Pittsburgh Pirates Prospects: Best Player at Each Level

Triple-A Indianapolis – Outfielder Anthony Alford

Anthony Alford opened the 2021 season as one of the Pittsburgh Pirates starting outfielders. However, his struggles through April led him to be designated for assignment for the club. Instead of testing the free-agent waters, Alford elected to go to Triple-A where he has torn up pitching at the level.

Through 210 plate appearances, the former top Toronto Blue Jays prospect is hitting .301/.424/.555. Alford’s biggest strength has been hitting line drives and drawing walks. He has a 26% line drive rate while drawing walks over 15% of the time (15.7%). He also has 11 home runs and a .254 isolated slugging percentage. Overall, he has a .423 wOBA, and 159 wRC+.

Though there are some major signs of him getting lucky and regressing. He currently has an insanely high batting average on balls in play of .461. The highest single-season BABIP in a season where a player had at least 200 plate appearances was .438. He’s also striking out at a very high 34.8% rate. Those two things could spell disaster for Alford.

While there are some major red flags on Alford’s performance at Triple-A, he’s probably the first player the Pittsburgh Pirates will recall if something happens to one of Ben Gamel, Gregory Polanco, or Bryan Reynolds (knock on wood the last never happens).

The Pirates have used Indianapolis as more of a place where organizational depth goes rather than prospect development, at least so far. The only noteworthy prospects who have played at Triple-A this year are Miguel Yajure and Travis Swaggerty. Though that could quickly change over the next year or two given the amount of talent at High-A and Double-A.