Pittsburgh Pirates: Looking at Two Intriguing Pitching Prospects

The Pittsburgh Pirates have an extremely deep farm system, but a handful of prospects get overshadowed. These two pitching prospects have some real potential that gets overlooked.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have a really deep farm system. After all, it’s arguably a top five farm system in baseball.

Currently, FanGraphs places it at six, but they entered the year at five. Pitchers such as Cody Bolton, Quinn Priester, Tahnaj Thomas, and Brennan Malone get most of the attention in the system as the organization’s best pitching prospects, with many other names that probably come to mind.

But with so many noteworthy prospects, it’s easy to forget some guys that don’t really standout. These two might not be future aces or anything, but they are very intriguing prospects for the Pittsburgh Pirates based on some of the stuff they can do with the ball on the mound.

The first is right hander Steven Jennings. We’ve previously discussed Jennings, but I wanted to go in depth about one thing that makes him really standout, his spin rate. The right hander is ranked as the team’s 26th best prospect according to FanGraphs. The 21-year-old hasn’t really done anything super impressive yet. Through 221.2 innings Jennings has a 4.67 ERA, a 3.94 FIP and 1.39 WHIP. Jennings only has a 18.8% strikeout rate, but a solid 7.9% walk rate. After all he is known for being a control specialist. FanGraphs gives his command a future of 60. He also has a solid 0.9 HR/9 rate.

2019 was the best professional season yet for Jennings. In 130 innings of work at Low-A Greenboro, Jennings had a 4.71 ERA, 4.23 FIP and 1.33 WHIP, to go with a 7.1% walk rate, 1.0 HR/9 and a career high 20.3% strikeout rate. However, he did register a 3.99 xFIP. So far, he’s only looked like a durable control pitcher, but he’s got some really interesting potential.

Jennings’s fastball only sits in the high-80s and low-90s. According to FanGraphs, it tops out at just 93 MPH. In comparison, the MLB average was 93.6 MPH, so Jennings at his fastest is close to the MLB average. But what makes this pitch a really interesting pitch is the amount of spin he can put on it. Jennings has a 2500 RPM spin rate on his fastball.

The MLB average spin rate on a fastball in 2019 was in the low-2000s. That spin rate is comparable to some really good names like Gerrit Cole, Yu Darvish, and Will Harris. All three sit in the 95th percentile of fastball spin rate in 2019. Obviously, Cole and Darvish throw a lot harder, but spin rate is really important when evaluating a pitcher, and Jennings’ fastball is elite in terms of that. A soft tossing pitcher to compare him to on the Pittsburgh Pirates is Trevor Willaims, whose fastball also sits in the low-90s, but only has 2200-2250 RPM.

But Jennings’s slider has even more spin. It clocks in with 3000 RPM, which ties him for the 4th most spin on a breaking pitch among any prospects. Very few pitchers can put 3000 or more spin on their breaking pitches. This would have placed him in the top 97th percentile of pitchers in baseball, and possibly even higher.

The other prospect that has some real spin on their pitches is Santiago Florez. While Jennings is generally considered the Pirates’s best control-pitching prospect, Florez has really struggled limiting free passes. Florez’s lowest walk percentage in a single season so far has been last year when he had a 11.6% rate. In his career, he has a 13.3% walk rate and 5.3 per 9 ratio. He hasn’t struck out many batters either with a career 16.4% strikeout rate and 6.6 per 9 ratio.

Florez does limit home runs as four of the six home runs he has surrendered through 138 career innings came in 2019. But if Florez can just improve his control, he could be a really interesting guy to watch. His fastball sits in the 92-94 MPH range, and tops out 95 MPH. But it has 2400 RPM, which would place him in the mid-80th percentile in the MLB. The pitch has a 60 future grade.

His other pitch with a 60 grade is his curveball which has a 2800 RPM. This would place him in the high-80th, or low 90th percentile in the MLB. His curveball has the 25th most spin of any primary breaking pitch among ranked prospects. Florez also has a third pitch, a change-up with a 50 future grade.

Florez definitely has the talent to be a MLB pitcher. He has two 60 grade pitches, ones with a lot of spin on them, and a third change up. If Florez could just improve his control, he could be a very intriguing pitching prospect for fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates to watch.