An in Depth Look at Pittsburgh Pirates Prospect Travis MacGregor

In today’s player profile, we take a look at a Pittsburgh Pirates prospect who may have gotten lost in the shuffle, and his name is Travis MacGregor.

With good young arms in the Pittsburgh Pirates system such as Tahnaj Thomas, Quinn Preister, Santiago Florez, and Cody Bolton, some fans have forgotten about Travis MacGregor. MacGregor is 22 years old and was drafted by the Pirates 68th overall in the 2016 MLB Draft out of East Lake High School in Florida. Some experts were confused by this pick due to MacGregor being ranked outside the top 200, but the Pirates saw something in him the others did not.

MacGregor’s debut season showed signs of promise with nine starts he pitched 31.2 innings showing signs of control with only 10 walks while giving up 12 runs where eight of those were given up in two starts. His xFIP was good at 3.79 and his splits between right-handed and left-handed batter were virtually identical right around a .250 batting average each.

His next season in Bristol was the polar opposite. In his 12 starts, opponents were batting .339/.413/.444 with an OPS of .858. MacGregor’s ERA ballooned to 7.80. Another shocking figure to look at was his left on base rate of 55%. With numbers like that, it makes it hard to get out of innings unscathed. If you are looking for a silver lining in all of this like myself, look at his control with only 20 walks in 41.1 innings pitched.

Despite having a rough 2017 in Bristol, the Pirates promoted the youngster to full-season Low-A West Virginia where he had quite the bounce back season despite his 1-4 record. In 15 games started MacGregor posted a 3.25 ERA, a xFIP of 3.27, 21 walks, and his highest K/9 of his career at 10.46. One of his most exceptional performances in 2018 was his first start striking out 12, allowing a single earned run, four hits, and one walk in 5.1 innings of work.

Towards the end of the 2018 season, MacGregor experienced forearm soreness and, ultimately, it resulted in him being shut down for the rest of the season. Later on, they would find out MacGregor would need Tommy John surgery, which would end his hopes of a 2019 season.

The hope for MacGregor is to come into the 2020 season stronger than ever. As most baseball fans know, after Tommy John Surgery some pitchers come back better than ever. MacGregor, as of now, is ranked 19th overall on the Pirates prospect list and the 8th best pitcher. According to FanGraphs, his projection is to reach the Majors is 2021, and if he stays healthy and his arm holds up, he could develop into a middle of the rotation arm.