Pittsburgh Pirates: Examining How 2020 Draft Picks Are Performing

Now that the 2021 draft is over, let’s take a look at all of the Pittsburgh Pirates draft picks from the previous draft

The Pittsburgh Pirates just finished off an outstanding 2021 draft. The team selected the best college hitter in the draft in Henry Davis, then were able to get the top left-handed high school pitcher in Anthony Solomento. Let’s also not forget that they were able to get an absolute steal on two-way high school star Bubba Chandler with the 72nd pick, even though his talent made him a guy who could have easily went in the top 20-25 picks.

There are many other steals we could talk about from this year’s  draft, but I don’t want to solely focus on that. I want to take a look at Ben Cherington’s first draft as the Pittsburgh Pirates’ general manager. The 2020 draft was unlike anything anyone had ever seen, just like almost everything else that happened in 2020.

The draft was only 5 rounds. This was due to the pandemic going on at the time. Not only was it just 5 rounds, but no games were played that day as official MLB games wouldn’t start until July. Regardless of that, the Pirates made the best of the five rounds and their six picks.

Now that it’s been over a year since this draft and another draft has taken place, let’s take a look at each of the Pirates’ draft picks from this season. See how they are faring at each of their respective levels and where we could see them by the end of the season.

Before we get into our first pick, I want to address Jack Hartman. Hartman was the Pirates’ 4th round pick. Although a talented relief pitching prospect, he’s yet to play a professional game due to having to undergo Tommy John surgery. I wanted to address this here as I will be going from the Pirates’ 3rd round pick to their 5th round pick.

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at their 2020 first-round pick.

Nick Gonzales

The Pittsburgh Pirates used their first pick of the draft on second baseman Nick Gonzales. Selected 7th overall, Gonzales was seen as one of, if not the best pure hitter going into the draft. Throughout college, Gonzales hit .399/.502/.747 with 37 home runs, 39 doubles, and a .510 wOBA.

Going into the 2021 season, Gonzales was seen as a top 50 prospect across the board. Currently, MLB Pipeline ranks him as the 29th best prospect in all of baseball while FanGraphs pins him at #68. However, Baseball Prospectus had him at #39 and Baseball America put him at #51 going into the year.

Gonzales started his pro career out at High-A Greensboro. So far, he’s been a solid batter putting up a .248/.322/.457 line with a .341 wOBA, and 112 wRC+. Gonzales is striking out more than you’d like at a 32.9% rate. But he’s showing off some good power with a .209 isolated slugging percentage.

Gonzales has been hampered by a hand injury that kept him out for a little over a month. Plus, let’s not forget that this is the first time he’s played any games since early into the 2020 college season as it was cut short. This is all in a small sample size of plate appearances of less than 150 (143 to be exact). Overall, he’s putting up some solid numbers at High-A. Plus he has a strong 23.5% line drive rate and ground ball rate of just 32.1%, so it should be expected to see his numbers rise if he can keep up those batted ball rates.

Gonzales could get his first taste of Double-A before the end of the season if he can catch fire over the next few weeks. Gonzales’ is seen as one of the Pirates’ future stars, so look for him to be a potential call-up in 2022.

Jared Jones

The Pittsburgh Pirates second-round pick was Jared Jones, a flame throwing right-hander from La Mirada High School. Coming into the draft, Jones was seen as a pitcher with a big fastball. He averages out in the 96-97 MPH range while also carrying a slider with two different speeds and a change-up.

So far, Jones has put up pretty decent numbers Low-A Bradenton. While his 4.50 ERA or 1.50 WHIP in 30 innings isn’t all that pretty, he has a 3.41 FIP and 3.12 xFIP. Jones has struck out 37% of all the batters he has faced. Walks have been a bit high with a 9.6% walk rate, but he’s kept home runs to just a 0.9 HR/9 pace. Plus, he has gotten unlucky so far this season. Opponents have an insanely high .439 batting average on balls in play vs him.

However, Jones needs to work on getting the ball on the ground more. Currently, he has induced ground balls at a 36.8% rate. He’s been giving up line drives nearly a quarter of the time with a 24.6% line drive rate. He’s also gotten opposing players to hit a fly ball 38.6% of the time.

Being just 19-years-old and still refining his talent, Jones will likely spend most, if not the rest of the 2021 season at Bradenton. He’ll turn 20 in early August, but the Pittsburgh Pirates have no reason to rush a high school-aged prospect through their system.

Nick Garcia

The Pittsburgh Pirates used their third-round pick on Nick Garcia. Garcia was coming off a strong college career that saw him post a 1.19 ERA, 1.44 FIP, and .831 WHIP in 83 innings of work. Garcia struck out a ton of batters, getting opponents down on strike three 35.6% of the time. However, this didn’t come at the cost of his control, posting a 5.4% walk rate. The most impressive part of Garcia’s time in college is that he allowed zero home runs.

Garcia has joined Jones down at Bradenton. He’s worked as both a starting pitcher and a reliever having played in 12 total games but starting 5. In total, he has tossed 38.2 innings posting a solid 3.26 ERA and 1.371 WHIP, but a worryingly high 5.01 FIP and 4.81 xFIP. Garcia is striking out over a quarter of the batters he’s faced so far, having a 25.3% K-rate. But walks have been a huge issue. He’s surrendered a free pass 12.1% of the time. He’s carrying a solid .93 HR/9 rate.

But his batted ball rates suggest that he could lower that. He’s inducing ground balls 57.6% of the time. Line drives have essentially been a non-issue, posting a 12.1% line drive rate. He’s only given up fly balls 30.3% of the time and 23.3% of said fly balls are infield flies.

Garcia is a little older than Jones. He just turned 22 in April. There is a chance that Garcia gets a taste of Greensboro before the end of the season, but he definitely needs to work on his command. While it’s one of his few issues so far this season, it’s a very big problem to have, surrendering walks over 12% of the time.

Logan Hofmann

Last but certainly not least, the Pirates picked right-hander Logan Hofmann with their 5th round pick and 138th overall selection. While Garcia ended his career allowing no home runs, Hofmann ended his rattling off 28 straight innings without allowing an earned run. This also came with 38 strikeouts and just 5 walks.

Hofmann joined both Garcia and Jones at Low-A. Hofmann has certainly carried over the high strikeout rate from his college years. He currently has a 32.2% strikeout rate. He’s also only allowed 3 home runs in 42.2 innings. He’s given up walks at a 9.6% rate, which is a bit higher than you’d like to see, but still not bad. Overall, Hofmann has a 2.76 ERA, 3.56 FIP and 1.039 WHIP.

While he doesn’t have an insanely high ground ball rate, he’s still inducing the batted ball result at a 43.6% clip. However, he’s only allowed a line drive 17% of the time. He needs to cut down on the fly balls as well, or induce more infield fly balls. Currently, he has just a 39.8% fly ball rate.

The soft-tossing Hofmann has served as a starting pitcher 5 times and reliever 8 times. Hofmann still has been solid overall. He needs to improve a few things, but other than that, he’s been a pretty decent pitcher. He’s younger at 21-years-old, so there’s a case to be made that he could spend the rest of the season at Bradenton, or get that little taste of Greensboro at the end of the year.