In his first year of full-season baseball, Carlos Jimenez flashed some serious potential while with the Bradenton Marauders. He also made clear what path he was going to have to take to reach that potential.
Despite maybe not having the same kind of name recognition some of the other prospects in the Single-A rotation had, Jimenez showed that he had the skills and tools to be right there with them.
Featuring one of the best changeups in the system, the young righty struck out 88 batters (28.5 K%) in just 69.2 innings pitched last year. He struggled with the walks, allowing 45 free passes (14.6 BB%).
It wasn’t as bad as it looked, as you can see Jimenez running out of gas towards the end of the season, and his control really suffered. In his last five games that spanned the final two months of the season, he walked 21.7% of the batters he faced, which was more than he struck out (19.3%).
There are improvements to be made, but it was still a far cry from the 11.9% walk rate he was issuing through the end of July.
From April through July, Jimenez struck out 31.7% of the batters he faced, posted a 3.27 ERA and held opponents to a .215 average. In August and September, his ERA was 6.75 and opponents hit .286 off of him.
The Arsenal
Jimenez features three pitches, all of which have the potential to be at the very least, average to above average. He averaged 93.9 MPH on his fastball, and it has strong tail-movement on it, generating a 21% called strike/whiff rate.
His curveball is a big breaker that in a lot of cases would be the best pitch among the three, and it had a 29.6 CSW%. It only trailed the changeup, which has drawn the rave comparisons despite how young Jimenez is. He posted a Swinging Strike rate of 28.3%, and a CSW% of 38.7.
The video above shows a little bit of each pitch he throws, all from his start back on July 17, 2022.
While it’s his third pitch right now, there’s certainly potential with the curveball. He can throw it back door to lefties, and have to break away from righties.
With the changeup can certainly see the potential of the pitch, as it has a very sharp break back arm side in an almost ‘airbender’ type of way.
While a lot of changeup/offspeed pitches are thrown arm side, fading away from hitters, Jimenez throws his a little differently at times. In the righty vs righty matchups, he throws the pitch away, almost like a slider but one that tails back in on the hitter.
Late Season Struggles
A lot of young pitchers hit a wall later in the season, especially once they start hitting new highs in innings pitched. Jimenez doubled his innings from 2021 while he was in the FCL, so it wasn’t much of a surprise to see him struggle a bit down the stretch.
While his control was erratic throughout the season, it really went on another level the last two months, walking more than he struck out.
This was his last start of the season, where he didn’t get out of the first inning, allowing three walks and hitting another among the eight batters he faced.
If you watch the catcher, Jimenez rarely hit his spots and when he did it was fastballs mostly straight over the plate. Even then he struggled with commanding the pitch.
There’s a potential major league starting pitcher somewhere in Jimenez right now, and he’ll be 20-years-old when the 2023 season starts, where he’ll likely begin in Greensboro. That ballpark won’t be kind to him if he misses his spots, so there’s a good chance the overall base numbers won’t be pretty, almost like Jared Jones in 2022.
Fangraphs jumped in on Jimenez this season, ranking him 17th in the system, ahead of 2021 second round pick Anthony Solometo. They did have him listed as a multi-inning reliever, which is a possibility if the control doesn’t improve.
There does look like there can be some improvement in the delivery, eliminating some of the extra movement, and trying to reduce the fall off to the first base side to try and make it more repeatable.
The Pirates are starting to have more and more success with their International signings, and Jimenez has the chance to be another success story. His base stats may not be pretty this year, but if he can stay healthy, increase his workload from 2022, and get the walks down without losing his swing and miss stuff, it can still be a great step forward for him.
