Pittsburgh Pirates Prospects: Two Pitchers to Keep Tabs on As the Season Winds Down

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Let's take a look at two Pittsburgh Pirates pitching prospects who fans should keep tabs on throughout the final few weeks of the 2023 minor league season

I’m sure everyone is excited to see what Paul Skenes make his debut as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates organization. Along with Skenes, guys like Anthony Solometo, Jared Jones, and Thomas Harrington are three more highly anticipated starting pitching prospects. However there are other prospects in the Pirates’ system that players that fans should be keeping tabs on, and today, I want to examine two arms to keep an eye as we approach the home stretch of the season.

Po-Yu Chen

The Pirates acquired Po-Yu Chen in the 2020-2021 offseason as part of their international signing class. Chen, one of the top high school arms out of Taiwan, was signed as an indirect cause of the Jarrod Dyson trade (the Pirates received international bonus pool money to spend for the veteran outfielder). Chen has definitely shown he could become a solid starting pitcher in the near future.

Chen owns a 4.00 ERA, 5.24 FIP, and 1.29 WHIP. Now Chen’s FIP is worryingly high, but that’s mainly because his HR/9 is 1.55. Chen has a pretty solid 23.8% strikeout rate as well as an 8.4% walk rate. Chen has a 21.4% HR/FB ratio, which is over 10% higher than in 2022. There’s some bad flyball luck playing its hand here because Greensboro is a home run friendly park. Once adjusting for this insanely high HR/FB ratio, Chen has a 4.14 xFIP.

The right-hander could get moved to Altoona soon. Chen owns a much better looking 3.05 ERA, 4.85 FIP, and 1.21 WHIP over his past 79.2 innings. He is striking out about a quarter of the batters he has faced (25.1%), while having a quality 8.2% walk rate. Home runs are still giving Chen some trouble, based on his 1.36 HR/9, but again, a home run friendly environment could be playing a role with that rate.

Chen has a four pitch arsenal. His four-seamer only hits about 91-94 MPH on the radar, and his two breaking pitches include a slider and curveball. Nothing here stands out, and these first three offerings sit at a below average to average level. But he does have one plus offering, that being his splitter. Chen also has good command, which helps his below average stuff have some oomph to it.

Tyler Samaniego

I know what you’re saying, why should anyone be interested in a relief prospect with an ERA over 5.50? In my opinion, that’s all the more reason to keep tabs on Tyler Samaniego. The lefty reliever was selected in the 15th round of the 2021 draft. Samaniego did pretty well in 2022, but has struggled this year, despite mostly improving in many areas.

Throughout 36 innings, Samaniego has a 5.50 ERA and 1.44 WHIP, but also has a 2.52 FIP and 3.20 xFIP. Despite his massive rise in ERA, Samaneigo has an outstanding 27.3% strikeout rate and 8.4% walk rate. Both are pretty decent improvements from 2022 at 25.5% and 10.9%, respectively (19.8% and 8.6% at Altoona last season).

However, Samaniego has an outstanding ability to prevent home runs. He has an HR/9 rate of just 0.25, mainly due to the fact he’s a master at inducing ground balls. He has a 54.2% ground ball rate, as well as a line drive rate just under 20% (18.8%), and fly ball rate well under 30% (27.1%). However, despite this relatively strong batted ball rates, Samaniego has a batting average on balls in play of .396.

That high of a BAbip is unsustainable. The only way it could possibly even come close to keeping up is if Samaniego was giving up a ton of hard hit line drives, which he isn’t. There’s been no luck going into Samaniego’s favor, and it’s sort of helped him stay under the radar. He could end up being a potential left-handed relief option for 2024 and beyond.

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