Left handed pitching prospect Jeff Locke has been promoted to AAA by the Pittsburgh Pirates. So far this season, Locke has a 4.03 ERA in 125 innings, along with an 8.2 K/9 and a 3.3 BB/9 ratio. Locke had a nice start on Wednesday, pitching 5.2 shutout innings, while striking out six. In his last five starts, the 23 year old has allowed seven earned runs in 30.2 innings, along with a 22:8 K/BB ratio. This will be Locke’s first shot at the AAA level, after pitching 182.2 innings combined at the AA level over the last two seasons.
Tim started Pirates Prospects in 2009 from his home in Virginia, which was 40 minutes from where Pedro Alvarez made his pro debut in Lynchburg. That year, the Lynchburg Hillcats won the Carolina League championship, and Pirates Prospects was born from Tim's reporting along the way. The site has grown over the years to include many more writers, and Tim has gone on to become a credentialed MLB reporter, producing Pirates Prospects each year, and will publish his 11th Prospect Guide this offseason. He has also served as the Pittsburgh Pirates correspondent for Baseball America since 2019. Behind the scenes, Tim is an avid music lover, and most of the money he gets paid to run this site goes to vinyl records.
what’s up with everyone evaluating our pitchers as “4 or 5’s” … our guys have more potential than that jeebus was maddux, glavine and smoltz 4 and 5’s? our guys have just as good of stuff as them… number 1? probably not but certainly have the potential to be 2’s and 3’s… i’m talking about morris, owens, lincoln, locke, von rosenberg, cain etc not one guy in particular… they have good stuff
I don’t think 1 of the guys you mentioned is better then a #3 starter with the possible exception of Morris and Lincoln but neither one is looking like it right now….
It was time to see what Locke can do at this level. While he has had an inconsistent 2011 compared to 2010, he still has an upside to be a #4 or #5 starter in the bigs. And while this is being discussed why is it that Atlanta hits on their pitching draft choices so often. Instead of sending scouts out, it might be better to put money into bugging the Atlanta draft meetings.
atlanta doesn’t hit on their draft choices more often than us… they develop their prospects better overall… i think development is our achille’s heal for now, our scouting and drafting has been excellent but many of our upper level talents have regressed under our minor league coaching ( and major league coaching under russell et al )
Takes Owens spot I guess?
That’s my guess.