Scouting the Pirates system 2023: Best Fastball

Looking at the best fastballs in the Pirates system.

‘Scouting the Pirates system’ is taking an in depth look at the players in the organization, and how has the best tools. Each article will highlight a different tool, with each writer on the site pitching in who they believe has the best.

There are few things as exciting as a pitcher blowing a fastball past a hitter. It’s also the basis of most pitcher’s arsenal. It’s not often that pitchers make it too far with a somewhat passable fastball.

They don’t always have to throw in the upper 90s, but the ability to command a fastball is key to setting up the rest of your pitches.

As fastball analytics and pitch shape metrics become more popular, it’s starting to quantify what makes a pitch good or not, and why some pitchers get more misses with it than others.

The Pirates are perhaps the deepest when it comes to pitching, and there were no shortage of options when it comes to the ‘best fastball’.

Jared Jones

We’ve learned that a high velocity fastball doesn’t always equate success, but that hasn’t been the case for Jared Jones. He’s been blowing by fastballs past hitters from the very beginning (his first professional pitch was 99 mph), in fact since 2021 no one has struck out more hitters than Jones in the Pirates’ minor league.

If you take out the players who ‘lost’ minor league time in the majors, the next closest player is over 100 strikeouts behind Jones (Travis MacGregor has 275, Jones has 391).

Jones’ fastball sits in the mid to upper 90s, and he posted a near 30% miss rate in Triple-A with the pitch.

Part of the reason behind the success with the fastball, especially elevated in the zone, is his elite -4.4 Vertical Approach Angle (VAA) paired with the velocity.

Bubba Chandler

Chandler finished third in the Pirates’ system in strikeouts this year, in large part to his explosive fastball. He may not be able to dial it up as high as Jones does, but Chandler does show the ability to maintain it deeper into games.

Pitching in Greensboro this past year (plus one start in Altoona), we didn’t get much, if any, data on his pitches, but there was a quote from a Tim Williams article on P2 that pointed towards his Inverted Vertical Break (IVB) on his fastball is 20”, which would be among the most elite in the minors.

Not only does Chandler have one of the best fastballs in the system, it may be one of the best singular pitch.

WTM: Paul Skenes

Duh.

Other notables

It may be easy to overlook him after missing the majority of the season due to an injury, but Mike Burrows had one of the best fastballs in the system when healthy.

Watching Burrows on the mound, it was always interesting to see him blow fastballs past hitters despite throwing 93-95 mph. Turns out, in a limited sample size, only four other pitchers that had pitch tracking data on them, had more IVB on their fastball than in 2023.

There is a very good chance that Patrick Reilly is in the conversation next year for having the best fastball in the system. You can make somewhat of an argument that he does now, even with the smaller sample size.

I wrote about Reilly recently, with a very appeasing fastball shape, and a miss rate of over 40% in Bradenton in 2023. The control will always be a question, but he was able to do that to hitters regardless.

What I said about Burrows can go for Thomas Harrington as well. He doesn’t have the most overpowering fastball, but had a lot of success with the pitch elevated in the zone in Greensboro.

Now looking what the fastball looked like (metric wise) in Bradenton, it makes sense, as both his IVB (17.5”) and VAA (-4.4) were both good.