Pittsburgh Pirates Minors: The New Young Pitching Core

With the young pitching prospects the Pittsburgh Pirates have accumulated, the future potential of the starting rotation in Pittsburgh could be sky high

Last week’s MLB Draft appears to have been a successful one for the Pittsburgh Pirates. You can read more about that here. One of the reasons this draft was a success for the Pirates was the addition of a young prep pitcher.

Before we go any further, you should check out the article Noah did yesterday on the future of the Pirate starting rotation. While that article focused more on players that could be part of the future of the starting rotation in the next year or two, it also touched on some prospects that are further away from the MLB level yet. Today, we will look at those young prospects in deeper detail and take a look at the new young pitching core that has been assembled, partially by Ben Cherington and partially by his predecessor Neal Huntington, in the Pirates’ farm system.

The new star prep pitcher the Pirates added in last week’s draft was righty Jared Jones. Jones hails from La Mirada High School in Whittier, California. He is currently committed to the University of Texas, but he is likely to sign with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Jones’ pitches possess elite spin rate. During a TrackMan session in May, Jones had a fastball spin rate of 2,554 RPM, his curveball was 2,659 RPM, the slider was 2,707 RPM, and his change up checked in at 1,821 RPM. When things shake out, Jones will likely be a top 100 prospect and among the top pitching prospects in the Pittsburgh Pirates farm system.

Joining Jones among the top notch pitching prospects the Pirates now have in the lower levels of their farm system is another former top prep pitching prospect, right Quinn Priester. Priester was the 18th overall pick by the Pirates in the 2019 MLB Draft. He ranks as the team’s 7th best prospect according to FanGraphs and 4th according to MLB Pipeline.

Pitching for the GCL Pirates last summer, Priester posted a 3.03 ERA, 2.92 FIP, 7.1% walk rate, and a 26.4% strikeout rate in 32.2 innings of work. When Jones gets ranked, Priester may prove to be the only pitching prospect, sans Mitch Keller who will lose prospect status whenever the MLB season beings, in the Pirate system ranked higher than he is. Both Jones and Priester have the tools to develop into top of the starting rotation arms in the future.

The new young pitching core of the Pittsburgh Pirates farm system does not end with Jones and Priester, far from it. There is also righty Tahnaj Thomas. FanGraphs ranks Thomas as the 5th best prospect in the Pirate farm system, and on MLB Pipeline he checks in at number 13.

In his first season in the Pirate farm system, the hard throwing Bahamas native made 12 starts with the short-season Bristol Pirates in 2019. In those 12 starts, Thomas logged 48.1 innings posting a 3.17 ERA and a 3.67 FIP. Thomas walked just 7.0% of batters faced, while also striking out a healthy 29.5% of batters faced.

While Thomas may be a bit more of a project than Priester or Jones, his ceiling is also sky high. Like the two aforementioned pitchers, Thomas has front of the rotation type of stuff. His fastball has a 60 grade from FanGraphs, while his cruveball gets a 50 grade. His change up, however, remains a work in progress. How far his change up, or any third pitch, comes in its development could be the difference between Thomas being a future front of the rotation starter, a middle/back of the rotation arm, or even a  dominant bullpen arm.

Finally, there is another new addition to the Pirate farm system. This pitcher is righty Brennan Malone, who, like Priester, was a 1st round pick in the 2019 MLB Draft. The 19-year-old Malone has yet to pitch in a game as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates organization after coming to the team in the Starling Marte trade this past offseason. However, he is already one of the team’s top prospects.

FanGraphs ranks Malone as the team’s 8th best prospect, while MLB Pipeline has him 7th. His fastball and slider both have a 60 grade, while his curveball and change up both get a 50. As a four-pitch pitcher, Malone has the tools to be an above average starting pitcher at the MLB level.

Having these four pitchers coming through the low level of the minors together should give the Pirate fan base plenty of hope. Thomas has an ETA for the MLB level of 2022, while Priester and Malone’s is 2023. Jones’ will likely be 2024, or potentially 2025 due to not being able to pitch at all this season. With these four pitchers set to the hit the MLB level together over a 2-3 year stretch down the line, the Pirates could have one of the best starting rotations in baseball for five or six years once they all arrive.

While fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates are conditioned to be negative, that should not be the case here. Cherington’s track record is that of a front office man that is great at identifying and developing talent. Assuming he does that in Pittsburgh the way he did in Boston and Toronto, Pirate fans should be over the moon about this new young pitching core.

Jones is 18, Priester and Malone are 19 and Thomas is 20. These four pitchers give the Pirate farm system one of the best young cores of pitching prospects in all of baseball. They also give the long term future of the Pirate starting rotation limitless potential. Even if two of the four pan out as a starting pitchers, that will help to give the Pirates a great starting rotation one day down the road.