Weighing the Pittsburgh Pirates Prospect Depth by Percentage

The Pittsburgh Pirates have completely revamped their farm system in the last two years.  So what has been the focus?

If you are a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates, then you know what happened to this organization during the final years under the leadership of Frank Coonelly, Neal Huntington and Clint Hurdle. The team’s success back in 2013 stemmed from a strong farm system that was built up.  Somewhere along the way the regime lost their path.  The team’s farm system quickly become shallow with talent and the prospects who were coming up did not make any impact.

When Ben Cherington and company took over, the Bucs farm system was not as bad as some believe.  The team still was investing in upside prospects in the draft and overall was ranked in the middle of the road.  However, the real problem was deeper.  At the time of Cherington’s take over, the biggest complaint about the team’s system was a lack of pitching depth.  Looking at the team’s Top 30 (MLB Pipeline) at the time they were very much missing pitching depth but also projectable top of the rotation type arms.

Of the team’s top 30 prospects, only 36 percent of them were pitchers.  When looking at the top five farm systems in baseball, most ranged from 50-60 percent.  So looking at an organization that was lacking effective pitching, it was pretty easy to see why.  They simply were not giving themselves enough of a chance to find those arms that would work out.  Pitching prospects, more than hitting prospects, have a higher bust rate; they are less likely to make an impact at the big league level.  Having a strong balance of pitchers, if not more is crucial to having a good system.

So what did Ben Cherington due to change this over his last two years?  He clearly understood the Pittsburgh Pirates biggest deficiency was development and especially development of pitchers.  He has heavily invested in adding arms.  Just last year he and Assistant General Manager Steve Sanders (in charge of the draft) spent five of his six draft picks on college arms.  He also targeted a big time time arm in former first round pick Brennan Malone in the Starling Marte deal.

So where do things stand today? Right now, using MLB Pipeline’s Top 30 list, the Pittsburgh Pirates have 16 pitchers ranked inside the Top 30, or 53 percent.  Overall that is nearly a 20 percent increase to the team’s stock pile of arms.  The same can be said using FanGraphs’ Top 51 prospects, with 26 of them being pitchers or 51 percent.

It is important for the Pittsburgh Pirates to continue and keep the percentage of pitchers in the range of 50-60 percent.  Pitchers are harder to predict whether it be performance, health, or not developing the way the team had hoped.  Giving yourself more arms in the system gives you a higher probability to find an arm that could turn into something.  The team right now is right where they need to be. Yes you can never have to much pitching, but as of now they have slightly more pitching than hitting, with a chance for that to continue and change during this year’s draft.