3 Pirates offensive prospects putting up ridiculous video game numbers in May

Although there haven’t been many good things to say about what the Pittsburgh Pirates are doing in the major leagues this year, they at least have some success stories to tell from their minor league system, especially with pitching. However, this month has been especially good for a handful of their position player prospects.

Given how many promising hurlers the Pirates have in the minor leagues, seeing some of their position player prospects doing well is crucial to the overall health of the system. Some of these guys aren’t just playing well, but are playing out of their minds and putting up video game-like numbers in the month of May. 

3 Pirates prospects surging in the month of May

Termarr Johnson

Termarr Johnson is one of the Pirates' most promising young players, and is off to the best start of any year of his career so far. He is currently batting .262/.370/.418 with a .370 wOBA and 131 wRC+ in 166 plate appearances with Altoona. He has only struck out 16.9% of the time and has drawn plenty of walks with a 14.5% free pass percentage. Johnson is also hitting for above-average power, with a .158 isolated slugging percentage.

But May has treated Johnson extremely well. He is slashing .270/.378/.444 with a .378 wOBA, and 139 wRC+. The video game-esque numbers stem from Johnson’s ability to hit for power and inability to strikeout. Johnson has struck out in less than 10% of his plate appearances and has just a 9.3% K% in May, with an isolated slugging percentage of .175.

Hitting for this much power without striking out, even at a 10% rate, is extremely impressive. There are 42 instances since 2015 of a major league batter having a sub-10% K% in 300+ plate appearances. Of those 42, only two have an ISO just as high or higher than Johnson’s ISO throughout the month of May. Those players are 2016 Jose Altuve ... and 2019 Tommy LaStella.

Keep in mind, the Eastern League is currently being dominated by pitching. The league average strikeout rate is 25.6%, while the average OPS is a meager .680 and the average ISO is only .135. The MLB league average OPS in 1920, the last year of the Deadball Era, was only .697. The last time MLB had that low of a league-wide ISO was in 2014 when it also clocked in at .135.

This is obviously very promising for Termarr Johnson. He stumbled out of the gate when he got to make a brief cameo at Altoona late last season, but now he’s cut down on strikeouts, something that plagued him in the past, while still maintaining good power output. He's also doing it all in what is essentially a Dead Ball Era environment.

Esmerlyn Valdez

Esmerlyn Valdez flashed a ton of potential at Bradenton last season. He put up a .815 OPS with a 130 wRC+ while smacking 22 home runs in 435 plate appearances. His 11.5% barrel rate was the fourth-best among all A-Ball hitters with at least 250 trips to the plate. Meanwhile, Valdez’s .235 ISO was the third-best among all A-Ball batters with 300+ PAs. While he drew plenty of walks with a 13.6% BB%, his strikeout rate sat at just over 30% at 30.6%.

But so far this year, Valdez has looked even better after getting promoted to Greensboro. He is slashing .290/.378/.598 with a .437 wOBA and 163 wRC+. He is hitting for even more power, with an ISO sitting just under .300 at .299. His walk rate has diminished slightly from last season, sitting at 10.5% (which is slightly worse than the South Atlantic League league average), but his K% has dropped significantly to 24.9%, which is slightly better than the league average.

Valdez has been on fire in May, batting .262/.340/.571 with a .408 wOBA and 144 wRC+. His ISO is now above .300 at .310, and his K% has decreased even further to 20.2%. He could do even better, considering his batting average on balls in play is only .259. The only downside is that his walk rate has now fallen below 10% at 9.6%, but that’s a minor blemish on what has been an astounding month of May for the slugger. While Valdez may not be striking out as little as Johnson, he is hitting for a lot more power.

To put into perspective how hard that is to accomplish, there have only been 32 times an MLB player has put up an ISO of at least .300 in 400+ plate appearances. Of those 32 times, 18 have struck out at least a quarter of the time. Only eight have a strikeout percentage below 21% while still maintaining an ISO above .300. That includes Mike Trout (twice), MVP caliber seasons from Bryce Harper, Cody Bellinger, Christian Yelich, and Yordan Álvarez, and one Hall of Famer in David Ortiz.

Axiel Plaz

Axiel Plaz made his Bradenton debut last season and stepped to the plate 281 times. He showed plenty of pop, smacking 15 home runs and putting up a .231 isolated slugging percentage. While Esmerlyn Valdez ranked an impressive fifth in barrel rate, Plaz was number one in this particular batted ball metric. Unfortunately, he struck out nearly as often as Valdez, with a 29.2% K%.

While Plaz would return to Bradenton to open 2025, he’s done very well, slashing .293/.377/.504 with a .411 wOBA and 143 wRC+. He has already hit seven home runs in 154 plate appearances, but has cut his K% down to 18.2%. His walk rate sits at 9.1% as well, and he has an isolated slugging percentage of .211.

Plaz hit for a ton of contact in April, striking out just 13.9% of the time, but had a sub-.100 ISO. While he’s now striking out more frequently, his power output in May has been nothing short of awe-inspiring. He is slashing .298/.373/.667 with a .459 wOBA and 172 wRC+. Six of his seven home runs on the year have come over his last 67 plate appearances. Nearly 10% of his trips to the dish have ended with a long ball. His K% has risen to 23.9%, and his whiff rate sits at 32.1%, but his walk rate is about average at 11.9%.

His .368 isolated slugging percentage is the best at A-Ball this month among batters with 50 or more trips to the plate. The next closest is NY Yankees outfield prospect Dillon Lewis at .351. Lewis, along with fellow Bradenton backstop Derek Berg, are the only A-Ball hitters in May with a barrel rate over 20%, with Plaz sitting at 20.9%.

An ISO above .360 is insane. The last player to do it was Aaron Judge ... in 2022, 2024, and now this season. While he still needs to cut down on the whiffs, Plaz is just 19 and won’t turn 20 until August 12th. He is currently the 11th-youngest qualified hitter at A-Ball, with only two other players who are younger than 20 hitting better than him in terms of wRC+.