though both spent the spring with the AA players.

That leaves Tsung-Che Cheng as the leading position prospect on the team. Cheng is on the 40-man roster and brings a lot of skills: a good eye at the plate, contact ability, speed, enough range for any spot in the infield, and great reliability in the field that leads to very few errors.

He gets faulted for a lack of power, but he has a little more than he gets credit for, although the power he showed at Greensboro was probably ballpark-related. Cheng struggled when he got to Altoona in mid-2023, so he must show he’s made adjustments.

At first base, the infield will have former Astros’ first-rounder Seth Beer, a minor league Rule 5 pick. Beer reached the majors as a top Arizona prospect in 2021, but a separated shoulder suffered in his fifth game there set him back, and he never quite seems to have recovered fully. He ended up back in AA, and that’s where he’ll open in 2024.

The other two most frequent infielders will probably be Jackson Glenn and Mike Jarvis. Glenn was a well-regarded senior sign in 2021 with a strong bat, including some power. He had a very rough 2022 season at Greensboro but bounced back at the same level last year, then had a solid second half at Altoona.

He’s 26 now, so he needs to get off to a good start. Jarvis was also a 2021 draftee and will be 26 soon. He showed good power last year before a promotion to Altoona, but nearly all of it came at Greensboro.

He didn’t hit well after the promotion. Glenn has played almost all his minor league games at second or third. Jarvis has divided his time among second, third and short. Cheng should play short more than anywhere else, but the three will probably all move around.

The Curve also has Francisco Acuna, Aaron Shackelford, and Brenden Dixon. Acuna has been primarily a shortstop in the minors, although he plays elsewhere in the infield. He hit well at Greensboro in 2022 and 2023 but also missed time due to a PED suspension.

He became a free agent and re-signed with the Pirates, so they must like him reasonably well. Shackelford hit 22 home runs for Greensboro in 2021 and 26 for Altoona in 2022, but he didn’t produce the same power for Indianapolis in 2023, and now he’s back in AA. He plays first or second. Dixon has played first and third in class A in the last couple of years. At the plate, he’s something of a three-true-outcomes guy.

Outfield

Tres Gonzalez and Jase Bowen will be the most prominent outfielders. The Pirates selected Gonzalez in the fifth round in 2022. He’s a hit-tool guy with a very good eye at the plate but modest power.

He’s put up OBPs over .400 so far in class A, but a bit more power wouldn’t hurt. A good base stealer, Gonzalez has played all over the outfield and probably profiles as a 4th outfielder.

Bowen seems like he’s been around forever, but he’s still just 23. He sells out some for power, but he runs well and put up a 20-20 season last year, mostly at Greensboro. One caveat is that 14 of his 23 home runs came at home. Bowen is an athletic guy who’s seen some action at first and second. In the outfield, he’s played mostly center.

The other two outfielders are Matt Fraizer and Connor Scott. They’re prominent among the hitters in the system who’ve hit a wall at Altoona. Fraizer will be opening at Altoona for the third time, and he also saw significant time there in 2021.

He’s a prominent Greensboro Syndrome guy, as he had a big partial year there in 2021 but hasn’t adjusted to AA. Scott was arguably the prime return for Jacob Stallings. He’ll be opening his third straight season at Altoona, although he was injured for close to half of 2023 while batting just .196.

Starting Pitchers

Bubba Chandler and Anthony Solometo will be the big names at Altoona. Both are listed by everybody among the team’s top prospects. Chandler is an extremely athletic player who started putting things together last year at Greensboro.

Scouts have raved about the progress he made with his curve and change, but his best pitch is still a mid- to upper-90s fastball that has a lot of late life and misses plenty of bats.

Solometo, the team’s top lefty pitching prospect, doesn’t have that level of stuff, but he’s shown good command. His funky, near-sidearm motion creates difficulties for hitters. He was scuffling some in spring training this year.

One well-regarded prospect missing from the roster is Thomas Harrington, who’s out now with shoulder soreness. If he’s healthy, he should be with the Curve, but his status isn’t known at this time.

Other pitchers who figure to be in the rotation are Sean Sullivan and Po-Yu Chen. Sullivan, a right-hander drafted in the eighth round in 2021, is a pitcher who doesn’t miss many bats but has shown good command.

He spent 2023 with the Curve and had some very good and very bad stretches, but overall, he had a 3.88 ERA. The Pirates gave him a non-roster invite to spring training, so they must think well of him. He has a good mix of pitches and generally shows good command, but his fastball is very hittable, so he pitches with a limited margin for error.

The wild card with the Curve is Braxton Ashcraft. After missing most of 2021 and all of 2022 due to Tommy John surgery, he made an impressive comeback in 2023, reaching Altoona and pitching better and better as he moved up. He finished with eight impressive but abbreviated starts for the Curve and now figures prominently on the team’s top prospect lists. The uncertainty comes from whether the Pirates will try to stretch him out as a starter after limiting him to 52.2 total innings in 2023.

Other possible starters or bulk relievers are Brad Case, Nick Dombkowski, and Justin Meis. Case is a 6’6” righty who dropped down to a submarine angle last year. He’d previously reached AAA (which didn’t go well) but worked his way up to Altoona from rookie ball last year after the change.

He didn’t get in many innings and mostly struggled, but he looked good in spring training and may just have needed adjustment time.

Dombkowski is a finesse lefty who’s made good progress since signing as an undrafted free agent. He put up a 3.71 ERA in a swing role with the Curve last year, although he doesn’t miss many bats, and gopher balls can be a problem. Meis, a tenth-rounder in 2021, also pitched in a swing role with the Curve last year, but his overall numbers weren’t as good as Dombkowski’s. He got dramatically better after mid-season, though, with his ERA going from 6.86 in the first half to 2.20 in the second and his K rate improving by almost 50%.

Former Yankee Domingo German appeared in AA games in camp, but he’s not on any roster at this time.

Relievers

The remaining Altoona pitchers come from various backgrounds and are all trying to establish themselves. I’ll go through them one by one.

Arguably, the most interesting reliever is Valentin Linarez. He’s a fastball/slider pitcher who looked promising as a starter until he got to Greensboro last year. He had a terrible time over eight starts, then pitched much better in relief, with his opponents’ OPS dropping from .991 to .608.

A lefty drafted in round 15 in 2021, Tyler Samaniego dominated class A but has had more trouble in AA. His stats last year were bad, but the Pirates reportedly believe he pitched better than the numbers, and the advanced measures seem to agree (5.51 ERA vs. 3.93 xFIP).

Grant Ford and Cam Junker were drafted in rounds 5 and 10, respectively, in 2019. Ford pitched for Greensboro and Altoona last year after missing much of 2022. With the Curve, he had a 4.37 ERA but walked almost as many as he struck out. Junker returns after putting up a 3.25 ERA for the Curve in 2023. The number seems to have been heavily BABIP-driven, as his xFIP was 5.32, and his walk and K rates weren’t good.

Chris Gau and Isaac Mattson both signed as a minor league free agents for this year. Gau is a finesse righty who put up good walk and K rates in the minors with the Rays, but he was always old for his levels; he’s 27 now and has thrown only 17.2 IP in AAA. Mattson was a 19th-round pick by the Angels out of Pitt in 2017. He had good K rates in the lower minors but has had trouble in the upper minors, although he did get into four games with the Orioles. He spent about half each of 2022 and 2023 in independent ball.

Finally, the Altoona roster includes Eddy Yean. Supposedly, the main return from the Nationals for Josh Bell, Yean just hasn’t pitched well for the Pirates. He’s getting a shot at AA anyway.