The Pittsburgh Pirates ranked 27th in Baseball America’s latest farm system rankings. For an organization dependent on building from within, this is not good.
I can’t argue with the rankings. Part of that is because I don’t follow the other organizations, and trust Baseball America to provide an accurate and objective comparison of the systems. There are a few players in the system who I’m higher on than BA, but this doesn’t look like a system stocked with talent.
Granted, the Pirates have graduated some top prospects this season. That hasn’t stopped an organization like the Baltimore Orioles from continuously developing players to maintain a top system ranking. The Pirates benefitted from their tanking efforts in 2020-2023, which gave them two first overall picks, and two other top ten picks. Despite this, they haven’t had prolonged success.
BA ranked the Pirates with the third best farm system heading into 2022. They dropped to 11th overall heading into 2023, and stayed in that range heading into 2024, thanks in large part to Paul Skenes in the rankings as the best pitching prospect in the game.
The Pirates ranked 24th overall heading into 2020, when Ben Cherington took over as the General Manager for Neal Huntington. In five rebuilding seasons under Cherington, the farm system has dropped in the rankings, which is the most damning statement you could make for a General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
To get an idea of what is going wrong, I’m going to first go back to that 2022 farm system.
The 2022 Top Prospects
There was hope heading into 2022. The Pirates had just completed a year where they traded all of their established players for prospects, while using the biggest bonus pool in the draft to load up on projectable prep players.
Below is the top 30 from Baseball America that year, with notes on how they entered the system.
- Oneil Cruz – Acquired in a 2017 deadline trade for Tony Watson
- Henry Davis – Drafted first overall in 2021
- Nick Gonzales – Drafted seventh overall in 2020
- Roansy Contreras – The biggest part of the Jameson Taillon trade in 2021
- Liover Peguero – The biggest part of the Starling Marte trade in 2020
- Quinn Priester – Drafted in the first round in 2019
- Endy Rodriguez – One of five prospects acquired for Joe Musgrove in 2021
- Mike Burrows – Drafted as an over-slot pick in the 11th round in 2018
- Jared Jones – Drafted in the second round in 2020
- Carmen Mlodzinski – Drafted with a competitive balance pick in 2020
- Anthony Solometo – One of the over-slot prep players from the 2021 draft
- Matt Fraizer – Drafted in the 3rd round in 2019, 2021 Minor League Player of the Year
- Bubba Chandler – Another over-slot prep player from the 2021 draft
- Lonnie White Jr. – The third biggest over-slot prep player from the 2021 draft
- Travis Swaggerty – Drafted in the first round in 2018
- Diego Castillo – Acquired for Clay Holmes in 2021
- Miguel Yajure – Another player acquired in the Taillon trade
- Tahnaj Thomas – Acquired in a five-player trade in late 2018
- Maikol Escotto – Also acquired in the Taillon trade
- Rodolfo Castro – Signed as an international free agent in 2015
- Rodolfo Nolasco – Signed as an international free agent in 2018
- Abrahan Gutierrez – Acquired in a minor deal in 2021
- Hudson Head – One of the players acquired in the Musgrove trade
- Jack Suwinski – One of three players acquired for Adam Frazier in 2021
- Ji Hwan Bae – Signed as an international free agent in early 2018
- Connor Scott – Acquired for Jacob Stallings after the 2021 season
- Tucupita Marcano – Another player from the Frazier trade in 2021
- Canaan Smith-Njigba – The fourth player in the Taillon trade
- Kyle Nicolas – Also part of the Stallings trade after the 2021 season
- Cody Bolton – Drafted in the sixth round in 2017
Here’s how those rankings break down:
Draft – 7 from Ben Cherington, 5 from Neal Huntington
The amateur scouting department was largely the same, and Cherington only had 25 potential picks by this point. They got a lot of high grades for the 2021 draft, which isn’t looking as promising today.
Trades – 13 from Ben Cherington, 2 from Neal Huntington
I wrote about Cherington’s trade history over the weekend, in an extensive look at the different eras of his rebuilding deals. The tear-down era has been a massive disappointment, and that is what was largely fueling these rankings. Huntington, meanwhile, had claim to the top prospect in the system in Cruz.
International Free Agents – 0 from Ben Cherington, 3 from Neal Huntington
This is a big concern. The mid-season 2024 rankings by Baseball America have seven international signings. The top two ranked were signed under Huntington. Cherington’s signings fill out the 25-30 spots of the list, and all of them have flaws holding them back. The organization has seen a big decline since cutting ties with international scouting director Rene Gayo after the 2017 season, even though they’re now spending seven figures more often on international signings.
