3 Pittsburgh Pirates prospects primed for breakout seasons in 2025

The Pittsburgh Pirates’ farm system contains a lot of unproven prospects. Some have barely played any pro ball, and some are coming off their first full season of play. With so many prospects graduating over the last few seasons, Pirates’ top prospect lists mostly consist of potential these days.

Buried among all that uncertainty are a wide variety of potential breakout candidates. Each of these three prospects are in a great position to have a potential breakthrough season this summer.

3 Pittsburgh Pirates prospects with 2025 breakout potential

Khristan Curtis

Khristian Curtis was a late-round selection by the Bucs, as they took him in the 12th round of the 2023 draft. Although he was taken with just the 347th overall pick, Curtis was ranked as the 197th best prospect in the draft by MLB Pipeline and 126th best by Baseball America. He definitely showed some promise in his first minor league season in 2024.

Curtis pitched 75.1 innings for Bradenton, working to a 4.06 ERA, 4.84 FIP, and 1.34 WHIP. He struck out just over a quarter of his opponents, with a 25.4% K%, but paired that production with a mediocre 1.19 HR/9 rate and allowed walks to 12.2% of the opponents he faced. He also allowed an 87.2 MPH exit velocity and a 7.6% barrel rate on batted balls, both of which were below average.

For what it’s worth, Curtis had a rough start to the season and was injured for all of July. From May 25 onward, Curtis pitched 48.1 innings, pitching to a 3.00 ERA, 3.58 FIP, and 1.21 WHIP. While his 11.1% walk rate was still unimpressive, he struck out more batters (with a 27.8% K%) and only allowed home runs at an 0.56-per-9 innings ratio. It was not a large sample size, but he performed well in it nonetheless.

Curtis has a myriad of pitches at his disposal. He tossed six different offerings at least 5% of the time in 2024. His most used pitch was his four-seam fastball, which sat in the mid-90s, topping out at 98. It’s an above-average pitch with great vertical movement. Curtis’ most-used secondary was a mid-80s slider that induced a whiff rate of 47.9%, which was about 10% better than average. It represents another pitch in Curtis’ arsenal that has above-average potential.

Curtis also mixed in a low-90s cutter that also induced a ton of swings-and-misses, with a 46.9% whiff percentage. His most prominent breaking pitch is an upper-70s curveball with over 50 inches of downward movement on average. Curtis’ go-to offspeed pitch is a mid-80s changeup with great arm-side movement that Baseball America projects to be another above-average pitch. He rounds his pitch mix off with a mid-90s two-seamer, though he only used this pitch 5.3% of the time.

Curtis stands at 6’5”, 210 pounds. He’s built like a starting pitcher with an arsenal that can play in a rotation. Having control of six different pitches can keep batters off balance, especially if he can improve his control. We’ll see how he does in 2025, but his strong end to the 2024 season and his promising array of offerings set him up nicely for next season.