Rum Bunter’s Top Ten Pittsburgh Pirates Prospects: End of 2022

Number Ten – Liover Peguero
Pre-season Ranking: #6

Coming in at number ten and the first prospect we’ll delve deep into, we have shortstop Liover Peguero. The Pirates acquired Peguero in the Starling Marte trade in the 2019-2020 offseason. Peguero was the headliner of the deal and has steadily climbed prospect boards since arriving at his new organization, but stalled out a bit this year. Though that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to become a capable player in the future.

Last season, Peguero batted for an impoverish .259/.308/.387 with a .306 wOBA and 88 wRC+. Although Peguero only struck out at a 21.3% rate, he drew walks in just 5.6% of his total plate appearances. On the plus side, he swiped 28 bases in 34 attempts and hit double-digit home runs for the second season in a row.

Peguero made his major league debut but only played one game before the team optioned him back to Double-A Altoona. Through the first two-and-a-half months of the season, Peguero had a quality .784 OPS, .340 wOBA, and 110 wRC+. That was before he was promoted, and after he was optioned, he managed a poor .608 OPS, .277 wOBA, and 69 wRC+. While Peguero did poorly overall at Altoona this year, you have to remember he was in just his age-21 season. The average age of pitchers at his level was 24.5 years of age.

Peguero still projects to be a similar player to Philadelphia Phillie middle infielder Jean Segura, a guy who hits for a decent average, gets on base at a healthy rate, and can provide 20+ stolen bases a season. He might not have upper-deck power, but he can blast upwards of 12-15 home runs a season, and he’ll surely rack up plenty of doubles. Peguero made some errors last season, but it’s not to a worrying degree just yet. He has shown the skill set to be a shortstop in the long run.