Pittsburgh Pirates: Four Breakout Prospects For 2021

The Pittsburgh Pirates have many young prospects looking to breakout in a full season in 2021. Here are three that could become notable prospects by the end of the year.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have acquired many different prospects over the last two offseasons. However, most of the Bucs’ new prospsects have don’t have very much professional playing time. Many haven’t played past A-Ball and have less than 100 professional games played, or less than 100 innings pitched.

Today, we will take a look at four of the Pirates’ top prospects who will be looking to breakout in 2021 as there will be some form of a minor league season this year. All four of these prospects have yet to play a full season in the minors, so without further ado, let’s get into our first prospect.

Catcher Endy Rodriguez

Endy Rodriguez was part of the Joe Musgrove trade. He came over from the New York Mets who were the third team in the trade. We recently ranked all 11 prospects the Pittsburgh Pirates received in the Josh Bell, Musgrove and Jameson Taillon trades and he came in third place. In FanGraphs recently updated list, he was ranked as their 20th best prospect and MLB Pipeline has him at #22.

Rodriguez is more of a contact/on-base hitter. So far, he’s only collected 265 plate appearances in his two professional seasons. The highest level he’s reached is Rookie-Ball. Overall, he’s been a decent hitter with a .276/.389/.452 line. He’s only struck out 44 times and has walked 35 times.

All told he has a .370 wOBA, 20 doubles and 4 home runs. Plus he’s a switch hitter. His hit tool is considered a 60-grade tool, but his game power and raw power only come in as future-40 and 45 grade tools. Though he did show some pop with an average exit velocity of 90 MPH in 2019, albeit with a 36% hard hit rate. Although according to MLB Pipeline, he could develop more power from the left side of the plate.

He’s also very athletic for the position. He’s seen as a 60-future fielder, but doesn’t have the strongest arm with a 50-grade. But it’s quite an accurate arm as he’s gunned down 42% of would be base runners. However he isn’t limited to just behind the dish. He’s also seen time in left field, right field and first base.

Rodriguez will look to get a full season’s worth of playing time in 2021. It will also be his age-21 season and he’ll likely start the season out at Low-A. It will be interesting to see how aggressive the Pittsburgh Pirates are with Rodriguez this season.