Pittsburgh Pirates Prospects: Nick Gonzales Top at His Position

Pittsburgh Pirates prospect Nick Gonzales continues to garner praise as he climbs through Pittsburgh’s minor league system

Entering the 2022 season there are plenty of prospects who could generate excitement among fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates. With one of the top farm systems in all of baseball, it is easy to see why Pirate fans would get excited about a variety of prospects.

One of these prospects that are generating excitement is second baseman Nick Gonzales. The 2020 first-round draft selection had a great season with High-A Greensboro in 2021 and followed that up wit ha strong showing in the AFL.

From the time he was drafted Gonzales quickly began to garner praise. He was viewed as the best pure college hitter in his draft class and one of the nest all-around players in the draft. This led to him immediately finding himself ranking highly among Pirate prospects.

On Wednesday, Gonzales gained another honor. The right-handed hitting Gonzales was named MLB Pipeline’s top second base prospect in all of baseball. This did not come as any surprise for the highly touted Gonzales.

Gonzales is coming off a season in which he hit for a .302/.385/.565 slash line to go with a 150 wRC+ in 369 plate appearances in 80 games played for Greensboro. He drew walks at a 10.8% rate to go with an isolated slugging (ISO) of .262.

The increase in power form Gonzales is what had to excite the Pittsburgh Pirates most. There have never been questions about Gonzales’s hit tool or his ability to get on base, the lone question about his offense has always been his power. To see him make huge strides in that category in 2021 was a great sign for his long-term potential.

MLB Pipeline also cited Gonzales as having the best hit tool among second base prospects. Gonzales was also dubbed as having the highest floor, which comes as now surprise for a player with a hit tool as good as Gonzales.

Gonzales will likely start the season with Double-A Altoona. If he hits for the Curve the way he did for the Grasshoppers then he could quickly climb to Triple-A Indianapolis. It would not be a surprise to see Gonzales make his MLB debut late in the season. Even he does not, he should be in line for his MLB debut in 2023. Regardless of when his MLB debut happens Gonzales should lockdown second base for the Pirates for a long time.