Braxton Ashcraft proves why you shouldn’t give up on this Pittsburgh Pirates prospect

Pittsburgh Pirates hurler Braxton Ashcraft has had a strong rookie campaign,even if he isn't getting the credit he deserves for it. He has a 2.74 ERA, alongside a 3.01 FIP and 1.25 WHIP, over 62.1 innings of work. Over his last seven games, he has made six starts and has only allowed seven earned runs in 29 frames, while striking out 32 opponents and allowing only nine to reach via free pass. However, as great as his 2025 season looks, it registers as a borderline miracle when you look at where he was just a few years ago, and proves why you shouldn’t give up on another Pirates prospect in a similar situation, Anthony Solometo.

The last two seasons haven’t treated Solometo well, to say the least. In 2024, he only pitched 70.1 innings while pitching to a 5.37 ERA, 5.40 FIP, and 1.52 WHIP. He had a K% well below 20% at 16.9% and dished out a walk to 12.4% of opponents. He has missed nearly the entirety of the 2025 season, only making three starts and pitching ten frames. Still, it wasn’t that long ago that Solometo was a top prospect in the Pirates’ system.

In 2023, Solometo owned a 3.26 ERA with a 26.2% K% and an 8.6% walk rate. He made 24 starts while tossing a total of 110.1 innings between High-A Greensboro and Double-A Altoona. Solometo’s name could be found on some top 100 prospect lists going into 2024. MLB Pipeline ranked him as the 82nd best prospect across all of Minor League Baseball at the beginning of the year.

How Braxton Ashcraft can inspire Pirates' Anthony Solometo

So how does he relate to Ashcraft? Three years ago, Ashcraft’s prospect status looked dead in the water. The former second-round pick from 2018 had missed two of the last three seasons. The 2020 minor league season was cancelled due to COVID, and he missed most of 2021, along with all of 2022, due to Tommy John surgery. Heading into 2023, neither MLB Pipeline nor Baseball America ranked him as one of the Pirates’ top 30 prospects. FanGraphs didn’t even rank him among their top 43 prospects.

Not only did Ashcraft run into bad luck and injuries, but he also didn’t perform well when he was healthy enough to take the mound. He only pitched 70.1 innings between rookie ball and Low-A in 2018-2019, working to a 5.48 ERA, a 4.53 FIP, and an undistinguished 16.5% strikeout rate. After returning from the cancelled COVID season, Ashcraft had a 5.35 ERA, 5.50 FIP, and 1.22 WHIP in an 11-start/38.1-inning sample size before undergoing surgery. In total, he pitched just 108.2 innings from the time he was drafted in 2018 up through the end of the 2022 season.

Ashcraft started to regain his prospect notoriety in 2023, when he put up a 2.39 ERA, while having a 29.6% strikeout rate and a microscopic 5.2% walk rate, from A-Ball Bradenton through Double-A Altoona. However, even this was undermined by the fact that Ashcraft only pitched 52.2 innings in 19 starts, and never pitched beyond four innings of work in a single outing.

Now, keep in mind that Anthony Solometo is not Braxton Ashcraft. Just because Ashcraft has made a miraculous comeback after three injury and bad luck-riddled seasons does not mean Solometo can do the same. There are also differences between the two pitchers. Ashcraft has better stuff than Solometo, a funky lefty, while Solometo has missed less total time due to injury and got off to a much better start to his pro career than Ashcraft did. 

Regardless, Ashcraft is proving you can’t give up on Solometo, or any prospect for that matter, until it’s obvious they are done. Ashcraft went from missing nearly three straight seasons and getting off to a poor start to his career, tossing less than 110 innings with an ERA over 5.00 over nearly five years, to a pitcher who has an inside track for a starting rotation spot next season. If Ashcraft can do that, then why can’t Anthony Solometo come back from two down years?