Pittsburgh Pirates Minors: Top 5 Performers in May

With one month of the minor league season complete, let’s take a look at the five best performances from the Pittsburgh Pirates minor league system.

After the delayed start to the minor league season, things are in full swing. The Pittsburgh Pirates have one of the deepest farm systems among all MLB teams. They really added a ton of depth it out this offseason, acquiring very good prospect packages for the likes of Josh Bell, Jameson Taillon and Joe Musgrove. With so many notable prospects within the system, there are bound to be some really good performances once the season got underway.

With one whole month of minor league ball in, why don’t we take a look at some of the best performances Pirate prospects had to offer. The Pittsburgh Pirates had many notable monthly performances, but let’s look at what I considered the five best. Note that these players aren’t in any specific order.

Starting Pitcher Roansy Contreras

We’ve covered pitching prospect Roansy Contreras a handful of times here before, and for a good reason. The right-hander has been dominating at Double-A. Contreras was part of the Jameson Taillon trade. Although he wasn’t the most touted piece heading to Pittsburgh, he’s pitching like he was.

So far at Altoona, Contreras has pitched 21.1 innings posting a 2.08 ERA, 1.96 FIP and 0.78 WHIP. Contreras threw 18.2 straight scoreless innings. He gave up 5 earned runs in his most recent start, but even then, he struck out 6 batters and only allowed 4 hits in 4 innings of work. It was the walks (3) and the lone long ball that killed him.

Despite his most recent outing Contreras still carries an outstanding 42% strikeout rate to pair with a solid 7.4% walk rate. The one home run he gave up on May 25 is the only one he has surrendered this year. He’s currently carrying a strong 48.7% ground ball rate and only has allowed batters to hit a line-drive 7.7% of the time.

Contreras’s success has mainly been due to all of his offerings looking much improved compared to 2019 when he was with the Yankee High-A affiliate. In 2019, he was averaging out in the 92-94 MPH range, and only topping out at 96 MPH. However, 96 MPH has been the norm for him, and he’s topping out in the upper-90’s. His breaking pitch is also looking much sharper, and his change-up has been getting decent reviews.

Contreras’ most recent start has inflated his ERA a bit, but he’s still second in FIP, 4th in strikeout rate, opponent batting average (.147), third in WHIP, 4th in xFIP (2.47), and 5th in K/BB ratio (5.67). Overall, he’s been a top-five minor league pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates this year.

Overall, it’s an extremely promising start to his time with the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Contreras entered the season with some questions as to whether he’d be a starter long-term, but he seemed to prove he belongs in the rotation based on the early returns.

Infielder Maikol Escotto

Another piece that came to the Pittsburgh Pirates from the Yankees in the Taillon trade was infielder Maikol Escotto. Escotto has been one of, if not the system’s best minor league bat so far this year. In 82 plate appearances in the month of May, Escotto hit for a slash line of .317/.476/.429 with a .450 wOBA and 160 wRC+. Among all Pirate minor leaguers with at least 60 plate appearances this season, he’s leading them all in wRC+, wOBA, one-base percentage and batting average. He’s also second in OPS and walk rate (20.7%).

Escotto’s power hasn’t shown up yet. He only has a .111 isolated slugging percentage, compared to his .238 mark with the Yankee Dominican Summer League team in 2019. Escotto only has four extra-base hits with two doubles, a triple and a home run. Though he is carrying a solid 21.1% line drive rate, he’s still hitting ground balls at a 55.3% rate, and only has a 23.7% fly ball rate. He is hitting the ball hard, so the power will likely eventually come around.

Escotto has mainly played shortstop this year where he has 92 innings logged. But he’s also played a fair bit of second base. He’s played 42 innings at the keystone. He could also see some time at third base later in the year, as he played 67 innings at the hot corner in 2019.

Starting Pitcher Michael Burrows

The hot start to the 2021 season of Michael Burrows has been sliding under many radars. Burrows has simply been one of the best pitchers at the High-A level and isn’t getting nearly as much attention for it as he deserves.

