Pittsburgh Pirates: Breaking Down Players Acquired in Adam Frazier Trade

Tucupita Marcano

The headliner of this trade was the 21-year-old utility player. Like Frazier, Marcano’s primary position has been second base, but he can also play third, short, left, and right field. Additionally like Frazier, Marcano is more of a contact hitter, who has a left-handed swing.

Tucupita Marcano has been disagreed upon a decent bit when it comes to his ranking because MLB Pipeline and FanGraphs have him listed at completely different ends of prospect lists. MLB Pipeline had him ranked at 5th in the Padres system just after their 4 top-50 guys, but FanGraphs plugged him in as the Pirates’ 33rd best prospect with a FV of 40.

Marcano has very little data for the Major Leagues, as his Major League debut was on April 1st of this year, and he was sent back down to Triple-A after only 50 at-bats. Looking at his Triple-A stats though, it begins to look more and more like the Pittsburgh Pirates traded 1.5 years of Frazier for 6 years of a player identical to him plus two more players.

At Triple-A this season Marcano has hit .272 to go with a .367 on-base percentage and a WRC+ of 101. Additionally, he has great plate vision, as he manages to draw walks at a greater clip than he does going down on strikes. (13.6% vs 12.6%) These stats are very eerily similar to what Frazier put up from 2016-2020 when you take out his outlier season this year.

Lastly, Ben Cherington was huge on this guy back before they made the Musgrove trade but the Padres did not want to give him up at all during the offseason. This should show the fans that even if something great about Marcano does not stick out to them, it definitely has to the Padres and Cherington, or he would have been part of the Musgrove trade, or the Pittsburgh Pirates would not have sent $1.4 million in addition to Frazier to get him.

Marcano will start off his Pirate tenure in Triple-A Indianapolis. However, he could join their MLB roster sooner rather than later.

Jack Suwinski

The next player that the Pittsburgh Pirates received in the trade was left-handed hitting outfielder Jack Suwinski. He was drafted by the Padres back in the 2016 draft in the 15th round. Suwinski has a FV of 35+ from FanGraphs but has been lighting it up in Double-A this season.

So far this year Suwinski is batting .269 with an on-base percentage of .398 and has a remarkable wRC+ of 153. Suwinski is a threat to get on base constantly as his OBP is almost at .400, but that doesn’t mean that his swing isn’t powerful.

Suwinski is currently tied for third in the Double-A Central with 15 home runs. This great power is something that would definitely be amazing to have in the outfield, but it does come with one minor flaw. That would be his strikeout percentage.

Suwinski striking out 27.7% of the time which is concerning, but even with this high strikeout percentage he still gets on base at a really good rate. With that being said, his strikeout ratio is concerning but not something that is a dealbreaker. Suwinski will certainly try to work on getting the percentage down some, as he will start off his Pirate career in Double-A Altoona.

Michell Miliano

The final piece of this trade was the 21-year-old right-handed reliever Michell Miliano. Miliano carries a FV of 35+ from FanGraphs. His two main pitches are his fastball and a curveball, both of which are graded pretty nicely by FanGraphs. His fastball has a grade of 55, whereas his curve gets a grade of 60.

These pitches have been working very well to punch batters out, as he has stuck out 44% of the batters that he has faced this year in A ball. Additionally, he is limiting the opposition when it comes to getting hits, as the opponent’s average is already down to .161.

While the average and strikeout numbers are great, this is one concern that comes along with Miliano. That concern would be his control. His control has been given a rating of 30 by FanGraphs, which is the one thing that brings his FV down so much.

In 2019, Miliano walked 24.3% of the batters he faced and only struck out batters at 8.4% better rate than that of his walks. This high walk percentage skyrocketed his WHIP to 1.95, even with his opponent’s average at .195.

This season at Low-A Miliano has worked on that number, as his walk percentage is down to 17.9%, which is 26.5% lower than his strikeout percentage. He also has gotten his WHIP down to 1.40, which is another huge improvement.

When taking these into account, it shows that Miliano definitely has the potential to be a good reliever down the road if he keeps getting his control under control, which he will work on when he goes to Greensboro to start his Pirates tenure.