Pittsburgh Pirates: Potential Underrated Early Round Draft Pick

The Pittsburgh Pirates could take this underrated southpaw with their fourth-round pick in this year’s draft.

MLB Pipeline recently released their top 200 draft prospects. The MLB draft is still over a month away, but there has still been plenty of analysis done on players available in this year’s draft. Currently, MLB Pipeline’s 110th best prospect is left-hander Trey Dombrowski. The Pittsburgh Pirates happen to have the 110th overall pick. Although ratings aren’t a mock draft, and it’s far from a guarantee, I think it’s safe to say that there is potential that Dombrowski is available to the Pirates at no. 110 and that he’s a highly underrated player.

Dombrowski has done very well at Monmouth University this season. The southpaw has a 2.63 ERA and 0.91 WHIP through 89 innings of work. Dombrowski has only allowed eight home runs, leading to a solid 0.81 HR/9. However, what’s even more impressive is his strikeouts and walks.

Dombrowski has only walked 3.4% of batters faced to reach via free pass. You’d think that might come at the cost of his strikeout rate, but it hasn’t. He has still struck out 31.3% of batters faced. Now the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference isn’t necessarily the Big 12, SEC, or PAC-12, but Dombrowski did very well in the Cape Cod League.

The Cape Cod League is considered the best summer collegiate baseball league. Dombrowski pitched there in 2021, and while it was only 31.2 innings, he dominated opposing batters. Dombrowski allowed just 3 earned runs and zero home runs. He allowed more earned runs than walks (two free passes) and struck out 45 batters. His team, the Harwich Mariners, was in the same division as some of the best draft prospects right now. That includes Zach Neto, Gavin Cross, Brooks Lee, Peyton Graham, Chase Delauter, and Jace Jung.

Dombrowski isn’t a hard thrower, only averaging out in the 88-92 MPH range, but he has laser-like command of it. His slider and curveball are both very usable offerings, and he also throws a change-up. That’s four offerings with average or better potential. On top of that, he has 70-grade control. How often do you get a pitcher with a wide arsenal and elite-level command?

I have the Pittsburgh Pirates taking another college lefty in Carson Palmquist in my mock draft. Although Palmquist could absolutely be available at no. 110, and he does have a higher ceiling than Dombrowski, this is definitely a guy to keep an eye on. Soft-tossers aren’t guys who get a whole lot of attention, and he could fall because teams might want to go with the higher-ceiling/higher-risk candidate over him. That could help the Pirates in getting him to fall to them at 110.