Burrows has pitched to the tune of a 1.13 ERA, 2.27 FIP and 0.69 WHIP through 16 innings of work in his 4 starts. The right-hander has gotten a ton of strikeouts. He currently sits with a 43.1% strikeout rate, a huge improvement from his 2018-2019 mark of 21.3%. He’s improved his walk rate as well. His 8.6% walk rate is a 1.8% improvement since 2019. Burrows has always been good at suppressing home runs and is doing it again this year. He currently only has allowed 1 home run for a 0.56 HR/9 rate.

The 11th round draft pick in the 2018 draft, Burrows is currently among the Pirate minor league leaders. Among their pitchers with at least 10 innings, Burrows is first in opponent average against, second in WHIP, third in strikeout rate, ERA, 4th in walk rate, 5th in FIP and 6th in xFIP (3.00).

Burrows fastball has always had a high spin rate, but he’s also added a few ticks of velocity. He also has a plus curveball. The question remains if he can develop a third offering, which may be the decision-maker as to whether or not he remains in as a starting pitcher or not. So far, the most innings he’s gone in a single game is 4.1 innings.

Outfielder Lolo Sanchez

Another season no one has talked about this year belongs to outfielder Lolo Sanchez. He’s completely flown under the radar and despite that, he’s among the organization’s minor league leaders in many statistical categories.

On the season, Sanchez is demolishing pitches at the tune of a .269/.412/.493 line with a .410 wOBA and 159 wRC+ in 85 May plate appearances. Sanchez has been crushing the ball, with 9 of his 18 total hits going for extra bases (3 home runs, 6 doubles). This has led to an outstanding .224 isolated slugging percentage. That’s, by far, a single-season career-high. He has almost matched his own highest single-season home run total when he hit 5 in 2019. Sanchez has always had speed, and he’s stolen 6 bags in 7 attempts so far this season. He’s on pace for 37 across a 500 plate appearance season.

Among the Pirate minor league hitters with at least 60 trips to the plate, he leads them in OPS, strikeout rate is second in on-base percentage, wOBA, wRC+, 5th in slugging percentage, and 7th in isolated slugging. He’s just 1 of 40 minor league players to have more walks than strikeouts this year in at least 60 plate appearances, coming in with a 12/9 BB/K ratio.

Sanchez showing power is very promising. He’s always been more of a light-hitting, on-base speed threat more than a power threat, but he’s still walking at a very strong rate while also throwing some pop into the mix. He’s also been able to increase his power output without having to sell out his strikeout rate, going down on strike three just 11.3% of the time. Sanchez just turned 22 at the later half of April, so he’s still pretty young. But he could quickly move up the minors, and potentially to the majors, between the next two seasons.

Pitcher Santiago Florez

The Pittsburgh Pirates signed Santiago Florez back during the 2016 international signing date. After three middling seasons from 2017 to 2019, the high-ceiling right-hander finally looks like he’s hitting his stride at age 21.

Florez has tossed 17.2 innings with the Low-A Bradenton Marauders. All told, he has a 2.04 ERA, 2.09 FIP and 0.85 WHIP. Florez struggled with control from 2017-2019, posting a 13.3% walk rate. But this year, he’s walked 7.2% of the batters he’s faced. Florez also struggled heavily with getting swings and misses. He had a sub-20% strikeout rate, 16.4% to be exact, but he’s gotten 27 batters to go down on strike three. Just to show how good that is, his single-season career-high entering 2021 was 36 in 41.2 innings during 2019.

Florez is getting ground balls at relatively the same rate he was throughout his first 3 professional seasons, currently having a solid 45.5% mark, and he’s yet to give up a home run. Keeping the ball in the park was one of his few bright spots throughout his first few seasons. He allowed just six in 138.1 innings, leading to a 0.39 HR/9 rate.

Like Burrows, Florez has always had a high spin rate on his fastball, but his breaking ball is absurdly wicked. Overall, Florez is second among Pirates’ minor league hurlers in FIP, 7th in K/BB ratio, strikeout rate, WHIP, and 5th in xFIP. He’s just one of 7 Pirate pitchers to not allow a home run in at least 10 innings.