Pittsburgh Pirates Top 50 Prospects

Griffin entered the season as not only clearly the best prospect in baseball, but as one of the top handful of prospects ever evaluated during the current era of FanGraphs scouting, which goes back a little over 10 years. He’s a franchise-altering entity whose talent rivals that of Bobby Witt Jr., a young, level-headed Hanley Ramirez, or a faster Carlos Correa. The rate at which Griffin has become this good is astonishing. His supreme physical gifts were evident in high school, when Griffin was a turbocharged power-and-speed prospect with potential contact issues and an unclear defensive fit. In his first pro season, Griffin put every question to bed, made every aspect of his profile crystal clear, and slashed .333/.415/.527 while climbing three levels to Double-A Altoona, where he had a .960 OPS during about a month of play. He began 2026 at Triple-A Indianapolis but only played five games there before he was promoted to Pittsburgh and signed a nine-year, $140 million contract extension a couple weeks before his 20th birthday. After initially struggling with the quality of big league stuff, Griffin began to turn a corner in mid-May and was slashing .317/.359/.433 in his last 15 games before a flexor strain sent him to the IL.

If you just watched all the players get off the bus, you’d know Griffin was the most talented one. He’s built like Patriots wide receiver A.J. Brown at such a muscular 6-foot-3 that you can see his lats bursting through his jersey from space. The added strength has allowed him to shorten up his swing, and he crushed minor league fastballs with greater regularity than he did in high school, including to his pull-side, though he’s struggled with them again since his promotion (30% miss). He posted a roughly average contact rate in 2025, but his hit tool is going to play above that because of the concussive force with which he strikes the baseball. Griffin has become this strong without sacrificing any of his blazing speed, which helped him steal 65 bases in 78 attempts last year. He’ll show you the occasional 4.10 bolt from home to first, churning up a rooster tail of dirt behind him as he bounds down the line, like a human speedboat.

This sort of strength and speed combination isn’t normal, and when players do have tools like this, they tend to be outfielders. In Griffin’s case, there was a stretch when it looked like that’s what he’d be. Though he played shortstop on his high school team, he wasn’t polished enough to play there with Team USA or during select high school events, when he was often relegated to right field. The progress he has made on defense is probably the most stunning and impressive aspect of his development thus far, because he is now a plus shortstop defender. At his size and speed, Griffin makes the baseball field look small. No grounder seems out of reach, no throw too difficult to make. Some plays that great big league shortstops need a ton of effort and athleticism to complete, Griffin makes look easy. His footwork around the second base bag can be a little awkward at times, but he’s nimble enough to find a way to get the ball to first even when he’s off balance. Griffin also got sporadic reps in center field throughout the 2025 season, and he looked good there too, though not nearly as ready for prime time as he looks at shortstop. At his size, there’s a possibility that he’ll eventually need to move off of short, but that isn’t happening any time soon, and Griffin is going to be really good there in the meantime. This is a complete player, an absolute monster who might make Paul Skenes the second-best guy on his team in fairly short order, one who might one day be mentioned in Pittsburgh in the same breath as Mean Joe Greene, and whose daily impact can help return the Pirates to long-awaited glory.

Chandler was a two-sport, two-way high schooler who could have gone to Clemson for baseball and football. Instead, he signed for $3 million as the first pick in the 2021 third round and was developed as a two-way player for parts of two seasons before focusing on pitching beginning in 2023. Things have gone swimmingly. Chandler’s 2025 was his third consecutive 100-plus inning season and included his first big league cup of coffee. He sustained a velo spike throughout the entire season, averaging 98 mph while setting a personal best for single-season innings at 131.1 total frames. As he graduates from rookie status here in 2026, he’s been humbled a bit by his present lack of command, but we don’t expect that this will be an issue that prevents Chandler from being an impact, star-level starter throughout the bulk of his career.

