After a fantastic start to the Double-A season, 21-year-old Jared Jones was promoted to Triple-A, making his first start at the level on Tuesday.
It was a little bit of an anti-climatic finish, piled on more by the bullpen, but regardless, his debut with Indianapolis showed exactly why he has been one of the most talked about prospect lately, even finding his way on Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects.
In 5.2 innings pitched, the righty allowed three runs on three hits and two walks while striking out five.
Jones’ changeup led the way, keeping batters offset the entire way. Taking a look at Baseball Savant, some of his changeups were labeled as sinkers, but they were able to separate apart.
Hopefully, this’ll make your night a little better.
Highlights from Jared Jones first AAA start.
Dominate from start to finish. Fastball touched 98, changeup fooled hitters over and over. @jared_jones_17 | @Keith_Jones_17 pic.twitter.com/nns8ZXcOwz
— Christian✞ (@CWolfPGH) June 21, 2023
On seven swings on his off speed pitch, hitters missed six times for an 85% whiff rate. The additional three called strikes pushed his CSW% up to 45%.
Emphasizing the changeup has been a focus of Jones’ this year, really allowing to take his game to the next level.
Jones has long since had some of the best stuff in the system, but year-by-year we’ve seen him slowly put all the pieces together, with his off speed pitch being among the last things he’s starting to solve.
We’ve seen the Pirates start to get a lot more aggressive with some of their pitchers lately, but Jones may be the ultimate test on just how far they are willing to go. At his current rate, it may not be too long before it’ll be hard to find a reason to not give him a taste in the majors.
Which, in that case, he could provide something that the rotation has been lacking – an arm with a swing and miss fastball.
Just using his one game on Tuesday, the whiff rate from his fastball is nearly 10% higher than the next Pirates starter, Mitch Keller. In fact, Johan Oviedo and Luis Ortiz have a whiff rate below 20% on their fastballs, with former starter Roansy Contreras even worst under 10%.
Prospect Notes
— There was a point early in the season where I really thought Owen Kellington would start to push for some sort of system breakout recognition. He has one of the best curveballs in the system, and was faring well despite his limited experience in pro ball.
Starting to look like the wheels are fall off on that, as the righty is really struggling with his control. Over his last four starts, Kellington has walked 14 batters across 10.2 innings pitched.
Whether it be some tweaks mechanically, or just a reset, he seems like there needs to be something done.
— While the Pirates have been aggressive with the pitching promotions, they’ve been little more cautious with the hitting prospects. Termarr Johnson keeps pushing the issue after hitting a pair of home runs Tuesday night.
I was kind of messing around with some of the lower level prospects and how their exit velocity numbers compared to major leaguers, and to little surprise Johnson has put up some very impressive metrics.
He doesn’t quite have 100 batted ball events, which is the base of the sample size I used, but if he did, he’d rank in the 62nd percentile or better in exit velocity, max exit velocity, as well as sweet spot and hart hit rate.
The contact numbers, and while it would have been easy to question some of his power grades during the draft, we are getting the numbers that fully support it at this point.
Daily Video Rundown
That's a well-placed drive into the corner for Gonzo.
Nick Gonzales is showing some signs of life lately, and doubles here in the seventh inning.
Yes! We would love a run! pic.twitter.com/uGPYwXMzui
— Altoona Curve (@AltoonaCurve) June 20, 2023
Connor Scott drives in the lone run for the Altoona Curve.
PIRATES PROSPECTS DAILY
By Tim Williams
Anthony broke down a recent four hit game from Termarr Johnson. I’ll have some thoughts on him in today’s Prospect Watch at noon.
**Termarr Johnson: Patience Brings Career Day At The Plate
There were so many moves throughout the Pirates system yesterday, and John Dreker did a great job of breaking them all down.
**Pirate Add Cal Mitchell to Roster; JP Massey to Greensboro and Braxton Ashcraft to Altoona
Looking for yesterday’s game reports? Check out Pirates Prospects Live.
**P2Live: Pirates’ Offensive Woes and Losing Streak Continue
Our new Prospect Watch profiles three players in the system each day. Yesterday I wrote about Cal Mitchell as a depth option. He was called up by the end of the day. I should probably test this new power by writing about Endy Rodriguez today.
**Prospect Watch: Cal Mitchell, Travis MacGregor, Alessandro Ercolani
SONG OF THE DAY
