Pirates prospect looks like the next Oneil Cruz with mind-boggling walk-off

The Pittsburgh Pirates don’t have much power hitting at the Major League level, but one of their prospects has some of the most raw power by any professional baseball player right now. That is Tony Blanco Jr., and the hulking slugger has recently made waves for two monstrous home runs he has hit, including one walk-off long ball.

Blanco’s first noteworthy home run came on July 30, a 118.9 MPH missile that traveled 415 feet, according to Statcast. Just days later on August 2, Blanco topped that, hitting a 119.8 MPH rocket to walk the game off for Bradenton. That rivals some of the strongest players in baseball right now. For reference, only Oneil Cruz, Vlad Guerrero Jr., Aaron Judge, and Giancarlo Stanton have hit a ball at least 118 MPH this season.

It shouldn’t come as a shock that Blanco Jr. is utterly obliterating the baseball. He is listed at 6’7”, 243 pounds at just 20 years old. This is pretty much the same frame as Stanton, the New York Yankees' veteran slugger and former MVP, who is listed at 6’6”, 245 pounds. Stanton has been one of the best power hitters in the game for the last 15 years, regularly putting up exit velocities that rival Cruz's best marks in Pittsburgh.

Pirates prospect Tony Blanco Jr. is ripping the cover off the ball.

That raw power has made a heck of a first impression for Blanco Jr. at Bradenton. In his first seven games and 31 plate appearances at A-Ball, Blanco has five hits, including the two moonshots. He has also drawn six walks. Out of his 30 Statcast-tracked batted balls, a dozen balls have clocked in at 100+ MPH. That is a 40% 100+ MPH rate.

Unfortunately, there is a massive question of whether Blanco will ever hit enough to make his extremely impressive raw power matter. He has a 43.2% whiff rate at Bradenton. According to Baseball America, his contact rate comes in at a putrid 56.7%. Even with Joey Gallo striking out just over 40% of the time over his last three seasons, he still had a contact rate of 60.7%, and that was in the Major Leagues. On the plus side, Blanco has a solid 27.8% chase rate, so he isn’t fishing out of the zone.

You are not going to find many baseball players with the sort of raw power Blanco Jr. has. One has to hope that the Pirates can help him make more contact. Even a below-average hit tool, where he still has a 30% whiff rate, would be good enough to make his power a real threat. When he gets hold of one, he can send it a long way, very fast. His floor is very low, given his penchant for swinging and missing, but his ceiling is a future as a seasonal home run leader.