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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the Pittsburh Pirates farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from my own observations. The KATOH statistical projections, probable-outcome graphs, and (further down) Mahalanobis comps have been provided by Chris Mitchell. For more information on thes 20-80 scouting scale by which all of my prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this. -Eric Longenhagen

The KATOH projection system uses minor-league data and Baseball America prospect rankings to forecast future performance in the major leagues. For each player, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for his first six years in the major leagues. There are drawbacks to scouting the stat line, so take these projections with a grain of salt. Due to their purely objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated. Due to sample-size concerns, only players with at least 200 minor-league plate appearances or batters faced last season have received projections. -Chris Mitchell

Other Lists
NL West (ARI, COL, LAD, SD, SF)
AL Central (CHW, CLE, DET, KC, MIN)
NL Central (CHC, CIN, PIT, MIL, StL)
NL East (ATL, MIA, NYM, PHI, WAS)
AL East (BAL, BOS, NYY, TB, TOR)

65 FV Prospects

Relevant/Interesting Metrics
Slashed .266/.333/.536 between Double- and Triple-A as a 21-year-old.

Scouting Report
Meadows dominated Double-A for 45 games before receiving a promotion to Triple-A Indianapolis in mid-June. Soon after that, he spent a month on the DL with a hamstring injury, the third one with which Meadows has dealt in as many years (he had reoccurring hammy issues in 2014) and never got things going after he returned, slashing .214/.297/.460. Even so, that’s not alarming in any way for a 21-year-old, especially in a small sample.

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Carlos Gonzalez is good theatre.

He hit baseball’s most impressive home run last season, according to Jeff Sullivan. The shot left Gonzalez’s bat with a 117-mph exit velocity and 14.2-degree launch angle. That’s baseball equivalent of a 1-iron from an in-his-prime Tiger Woods.

That’s not a snapshot of a player you’d worry about losing it the near term.

He also hit baseball’s fifth-longest home run last season, according to HitTracker. The 475-foot, third-deck shot at Coors Field featured his signature, and aesthetically pleasing, follow-through and bat drop.

For me, Ken Griffey Jr. had the best swing and home-run pose of the modern era, but Gonzalez’s swing is right there among today’s best left-handed batters. It’s the kind of cut to which you could get emotionally attached. The swing has allowed Gonzalez to distinguish himself as one of the sport’s most productive hitters since 2009.

But time catches up to all of us, and looks – and swings – can be deceiving. Gonzalez was once a tools-laden player who could impact the game a number of ways; now he’s more of a bat-only threat with mixed assessments of his defense. He’s entering the final year of a seven-year deal and is owed $20 million by the Rockies. As pretty as that left-handed swing is, 2018 will represent his age-32 season, and he’ll be arriving at a place on the aging curve where mild declines can accelerate in the wrong direction.

He’s become the type of player for whom the market has over-corrected, according to FanGraphs’ Dave Cameron.

So it’s interesting to see the Rockies remain interested in keeping Gonzalez around beyond his current contract. There’s been buzz about an extension dating back to December, and Rockies general manager Jeff Bridich confirmed to MLB.com’s Thomas Harding on Tuesday that the Rockies are open to a contract extension.

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For much of the postseason – with the exception of Buck Showalter’s decision to strand Zach Britton in the visiting bullpen at Rogers Centre in Toronto – it seemed the game might be on the cusp of a new revolution, a bullpen revolution.

For many, the major takeaway from October was how some managers were employing their top relief arms. Kenley Jansen recorded at least five outs in four of his seven postseason appearances, pitching three innings in Game Six of the NLCS. Aroldis Chapman entered seven playoff games before the ninth inning, and nowhere was the trend more dramatic or effective than in Cleveland.

Trying to piece together a pitching plan with an injury-depleted rotation, injuries in part allowing him to operate unconventionally, Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona turned Andrew Miller into perhaps the most valuable player of the postseason.

Miller made 10 appearances and each began before the ninth inning. He entered most often in the seventh inning (four occasions), but entered as early as the fifth three times. The lefty also entered in the sixth twice. He appeared as late as the eighth. Miller recorded at least four outs in every appearance and went at least two innings six times.