The 2022 Farm System – A Quick Summary
The Pirates received a boost in the rankings from their tear-down trades during their rebuild, along with their approach in the 2021 draft. Neither approach is looking as good in 2024. Their ranking was high due to a massive amount of “prospect depth”, which is code for having very few top prospects, but a lot of guys who receive the benefit of the doubt that they can develop to their ceilings. I don’t think that benefit exists today, nor should it.
The 2024 Graduates
Heading into this season, Baseball America had the Pirates ranked with the 12th best farm system. They’ve since graduated the following prospects:
- Paul Skenes – Ranked first overall, and the top pitching prospect in the game
- Jared Jones – Third in the system, eventually a top ten MLB prospect after his MLB debut
- Nick Gonzales – Ninth overall in the system, currently on the IL as the MLB starting 2B
- Kyle Nicolas – 13th overall in the system, currently in the Major League bullpen
- Alika Williams – 22nd overall, currently a depth option out of Triple-A
Skenes and Jones were doing some heavy lifting for the system. Losing Gonzales and Nicolas hurts from the rankings, but these are the types of prospects who should be easy to replace in a productive development system.
The drop in rankings doesn’t seem to come from the graduates, but from the poor development.
Pitchers Taking a Step Forward
The Pirates do have positive development from their pitchers. Baseball America has them with two top 100 prospects, led by Bubba Chandler at 57th overall. I’d argue that Thomas Harrington and Braxton Ashcraft deserve top 100 consideration. I’m also much higher on Hunter Barco than Baseball America.
The Pirates have some interesting lower level prospects, like Zander Mueth, Michael Kennedy, and Carlson Reed. These are the types of depth prospects who replace the Nicolas/Gonzales tier. They haven’t had anyone replace the Skenes/Jones top tier of prospects, and currently have three pitchers who you could argue as future MLB starters without extreme risk. Those guys are all on the verge of the majors, and when they graduate, this system runs the risk of looking barren.
Very few pitchers have taken a step back, which is a positive. The biggest case has been Anthony Solometo, who struggled in Double-A, and is currently working things out in Single-A.
I don’t think pitching development is the problem. It hasn’t been elite, but it’s been considerably better than the hitting development.
The Absent Hitting Development
The one hitter who was performing well this season was Charles McAdoo, and the Pirates traded him at the deadline for Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Since they also received money in the deal, you could argue that the Pirates gave up a better prospect than needed for financial savings.
Almost every hitter in the system has struggled, or taken a step back. The biggest case is Termarr Johnson. The 2022 fourth overall pick closed the 2023 season in High-A, batting .242/.427/.414. He struggled for the first six weeks of the season this year, and has been hitting since the second half of May. On the season, his OBP and power production levels are both down. The encouraging sign is that his numbers since mid-May are better than last season, though he’s entered another slump since the end of July.
Jack Brannigan is a similar story. A top ten prospect in BA’s rankings, Brannigan has returned to Greensboro this year, with a decline in his on-base and power. The 2022 third rounder dropped his OBP from .382 to .338. He has cut down on strikeouts, from 33.5% to 26.1%. His power has dropped in the process, and he’s hitting for a .227 average, leading to the OBP decline.
Tsung-Che Cheng is one of the best pure hitters in the system, but has seen only a slight improvement from his 2023 second half in Altoona. His OBP is up from .304 to .337, and his power has improved from an .099 ISO to a .140 this year. He’s also batting .234, which isn’t reflective on the contact abilities.
The Pirates drafted Mitch Jebb out of college in the second round last year, praising his pure hitting abilities. He’s batting .248 with a .346 OBP in High-A, which isn’t much different in talent from a Division I program. He has 32 stolen bases on the season. He also hit .301 during the month of July, and has been getting on base at an elite rate for the last two months, giving the same hope as Johnson that he’s turning things around.
Lonnie White Jr. has dealt with a lot of injuries since being taken 64th overall in 2021. He’s showing power in Greensboro, with 13 home runs and a .207 ISO. That power is empty, with a .175 average and a .279 OBP, along with an alarming 32.2% strikeout rate.
Omar Alfonzo has been one of the best development stories on the hitting side this year. He hit .253/.353/.388 in Bradenton, and was just promoted to Greensboro. He was ranked as the 20th best prospect in the system in the latest Baseball America updates. This level of breakout replaces someone like Alika Williams from the graduate list as an addition to the system depth.
