5 Pittsburgh Pirates prospects whose careers were derailed by injuries

Injuries suck. In sports, a poorly timed injury can completely throw a wrench into a team's best-laid plans. Sometimes, they can derail entire careers, occasionally interrupting players who were on Hall of Fame trajectories -- like David Wright, Dustin Pedroia, and Troy Tulowitzki, to name a few recent examples. Earnestly, though, it sucks even more when the player’s career doesn’t even get off the ground.

This has happened to the Pittsburgh Pirates plenty during their rebuild. There are prospects they have acquired or had in the system who once looked extremely promising and like potential long-term pieces of the puzzle. But injuries took their toll, and these prospects never seemed to recapture the talent they once had.

Brennan Malone

The very first trade Ben Cherington made was sending former All-Star outfielder Starling Marte to the Arizona Diamondbacks for two prospects. One was Liover Peguero, but you could have argued that right-handed pitcher Brennan Malone was the deal's headliner. The D-Backs had selected Malone as a hard-throwing high schooler in the 2019 draft. Baseball America and MLB Pipeline ranked him as one of the top 20 prospects in the draft.

Despite being a high schooler, Malone could already run his fastball into the mid/upper-90s. While his slider and curveball were inconsistent at times, both had the potential of being plus offerings and were showing improvement. Malone also threw a changeup that looked like a fourth pitch with at least average potential. On top of that, he looked to have decent control over all of his stuff.

Malone made his pro debut late into the 2019 season, but only pitched eight innings. He was expected to see more playing time in 2020, but then the minor-league season was put on hold because of COVID. Still, heading into just his age-20 season in 2021, Malone was expected to put on a show at A-Ball Bradenton. His Pirates minor league debut would be delayed, however, by a blister, and a lat injury would soon shut him down in June. While he would ultimately return to the mound, he’d end up only throwing just 14 innings in ‘21, followed by just five frames in 2022.

Malone returned to the mound in 2024 after missing all of '23. It was once again an injury-shortened stint, as he only tossed 8.2 innings. It wasn't a pretty 8.2 innings, either, as he walked nine batters, allowed eight hits, and watched one ball soar out of the yard. Since getting drafted in 2019, this marked just the third time he has reached over five IP in a season.

It’s not the fault of the Pirates, nor the fault of Malone. Some players simply just can’t stay healthy, and you can’t blame either party for the outcome. Nobody could have predicted his career would have gone so haywire, with constant setbacks, injuries, and less than 30 innings pitched across nearly five years in professional baseball.