Pittsburgh Pirates Prospects: Best Player at Each Level

Double-A Altoona Curve – Pitcher Roansy Contreras

Picking who was the best player at Double-A was hard. You could make a very good case for Oneil Cruz, Mason Martin, and Canaan Smith-Njigba to be here. That trio of batters have all had great seasons at Altoona this year. Ultimately, I chose to go with Roansy Contreras. Contreras was acquired as part of the Jameson Taillon trade and he’s been flat-out dominant since arriving with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

In 46 innings, the right-hander has a 2.35 ERA, 2.39 FIP and 0.91 WHIP. Contreras has struck out 35.5% of all the batters he has faced. His overall stuff has looked better this year, throwing in the 96-97 MPH range rather than the 92-94 MPH range he sat around when he was a New York Yankee prospect. Plus his breaking pitch has looked much sharper. However, all this improvement hasn’t come at the cost of his control. He has walked just 6% of all the batters he’s faced, a 0.7% decrease from 2019.

Home runs have been a non-issue. He’s surrendered just 3, mainly due to his amazing batted rates. Not only is he inducing ground balls over 50% of the time (52%), he’s preventing line drives, posting an 11% line drive rate. Contreras has missed the last few weeks, but is up and throwing again. Though he should be back in regular action very soon.