Matt Gorski is hitting for power in Triple-A, with 18 doubles, 17 homers, and a .272 ISO. He’s batting .245 with a .305 OBP, after a .231 average and a .291 OBP last year between Double-A and Triple-A. Gorski looked great in 2022, with a .294/.377/.754 line in Greensboro, before going to Altoona with a .277/.354/.489 line. He took a step back last year and hasn’t recovered this year.
Axiel Plaz, Yordany De Los Santos, and Tony Blanco are three prospects who round out the top 30 in Baseball America’s latest rankings. Plaz stands out for his 15 homers in Single-A at the age of 18, but that comes with a .204 average and a .309 OBP. De Los Santos had a great year in the FCL, and carries speed and defense to Single-A in his age-19 season. Blanco has a lot of power potential, batting .305/.385/.505 in 95 at-bats in a limited time in the FCL. These three are prospect depth, with the hope that they have success in the upper levels, but concerns that come with each player — unrelated to the system development concerns.
The best hitting prospect the Pirates have is Johnson, and he’s struggled this year, before turning things around in Greensboro. One big issue is that they have a bad history of turning results in High-A to sustained upper-level results. The best success story they have is Nick Gonzales, who largely took it upon himself to fix his stance and approach this season to get to the majors. He’s also struggled since a hot start at the big league level. I’ve yet to hear about an Andy Haines success story of fixing a big league hitter, so this isn’t something to take lightly.
A Lack of Development
One of the biggest issues I’ve seen with the Pirates is that they don’t have a good development system.
A lot of their success stories at the MLB level have come from outsourcing the development work to pitching and hitting facilities. Even a free agent signing like Rowdy Tellez turned his season around when he sought outside help.
The pitching development has benefitted from the individualized approach, rather than the one-size-for-all approach of the past. This has allowed pitchers to seek any route for development they choose, with a lot of discussions between pitchers leading to improvements. There have been positive internal changes made from the pitching coaches to individual pitching prospects. However, this has taken a step back from the Huntington years, when there were new breakout pitchers every season, from all talent avenues.
The Pirates used to be an organization that was too heavy on old school coaching, without incorporating analytics. They’re now an organization that incorporates analytics to an extreme, with a lack of old school coaching.
What this means is the Pirates used to be an organization that could teach players how to improve their games, but they couldn’t refine those games for the best Major League approach. They now look like an organization that might be able to improve someone like Paul Skenes, who entered pro ball knowing what he was doing. However, they’re not looking like an organization that can teach players how to play the game at a high level, and that’s painfully evident on the hitting side.
I think you could also go a step worse and say that their analytics deployment is flawed. Simply put, their hitting approach from the analytics is a complete loser mentality.
The Pirates changed their amateur scouting department leadership heading into the 2024 draft, which is a curious move to make after four years of picking inside the top ten rounds, with two first overall picks. Their 2024 draft was heavy on hitting, but it will take years before we figure out whether this new batch of talent can be developed.
By that point, we might be able to conclusively say that they can’t develop talent. I think it would be a critical mistake to wait that long.
In year five of Ben Cherington’s time as a General Manager, I struggle to find anything they’re doing which stands out as a positive. It’s not difficult to point out the things going wrong.
This is a front office that knows how to manipulate the public perception. I think they did that with stocking the system with prospect depth in 2021, which gave them a few years of positive benefit of the doubt. They’ve now replaced their amateur scouting leadership, and I won’t be surprised if they overhaul the hitting development in the offseason to buy more time, along with firing manager Derek Shelton. This will give them more benefit of the doubt that they’re just a simple change away from being one of the best organizations in the game. They’re a long way from that, by any standard, including their farm system.
I’m done giving this organization the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think they’ve earned it, and I think they’ve spent too much of their focus the last five years on a heavy marketing approach that is meant to draw in casual fans who don’t expect a winning team.
This is an organization that was gifted the best pitcher in the game thanks to a lottery system in the 2023 draft. They didn’t even decide to pick Skenes until 20 minutes before the draft. As someone who was saying confidently days before the draft that he would be this pitcher, I can’t imagine what the contemplation was about.
I also think they’re at more risk of squandering the Skenes years than they are of building up a sustainable winner. And that’s already taking place in 2024.
Pirates Prospect Watch
Tsung-Che Cheng hit a grand slam in Altoona on Wednesday. Nick Yorke extended his hitting streak to 11 games in Indianapolis. Lonnie White Jr. hit his 13th homer for Greensboro, and Axiel Plaz hit his 15th homer for Bradenton. Read about all of Wednesday’s action in the latest Pirates Prospect Watch:
https://piratesprospects.com/2024/08/pirates-prospect-watch-tsung-che-cheng-hits-a-grand-slam.html
