Pittsburgh Pirates: Organization’s Best Pitching Prospects Under Age 20

The Pittsburgh Pirates young pitching depth extends far beyond the upper-minors, and well into the lower minors with the age 20-and-under prospects.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are set to see a noticeable amount of improvement throughout the next season. Many of their top prospects are near MLB ready, or are already MLB ready, and could make an impact in 2022.

By the end of the 2022 season, all of Roansy Contreras, Oneil Cruz, Miguel Yajure, Travis Swaggerty, Nick Gonzales, Matthew Fraizer, Diego Castillo, Canaan Smith-Njigba, Ji-Hwan Bae, Rodolfo Castro, Mason Martin, Carmen Mlodzinski, and Omar Cruz could all be part of the same Major League roster.

That’s a lot of prospects who are going to be in the majors very soon. But the farm and prospect depth doesn’t stop there. They have plenty of 20-and-under position player prospects like Maikol Escotto, Braylon Bishop, Lonnie White Jr., and many others that should help sustain success past the names we listed earlier. But on the pitching side of things, the Pittsburgh Pirates have a ton of under-20 top prospects.

The highest-ranking is right-hander and shortstop Bubba Chandler. The Pittsburgh Pirates selected Chandler in the 3rd round of the 2021 draft, but he is far from your ordinary third-round pick. Chandler was considered a top 20 draft prospect going into the 2021 amateur draft. But because of a commitment to Clemson, many teams passed on Chandler because of the chances he would sign. The Pirates took the risk by selecting him 72nd overall and landed him on a massive $3 million deal.

Chandler as a pitcher has a fastball, curveball, changeup, and slider. None of his offerings are considered below average, by either FanGraphs or MLB Pipeline. He’s already topping out in the mid-to-upper-90’s with his four-seamer. As a shortstop, he’s a highly-athletic middle infielder with a powerful arm, plus defense at short, and some pop. His hit tool is a bit fringy, but nobody is going to complain if he is a Dansby Swanson-type position player, and Lance McCullers Jr.-like starting pitcher in terms of production.

Pittsburgh’s next top 20-and-under arm also came from the 2021 draft. That’s southpaw Anthony Solometo. Selected out of Bishop Eustace High School in the second round, Solometo was highly praised for his ability to command the ball. He usually sits in the low-90’s with his four-seamer but has topped out in the mid-90’s, and pairs that with a slider and changeup. Along with his command, Solometo has a wind-up that’s somewhat of a mix of Madison Bumgarner and Dontrell Willis with a large leg-kick. Overall, there’s a lot to like with Solometo, and could give the Pirates a dominant left-handed starting pitcher, something they haven’t had in quite some time.

Another top pitcher from the second round came in 2020. Right-hander Jared Jones. Jones posted a 4.64 ERA, but a solid 3.91 FIP and 3.75 xFIP in 66 innings with the Low-A Bradenton Marauders. Jones struck out 34.1% of all batters faced while keeping an HR/9 of 0.82. He did dish out his fair share of walks though, coming in with an 11.3% BB%. Jones did run into some poor luck. Along with his solid ERA estimators, Jones had a .385 batting average on balls in play despite overall average batted ball rates.

Jones is a flamethrower with a fastball that averages out in the upper-90’s. He also throws a slider, curveball, and change-up. While he doesn’t have a poor offering in his arsenal, he needs to refine his command. Currently, FanGraphs sees it as a 20-grade tool and only projects it to reach a 35-grade. While his overall stuff and ability don’t mean he needs Greg Maddux-like command to get outs, you’d still like to see him have a little bit better than 35-grade command in the future.

Chandler, Solometo, and Jones are considered some of the highest ceiling pitchers in the Pirates’ organization. Chandler, for his all-star potential both as a pitcher and position player, Solometo for his command and wind-up that keeps hitters off-balance, and Jones for his phenomenal raw stuff. But this trio is far from the only noteworthy 20-and-under pitching prospects in the organization.

Last year, the Pittsburgh Pirates signed Po-Yu Chen out of Taiwan. He was considered one of the country’s top high school prospects. Another 2021 draft pick, Owen Kellington, made over 90% of his outs on strikeouts in High School. The team acquired Joaquin Tejada at the trade deadline for Tyler Anderson. Another international signee, Andy Maldonado is another low-minors prospect. Eddy Yean has shown he has the raw stuff and ability, but ran into some bumps in 2021 and was hurt by two very poor outings. Other than that, he was a solid right-hander for Bradenton who has an extremely high ceiling. I’m sure there are a few other 20-and-under prospects you can think of.

Over the course of the next two years, you’ll likely see many of the top Pirate pitching prospects make the major leagues. But the team has a whole lot of young pitching at ow-A and below. For most of these guys, we’re not going to see them in the majors for the next two-three seasons, but when we do, they might just be one of the sport’s top pitching prospects.