Pirates third base prospect Sherten Apostel is the player to be named later in the Keone Kela trade, John Dreker of Pirates Prospects has learned. Apostel was the number 29 prospect in our mid-season top 50, and moved up to number 28 after his Bristol teammate Shane Baz was named the player to be named later in the Chris Archer trade.
Apostel is a big third baseman, with questions about whether he can stick at third due to his size. He’s got a lot of power potential because of that size, and has shown good skills at the plate this year, hitting for a .259/.406/.460 line in 139 at-bats with Bristol, along with some of the best hard contact in the lower levels. His performance this year in Spring Training and extended Spring Training was enough to get him to skip over the GCL and move to Bristol in his first year in the US, which is an aggressive push for the Pirates.
The Pirates have some depth ahead of Apostel, with Oneil Cruz as a likely third base prospect in West Virginia, and Ke’Bryan Hayes as the third baseman of the future, currently in Altoona. They were dealing from a strength here, with no guarantees that Apostel sticks at that position, and with better prospects ahead of him. The interesting factor here is that Sherten’s younger brother, Shendrik, is behind him in the DSL, currently hitting for an .803 OPS, but as a first base option only, giving the Pirates an additional option for a potential power bat at the corners, and maintaining half of their Apostel depth.
The total deal for two years and two months of Kela was Taylor Hearn, who was our number eight prospect at the time of the deal, and Apostel, who would have been number 30 before the trade.
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.
