With their 17th round pick in the 2022 MLB draft, the Pittsburgh Pirates selected right-handed pitcher Jaycob Deese out of Houston.
Deese recently turned 22 years old, and he stands in at 6’1″, 195 pounds. He spent two seasons at Galveston College putting up big strikeout numbers before transferring to Houston. He played summer ball in 2020 and had a 3.86 ERA in four starts, though he only worked 9.1 innings. In 2021, he had a 4.46 ERA, 1.50 WHIP and a 52:22 SO/BB ratio in 66.2 innings for Houston. This season he had a 5.19 ERA, a 1.51 WHIP and a 62:33 SO/BB ratio in 85 innings.
According to this tweet below from Perfect Game, he was sitting 91-93 MPH with a slider as his go-to pitch.
+ postsJaycob Deese (‘22 Elig) has been excellent thru 5 for @UHCougarBB. Living 91-93, lots of strikes & low-80s SL has been go-to; big one to get out of a jam here. #PGDraft pic.twitter.com/lv9MCKWXkg
— PG College Baseball (@PGCollegeBall) April 15, 2022
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.
Another college senior. I’m really starting to wonder if Termarr went overslot. Where are the prep guys?
I don’t think it’s about Johnson as all the teams seem to be doing the same thing. Hardly any of the top HS prospects who were undrafted going into today have been drafted. For example, I count 46 HS prospects who MLB Pipeline has ranked in the top 200 and that remain undrafted (their board may be slightly behind, but the point remains).
I’m counting two top 200 HS picked in the 11th, 1 in the 12th, 1 in the 13th and 2 in the 17th. So yeah, it looks like most of the unpicked high schoolers aren’t budging. When you’re rated as a 2nd-3rd-4th round value but want 1st round money, and you have that commit as a backup, there isn’t much reason to budge.
The Brewers and Rays just drafted two of these guys so maybe we’re about to see a run of picks in the last few rounds.
I think the Pirates will choose one high schooler just in case they have a little money left. They only have two more chances though!
I don’t really think there’s a “just in case”. The area scouts do such deep dives, that they almost always know exactly what a players demands are before they pick them. BC probably came into today knowing exactly how much he already spent, and if there was any risk of anyone not signing
Could be Kennedy went over too.
Have to agree, though – this Day 3 is weird for not having even one HS commit.
I’ve been saying, Harrington and Barco aren’t under slot guys, so I’m sure any savings went to the prep pitcher in the 4th. And I’m confident Termarr wasn’t overslot, but he definitely wasn’t going to get them savings.
Wondering the same thing. I was expecting one or two prep guys around 11th pick range.
It’s not just the pirates, almost all of the prep guys available today are still in the board. Tells me their demands are likely a bit outrageous