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Taylor Hearn Listed Among the Top Left-Handed Pitching Prospects

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Baseball America finished up their rankings of the top prospects by position on Friday afternoon with left-handed pitchers. The Pittsburgh Pirates had just one player on this list after placing multiple prospects on each of the last five positions covered. With every position now covered, the Pirates had a total of 14 players make the nine lists (recaps below).

Left-handed pitching talent is hard to find at this point around baseball and for the Pirates. BA gave the position a two star rating (out of five). The Pirates have just six southpaws among their top 50 prospects, with four of them on the second half of that list. I will note that Ike Schlabach was in our top 50 prior to the trades with the Giants and Astros, but he got knocked off of the list when those new players were added.

BA had 11 lefties on their top 100 prospect list two weeks ago, compared to 34 right-handed pitchers. Taylor Hearn is on their left-handed prospect list in the 27th spot, so he wasn’t considered for the top 100, but he’s still among the best in baseball. The list went 30 deep.

Hearn had mixed results with Bradenton this past year as he worked on his fastball command and his slider. He appeared to be putting things together in July when he went down with an oblique injury. Hearn came back just in time for a GCL rehab game, followed by time in the Fall Instructional League and then he spent his fall in the Arizona Fall League. While there, he found a grip on his slider that he felt comfortable with and he was able to throw more strikes.

If Hearn can master the new slider and throw more strikes, then he has quite an arsenal when you consider his mid-90s fastball that has touched 100 MPH, along with a changeup that is his best pitch. That would mean the difference between him being a future MLB starter and someone who ends up as a power arm in the bullpen. He should be in the Altoona rotation at the beginning of this upcoming season.

Here are the rest of the lists:

C/1B: Mason Martin

2B: Kevin Kramer

SS: Kevin Newman and Cole Tucker

3B: Ke’Bryan Hayes and Colin Moran

CF: Austin Meadows and Lolo Sanchez

LF/RF: Bryan Reynolds and Jordan Luplow

RHP: Mitch Keller, Shane Baz and Luis Escobar

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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