5 Pittsburgh Pirates prospects who are Statcast standouts to start 2025 season

Statcast gives fans a way to closely examine how players are performing down to a pinpoint level. The Pirates have seen these 5 minor leaguers stand out in Statcast tracking.
Minnesota Twins v Pittsburgh Pirates
Minnesota Twins v Pittsburgh Pirates | Julio Aguilar/GettyImages
3 of 5

INF Liover Peguero

Liover Peguero was once one of the Pirates’ top prospects. He was a consensus top-100 prospect heading into 2022 and even showed some potential in the Major Leagues in 2023. The infielder was batting .274/.323/.462 through his first 129 plate appearances of 2023 which lasted through early September in ‘23, but struggled mightily throughout the rest of the month, leading to questions about his long term capabilities. Those questions were only exacerbated in 2024.

2024 was not a pretty season for Peguero. He slashed just .257/.319/.410 with a .324 wOBA and 88 wRC+ through 555 plate appearances. Peguero had a respectable .154 isolated slugging percentage but only drew a walk 8.2% of the time (the league average was 10.9% in the International League last season), and he struck out in a quarter of his plate appearances (the league average was 23.3% last season). He only ended up appearing in three Major League games last year.

While Peguero entered 2025 in a potential state of limbo, he’s doing what he can to stick around. He is hitting .333/.388/.422 with a .378 wOBA and 127 wRC+ through his first 49 plate appearances. Peguero hasn’t hit a home run yet, but four of his 11 hits are doubles. More importantly, he’s only struck out seven times with four walks.

Peguero’s Statcast metrics are also way more promising. He has only swung and missed 16.7% of the time, compared to 32.1% last season. His exit velocity has also increased from 88.1 MPH last season to 90.4 MPH so far this season. Peguero has also seen an increase in barrel percentage from 5.2% to 7.9%. All three numbers are better than the league average at Triple-A in 2025. On top of making better contact, Peguero is making more contact overall. Aside from a large dip in whiff percentage, his contact rate has skyrocketed from 69.5% to 88% to kick the season off.

Schedule