The Week in Bradenton: Low-Level Pitching May Be . . . Shaky
Control problems making life difficult for mascots.
Both of the Bradenton-based minor league affiliates may be looking at some challenges with their pitching staffs. We’ve discussed here the general problem of them simply being short on pitchers. That’s partly a result of the pitching in last year’s draft class being depleted by injuries and trades, and also of the fact that the Pirates have fared very poorly with pitching in their international program.
What pitchers the Bradenton Marauders and FCL Pirates do have are often struggling with the strike zone. The Marauders’ pitchers are tied for fourth in the ten-team Florida State League in walks, while also ranking last in strikeouts. The FCL Bucs have easily the highest walk rate in the 15-team Florida Complex League, 8.5 per nine innings through games of May 19, a full walk more than any other team. Their team WHIP of 2.00 is the highest in the league by a wide margin.
On the Marauders, the problem isn’t across the board. For one thing, the team’s total is inflated by a handful of pitchers who routinely have control meltdowns. Brennan Malone, Alexis Torres, and the since-demoted Tyler Kennedy and Joaquin Tejada have managed to combine for 34 walks in just 17.2 IP. Beyond the marginal guys, some of the team’s key relievers have made the middle and late innings hard to watch. Greiber Mendez, Jonawel Valdez, Noah Takacs, Jose Garces, and lefty Isaias Uribe have walked 65 in 89 innings. That’s especially unfortunate with Garces and Uribe—the latter is coming off Tommy John and is on the IL right now—because they both have good arms, with very good velocity.
The team’s top pitching prospects—excluding Zander Mueth, who went on the IL after throwing four innings—all need to find the plate more. Carlos Castillo was successful at lower levels, mainly as a finesse righty, but he seemed primed for a breakout season after showing up this spring obviously stronger and with better velocity. After a good start, he’s had a rough time his last three times out, walking six in 8.1 IP and also getting hit hard.
Last year’s 6th-round draft pick, Matt Ager, has had weaker control that’s led to some pitch-count-related exits. He’s walked 15 in 17 innings, leading to a 1.88 WHIP. He’s done well to hold his ERA to 4.73. David Matoma has walked five in nine innings, which isn’t alarming, especially since he’s pitching well overall. He missed the early season, and the Pirates are still being very cautious with him. He’s not going beyond two innings, and he’s throwing little other than fastballs.
One starter who may be worth watching is Clevari Tejada. He’s walked a modest ten in 26.2 IP while striking out 28. His ERA, currently 4.05, was inflated by a meltdown in his second outing when he gave up five earned runs while recording two outs. In six starts since then, his ERA is 2.45.
To divert from the pitching a bit, Bradenton’s offense is a tale of two contrasting pairs. Overall, offense has been a struggle; despite being second in the league in home runs, they’re eighth in runs. What offense the Marauders have is coming mainly from two players. (Well, three, but I’ll leave Braylon Bishop for another time.)
Konnor Griffin is, of course, torching baseballs. He ranks third in the league in batting (.324), third in slugging (.547), seventh in OPS (.920), easily first in runs (34 in 33 games), tied for second in steals (17), and third in home runs (7). What to make of the 40:6 K:BB ratio? I don’t know, except I’m reluctant to form any conclusions about a guy 33 games into his pro career who’s just realizing he can clobber the pitchers he’s seeing right now.
The other top offensive force is Axiel Plaz. He’s obviously toned down his approach, going more for line drives, and it’s cut his K rate almost in half, from last year’s 31% to 18%. And it hasn’t really affected his power. Plaz is seventh in the league in average (.306), sixth in slugging (.512), tied for fourth in home runs (6), and tied for second in RBIs (26). It’s one of the most successful hitting adjustments I can remember seeing at this level. Plaz is also throwing out 28% of base stealers, better than the league average of 22%.
