Pittsburgh Pirates Prospects Who Could Join FanGraph Rankings

Logan Hofmann

The Pittsburgh Pirates picked right-hander Logan Hofmann in the 5th round of the 2020 draft. Hofmann turned in some impressive work at the Northwestern State University of Louisiana. In 28 innings, Hofmann allowed zero earned runs, a single long ball, 5 walks, and 38 strikeouts. He had a phenomenal 36.1% strikeout rate to end his college career.

The ability to get a lot of strikeouts carried over to pro-ball. He posted a strong 29.9% K-rate through 82.2 innings of work. This also came with a solid 3.59 ERA and 1.11 WHIP. Hofmann did run into some minor troubles with command and home runs. He had a 9.6% walk rate and 1.31 HR/9. Still, he had a 16.7% line drive rate and 44.3% ground ball rate. His solid batted ball rates led to a 4.05 xFIP, noticeably lower than his actual 4.68 FIP.

Hofmann isn’t a flamethrower. He only throws in the low-90’s. But he has excellent spin on his four-seamer. His 12-6 curveball gets a lot of swings-and-misses on. He’ll mix in a change-up to his arsenal as well. Overall, a solid pitch mix that gives him a starter’s projection, but could also work out of the pen.

Hofmann and Florencio are probably the Pirates’ two best-unranked pitching prospects. Hofmann has really good raw stuff and only minor command issues. Next year is his age-22 campaign. He should easily start the year at Greensboro and if he gets off to a hot start, maybe one of the first prospects promoted to Double-A.