Pittsburgh Pirates: Roansy Contreras Developing into a Top Prospect

Following his first three starts at the Double-A level pitcher Roansy Contreras is developing into a top flight prospect for the Pittsburgh Pirates

During the offseason the Pittsburgh Pirates traded starting pitcher Jameson Taillon to the New York Yankees in exchange for a quartet of prospects. While Miguel Yajure may have been the primary piece of the package going back to the Pirates, all four prospects have very good talent.

The one I want to focus on today is Roansy Contreras, who’s looked beyond sharp in his first three starts of 2021. If he can keep up the outstanding stuff he’s shown so far, he could be one of the Pirates’ highest-ranking prospects.

In his first start of the season with Double-A Altoona Contreras tossed 5 innings, striking out 11 and issuing no walks. He did surrender 5 hits, but only one went for extra bases, that being a double, and none scored a run either.

His second start was a display of flat-out dominance. Contreras pitched 6 no-hit innings. This included 11 more strikeouts and issued just 2 walks. Contreras has continued this absolute domination over Double-A batters. In his most recent start on Tuesday night he went 6.2 more shutout innings, allowing just 3 base runners (2 hits, 1 walk), while striking out 6 more batters.

All told, the talented right-hander has tossed 17.2 innings without allowing any runs. He’s struck out 45.2% of all the batters he has faced while keeping them to a .119 batting average. He’s also shown some excellent control, having just a 4.8% walk rate.

A big part of his success has been his massively improved pitch arsenal. Before arriving with the Pittsburgh Pirates his breaking pitch was more of a slurvy-like pitch. However, so far this season, it’s looked like a hard curveball with much sharper break and action to it. It’s looked like a really good offering so far this season.

Not only has his breaking pitch looked better since arriving with the Pittsburgh Pirates, but his fastball has looked even better. When he was with the Yankees, he was clocking in around 92-95 MPH range while topping out at 96 MPH. However, so far, he’s averaged about 96-98 MPH.

This is right around where he was sitting during Spring Training and has been so far through his first 3 starts. Not only is he showing improved velocity, but he’s able to carry it throughout the game. In his recent start, he was still throwing 96 MPH into his 6th inning of work.

Contreras has a third offering, that being a changeup. His changeup already looked like an above-average off-speed offering before he came to the Pirates. In total, this would give him three above-average pitches he can throw with regularity.

Going into this season, I projected Contreras as a guy that could end up as a number 3-4 starter with the floor of a high-leverage bullpen arm. However, I think it’s reasonable to say that his improved stuff warrants a re-evaluation of where he could end up in the near future.

Contreras is still young as he’s just 21-years-old and won’t turn 22 until early November. He isn’t the biggest guy, but he can still leverage his 6’0″, 175-pound frame. He could still add a little more bulk to help his durability and endurance to keep up his velocity over a longer period. After all, he’s only ever pitched more than 100 innings in a single season once, that being in 2019 when he tossed 132.1 with the Yankee High-A affiliate.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that Contreras’ ceiling could rise to closer to a #2 level starter if he keeps showing the stuff he’s displayed early on into 2021. At this rate, he could be a top 100 prospect, somewhere in the 90-100 range.

Contreras has been a very nice find for the Pittsburgh Pirates. While he’s pitched less than 20 innings, his overall stuff has looked massively improved since arriving to the Bucs. He could end up being one of the team’s higher-ranked prospects by the end of 2021.