Everything was going so well for the revolution until Game Seven…

And later, this…

Miller pitched 19.1 postseason innings. He allowed 12 hits, three runs, walked three and struck out 30. But all three of the runs he allowed occurred in the World Series, including two costly ones in Game Seven, when he was pitching for the fourth time in the series.

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Because we’ve been here for every moment of his career, we may have somehow lost track of just how good Mike Trout is. Obviously we know he’s the best player in the show right now, but it’s a not as easy to wrap your head around his historic greatness. Trout’s excellence isn’t the kind that lends itself to flashy highlight-reel plays, except for his trademark leaping home-run robberies. He isn’t a high-intensity player. His home runs aren’t moonshots, and he’s not a disciple of the Bryce Harper–Jose Bautista school of flare. He plays for a bad team, so we don’t often get to watch him on national television. Looking at WAR leaderboards and seeing his name at the top of the chart has become a mundane fact of baseball since 2012.

Let’s look at it another way, though. Consider Moises Alou. Had a pretty good career, no? He played his first big-league game in 1990 and his final in 2008. During that time he appeared in 1942 games and accumulated 47.7 WAR. He made the All-Star team six times. A fine career.

Mike Trout has played in 811 games. During that time he has also been worth 47.7 WAR, or roughly the value of Alou’s entire career. Take that with a grain of salt, of course, as the defensive metrics for Alou only go back so far, but yeah. We can somewhat confidently say that Trout has provided a similar amount of value in the span of 811 games that Alou, a pretty darn good player in his own right, provided in nearly 2000.

Trout is the sort of player who generates fun facts like this. You could easily do a recurring series of Mike Trout Fun Facts and not run out of material for a good while. Generational talent leads to statistical madness, and Trout is nothing if not a generational talent, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime talent. He’s 25, and has already put together almost 50 wins. Only two players in history have compiled greater WAR totals through age 25, and they’re both inner-circle Hall of Famers. One of them is Mickey Mantle, to whom Trout is so often compared. The other is Ty Cobb.

Trout has yet to play his age-25 season.

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For a few decades now, the easiest way to get paid in MLB was to hit a bunch of home runs. Given the way bat-first outfielders and first baseman got compensated in free agency, the catchphrase actually should have been “General Mangers Dig The Longball.” The trend in free agency for quite a while has been that offense is expensive and defense is cheap.

Except, that seems to be changing.

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Justin Wilson is all about getting outs, and he’s done a laudable job of getting them. Over four full seasons, and a fraction of a fifth — two-plus with the Pirates and one each with the Yankees and Tigers — the 29-year-old southpaw has a 3.28 ERA and a 3.21 FIP. Armed with a 95-mph heater and a cutter/slider, he’s allowed 7.6 hits per nine over 258 innings of work.

Detroit acquired the Fresno State product prior to last season — Luis Cessa and Chad Green went to Gotham in the swap — and it remains to be seen how long he remains in Motown. Despite the solid relief work on his resume, Wilson has been the subject of trade speculation since the completion of the 2016 campaign. While the rumors have died down, there remains a chance he will be toeing the rubber in a new city come Opening Day.

If he does change addresses — and even if doesn’t — Wilson could find himself in a new role. His 276 big-league appearances have all been out of the bullpen, but some think he’s better suited to starting. Reverse splits are a reason. Last year, the lefty logged a .667 OPS-against versus righties, while same-sided hitters put up a .772 OPS. Over his career, lefties have been .043 better against his deliveries than have right-handers.

Wilson talked about his game when the Tigers visited Fenway Park last summer.

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Wilson on aggression and location: “All I care about is outs. I don’t try to ever get ground balls — even if I have a runner on first. I don’t feel I have enough conviction behind the pitch if I’m trying to throw a ground-ball pitch. I’m trying to be aggressive. In a sense, I’m trying to strike everybody out. If he hits it on the ground, great. If he swings and misses, great. My thought process is more about making a good pitch than getting a specific result.

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