The Pirates Prospects 2017 Prospect Guide is now available for pre-sales. The book will be released the week before Spring Training, and we are currently in the process of making the final changes with editing and formatting.
The book features prospect reports on everyone in the system, the 2017 top 50 prospects, and the most comprehensive coverage of the Pirates’ farm system that you can find. Subscribers to the site get discounted books, with Top Prospect subscribers getting $10 off, and Annual subscribers getting $5 off. The eBook will be released when the book is released, and will also come with discounts. Details on the promotions can be found on the products page, and you can subscribe to the site or upgrade your current plan on the subscriptions page.
While the top 50 prospects are exclusive to the book, we will be releasing the top 20 prospects over the next few weeks as a countdown to the start of Spring Training, and to give a preview of the release of the book. We will be wrapping up on Monday, February 13th. The reports will only be available to site subscribers, including those with a monthly plan. You can subscribe here, and if you like these reports, be sure to purchase your copy of the book on the products page of the site to get much more analysis on every player in the system.
To recap the countdown so far:
20. Alen Hanson, 2B
17. Elias Diaz, C
16. Max Kranick, RHP
13. Clay Holmes, RHP
10. Gage Hinsz, RHP
We continue the countdown with the number 9 prospect, Taylor Hearn.
9. Taylor Hearn, LHP
The Pirates originally drafted Hearn in the 22nd round out of high school in 2012, but couldn’t get him signed. He went to college, and was drafted by the Nationals in 2015. The Pirates finally landed him at the trade deadline this past summer, sending Mark Melancon to Washington for Hearn and Felipe Rivero.
The early results of the deal have been very encouraging for Hearn. He missed a lot of time with Washington this year due to a broken foot on a freak accident covering first base. This limited him to just 29 innings with the Nationals before the trade, and might have prevented him from breaking out and raising his prospect stock. After the trade, he showed off easy mid-to-upper 90s velocity with his fastball, touching 100 with a lot of movement, due to his long arms and a high three-quarters slot coming from the 1B side of the rubber.
A big issue for Hearn was his control and the command of his pitches. He took two important steps with the Pirates to adjust this. The first change was reducing his long toss from 200 feet to 120 feet. The longer distance was throwing off his mechanics, and causing him to elevate his pitches and miss his spots. He saw better command after reducing his throwing program to 120 feet. After the season he made a tweak to his delivery, adding a bit of a windup, rather than pitching from the stretch. This incorporates his legs more, takes stress off the arm, and keeps him in line to the plate, which should help the command.
A lot of reports on Hearn at the time of the trade said that he had a promising slider, but lacked a changeup. Hearn mentioned to us that he has thrown a changeup since he was eight, and it is his best pitch. He tabled the pitch this year to work on his new slider, which he added last year, and looked like a potential plus offering this year. His plan is to add the changeup back in the upper levels.
The Pirates and Nationals both had Hearn pitching in relief most of the year, due to the foot injury. He will return to starting next year, joining a very stacked Bradenton rotation. If the Pirates wanted to settle on just making him a reliever, he could speed through the system, and be up in the majors as early as late 2017. But it makes sense to give him every chance to start, since his stuff gives him top of the rotation potential.
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