That’s the good pair; the less successful pair would be Yordany De Los Santos and Jhonny Severino. Both continue to struggle with contact issues. De Los Santos is batting .217 with a 42:13 K:BB. Severino is hitting .207 and 42:6. His OBP is an anemic .239. (I’ll point out that, logically, these K:BB figures are more of a concern than Griffin’s because, first, these two aren’t hitting well and, second, they’re not making their debuts either in the pros or in this league.)
These two are hitting for power, especially, in De Los Santos’ case, in May. He has five home runs, tied for seventh in the league, and is slugging .419, good enough for 19th in a league that’s slugging .356 overall. Severino has four home runs and is tied for the league lead in doubles with ten. So, some hitting ability is there.
On to the FCL, where things are at a more preliminary stage; the team has played only 11 games as I write this. So far, the control problems here are just about across the board. The recurring theme is pitchers with great arms but very weak control. It’s not all discouraging, though, as two pitchers stand out, prospect-wise. Several others are at least interesting at this early stage because they do have good arms.
Levi Sterling was the 37th overall pick in last year’s draft and got the slot amount of $2.5M to sign out of prep school. Despite his 6’5” height, he’s not overpowering, at least not yet. He throws the standard four pitches, with a good change, and was expected to have good command. He may have had some jitters to start with. He failed to get out of the first inning in his first start, then had another rough first inning in his second. He recovered to throw four shutout innings in the latter. In his third start, he pitched well for four innings, then ran out of gas in the fifth. So far, Sterling has walked four in ten innings, which makes him the staff’s control artist by, well, a lot.
The team’s other most impressive pitching prospect so far is lefty Reinold Navarro. He got the most recognition of any of the Pirates’ pitchers in the DSL last year. He throws in the mid-90s with a nasty slider. Navarro walked only one and fanned eight over four innings in his first start, then walked four in three innings in his second, so his control so far is at least manageable.
Probably a third must-watch pitcher on this staff is Irwin Ramirez. He got the biggest bonus among the pitchers in the Pirates’ 2024 international class. Ramirez throws in the upper-90s and has reached triple digits. He seems to throw what used to be called a “heavy” fastball, as hitters in his brief FCL appearances so far had little success getting anything in the air. Ramirez walked 7.5 per nine innings last year in the DSL and, so far this year, has walked six in 4.2 IP. He hasn’t been extremely wild, he just tends to come in high too much, so he may be overthrowing.
Another arguably must-watch pitcher is another lefty, Ronaldys Jimenez. The Pirates got him from San Diego for Martin Perez, throwing in some cash because they liked Jimenez a lot. He’s quite similar to Navarro; he throws in the mid-90s and has a good slider, but his command has further to go. He didn’t pitch a great deal in his DSL debut last year and walked 15 in 15.1 IP. This year he’s walked six in 3.2 IP. For his career so far he’s fanned 28 in 19 innings and allowed only six hits.
Two other pitchers could serve as emblems for this staff and its tendencies: Dioris Martinez and Carlos Mateo. Martinez throws 96-97 mph with a promising slider. Mateo signed in 2023 for $800K, a very large bonus for the Pirates to give a pitcher. He throws in the upper-90s and has reached triple digits. So far this year, in eight innings, the two have combined for 20 walks, three hit batters and four wild pitches.
It’ll be an interesting exercise this year to see whether the Pirates can harness some of the stuff these guys have. With the FCL staff, in particular, that’ll be the key issue for the season.
Support the site by becoming a paid member, and get access to all of our premium content, including our Top 25 list with complete player write-ups and video breakdowns, which come out weekly.
It will also give access to my player feature articles from on-site trips.
Bucs On Deck is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
ESPN just released Kiley McDaniel’s new top 50 prospect list. Bubba Chandler moves up to number two and Konnor Griffin moves up to number 19.
I can't stop sharing good things about Konnor Griffin every time I see him, so to be fair I will share this too (even though it hurts). Griffin was 0 for 5 with 4 strike outs yesterday.