Pittsburgh Pirates 2021 Prospect Preview: Outfielder Travis Swaggerty

The minor league season was delayed by a month to start the season. Now that we’re in the final week of April, let’s preview what the 2021 season could hold for Pittsburgh Pirates outfield prospect Travis Swaggerty.

In the 2018 MLB Draft the Pittsburgh Pirates used their first-round selection to pick outfielder Travis Swaggerty out of the University of South Alabama. Swaggerty was the 10th overall pick in the draft, and while his professional career has been brief, he’s looked like a solid pick. So what does 2021 hold for the organization’s top center field prospect?

The last time Swaggerty played professionally was in 2019. Across 524 plate appearances at High-A Bradenton the highly-athletic center fielder hit for a .265/.347/.381 slash line. This all came to a very solid .341 wOBA and 120 wRC+. Swaggerty displayed good plate discipline as well, drawing walks at a 10.9% rate while having a solid 22.1% strikeout rate.

Swaggerty did much better in the second half of the season than the first. Swaggerty hit just .221/.318/.329 in the first half of the season before hitting .306.375/.430 to finish off the season. Swaggerty has yet to show game power across a full season. Sure, he saw his isolated slugging percentage rise from just .108 to .124 between the first and second halves of 2019, but all told he had a .116 ISO.

Swaggerty’s primary calling card is his defensive ability. FanGraphs grades both his arm and fielding a 60. He can also cover a lot of ground as well. Swaggerty not only uses his 65-speed grade to track down flyballs into the gap, but it also helped him swipe 23 bags in 31 attempts in 2019.

However, while he hasn’t shown any big game power yet, he has a 60-current and future raw power grade. This is because he had a very solid 89 MPH exit velocity and 41% hard hit rate, both of which would have been above the Major League average.

The main issue is that Swaggerty hit ground balls at a 49.3% rate. While he is more prone to pull the ball, he isn’t a pull-happy hitter. He still went the other way 26.8% of the time, and up the middle 30.8% of the time. If he can just start getting the ball off the ground a little bit, you’re looking at a potential 20-25 home run guy.

Swaggerty’s exit velocity and hard hit rate are similar to that of 2019 batters like Mike Moustakas, Eugenio Suarez, Randal Grichuk, Avisail Garcia and Nick Castellanos. A majority of hitters in 2019 with a 89 MPH exit velo/40% hard hit rate were good hitters which projects well for Swaggerty already.

Swaggerty stands in at 5’11, 200 pounds. He’s added a bit of bulk since being drafted in 2018. In 2018, he weighed in around 180 LBS. He’s just about 2 inches shorter than former Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Starling Marte, but is about 5 pounds heavier than him.

Swaggerty could be a .270/.350/.450 batter with 18-25 home runs in the near future. That is comparable production to Yankees’ centerfielder Aaron Hicks from 2018-2020. Currently, he’s 23-years-old but will end the season at 24-years-old. He’ll likely start the season at Double-A, but we could see him get a brief stint in the Majors in 2021. Though he’s best known for his defensive ability, Swaggerty has the potential to be a good hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates as well.