Pittsburgh Pirates Prospects: Jared Triolo’s Future

Pittsburgh Pirates prospect Jared Triolo has had a strong season at High-A Greensboro, but what kind of role could he play in the future?

The Pittsburgh Pirates have a deep, talented farm system. Aside from their extreme wealth of young pitching, they also have a wealth of young position players. From Nick Gonzales to Liover Peguero and Oneil Cruz, there are more than enough young players that the Pirates could potentially build around.

But underneath all those highly talented prospects is one who’s doing very well at High-A Greensboro. The Pittsburgh Pirates picked him in the 2019 draft in the second-round and that’s infielder Jared Triolo.

Triolo is having a strong season with Greensboro. In 402 trips to the plate he’s batting .304/.360/.483 with a .367 wOBA and 125 wRC+. Though not a big-time power hitter, he has 14 home runs, 23 doubles, and a solid .180 isolated slugging percentage. His plate discipline has been ok but not great with a 7.7% walk rate and 20.4% strikeout rate. While those numbers won’t jump off the page, they’re solid, to say the least.

Triolo has solid batted ball rates as well. His line drive percentage sits at 21.6% while having a fly ball rate just under 40% (39.2%). He also has avoided ground balls at a 39.2% rate. While he does pull the ball more often than going the other way, his overall spread is pretty even. Triolo pulls the ball 38.4% of the time while going the other way 34.5% of the time.

Triolo stands at a strong 6’3″, 212 pounds. Despite his larger frame, he moves pretty well. He’s swiped 22 bags in 28 attempts. As a defender, he’s a plus glove at the hot corner. But he’s also played a handful of games at shortstop throughout his pro career and a fair share of games in left field while in college.

It would be hard for him to break through in the Majors at third base as Ke’Bryan Hayes has the hot corner on lockdown for the foreseeable future. But he’s versatile enough that he doesn’t have to play just third base. He has experience at shortstop, left field, and could probably slide over to second base and first base to add more infield versatility.

I think Triolo could be a similar hitter to Neil Walker during his time with the Bucs. He hit .272/.338.431 with a .336 wOBA, 114 wRC+, and averaging 12-18 home runs a season. After all, they do have similar frames with Walker standing at 6’2, 214 pounds. Though Triolo is a bit more versatile as he can play all over the infield as well as some corner outfield whereas Walker played just second base (and a few games at third base at the very beginning of his career) with the Bucs.

The Pittsburgh Pirates might have a tough time finding Triolo playing time given that, aside from Hayes, they have a whole lot more young and controllable infielders like Liover Peguero, Nick Gonzales, Maikol Escotto, Diego Castillo, Rodolfo Castro, Tucupita Marcano, Ji-Hwan Bae, Oneil Cruz, Hoy Park, Jackson Glenn, Michael Chavis, and a few others that are in the low minors.

But I feel the Pittsburgh Pirates will find room for him to play. He could always slide over to first base if Mason Martin struggles if and when he gets promoted to Triple-A or the Major Leagues, as well as provide even more outfield depth. Plus with the DH likely returning, there will be another lineup spot (not suggesting Triolo would be a DH, but letting someone like Mason Martin play there so Triolo can get some playing time in).