Chandler’s fastball is his nastiest pitch, but he needs to tighten the area in which he locates it. It plays best at the top of the zone and missed bats at a plus-plus rate in 2025, but too often they’re way, way above the zone and aren’t enticing to big league hitters right now. Pitchers with this kind of arm speed can take a little while before they harness it and achieve peak form, and given that Chandler has only focused on pitching for a couple of seasons, this is likely to be his arc. This incredible arm speed helps him throw the occasional 86-90 mph plus changeup, including some that tail back over the zone to steal a strike, though many of them sail on him. He works with three different breaking balls: a slider that straddles either side of 90 mph, a sweeper that’s more 84-87 mph, and a curveball that lacks tight, nasty bite (though stuff models seem to love it) and relies on its upper-80s velocity to be effective. The ceiling on both of those pitches will be dictated by Chandler’s ability to develop a more consistent release point and command. To that end, his forecast is very positive; it’s common for pitchers with this kind of arm speed to develop better control later than their soft-tossing peers, and Chandler is the sort of athlete, both in terms of his size and mobility, who we should feel comfortable projecting on in this regard. We expect that the arc of his next several years will unfold like Hunter Greene’s career has so far.

A sensational athlete with an ideal pitcher’s frame, Hernandez has monster arm strength and potentially huge secondary stuff. His prototypical size, athleticism, arm strength, and changeup quality put him in the top tier of high school pitching prospects form the last decade or so, and he signed with the Pirates for $7.25 million as the sixth overall pick rather than head to Vanderbilt. Though he didn’t pitch in an official game after last year’s draft, Hernandez did pitch during instructs, including in the Dominican Republic, where he was his usual 95-100 mph with stunning ease. As his pro career officially got underway this spring, his stuff so overwhelmed Low-A hitters (0.96 ERA, just over 16 strikeouts per nine) that he was promoted to High-A Greensboro after just six starts, and it might take until he’s promoted to Double-A before anyone can actually challenge him. Hernandez throws so hard (he’s parked in the 94-98 range and has touched 102 this spring) that lower-level hitters need to cheat to catch up to his fastball. As a result, they are coming completely unglued when he throws his secondary pitches, all of which have absurd miss rates above 70% as of this update. For context, Mason Miller‘s slider has a 54% miss rate since 2024.

Hernandez’s secondary stuff isn’t god-like (though his changeup might be at peak), but his breaking pitches have become better demarcated and located compared to when he was in high school. Go back and watch him at national events from his pre-draft summer, and his breaking pitches are mostly failing to finish and hovering above the zone, ranging anywhere from 80-87 mph with inconsistent shape. Now he has two distinct offerings that he is regularly locating in the strike zone. His slider is averaging 87 mph and has been up to 91 with two-plane movement, while his curveball has been in the 77-83 mph range and has vertical depth. The shape of his curve has changed enough that it’s going to give him a second weapon with which to attack lefties. Hernandez’s arm speed is incredible and helps to sell his changeup like a podcaster’s questionable supplements. Sometimes it has typical changeup movement, while at others, it sinks straight down more like a splitter. This is the pitch Hernandez is best able to command, and it’s going to be a dominant big league offering at peak.

Hernandez’s game has some pimples, but they should clear up with reps, and some of them have already begun to. His fastball had hittable shape in high school, but he’s doing a better job of staying behind the baseball and creating more effective rise/run movement (17 inches of vert, 13 horizontal) on the pitch. It’s still “merely” generating above-average whiff and chase, but that’s more due to fringe command than a round-down movement profile. His arm swing is very long and might eventually need to be shortened if Hernandez’s control stagnates, but it’s tough to make proactive changes like that when the player in question is dominating to this degree. This is a remarkable athlete — Hernandez is a strapping 6-foot-4, he generates seven feet of extension, and he was a great high school power hitter and defensive first baseman — who has already improved a lot. The rate at which he’s progressing is incredibly exciting, and it looks like the Pirates having gambled on upside is once again going to pay off in a big way. Much like with Bubba Chandler (Seth’s secondary pitches are way ahead of Bubba’s at the same age), it may take a little while before we see peak big league Hernandez as he finds more consistent feel for his fastball, but once polished, we’re talking about one of the best pitchers in baseball.

Florentino was ranked very aggressively coming out of his 2024 DSL debut, and then was so great in the FCL the following year that the Pirates promoted him to the Low-A roster in late June. He ended up spending more time in full-season ball during his age-18 season than he did on the complex, and he hit .262/.380/.503 in Bradenton while maintaining an 83% contact rate across the two levels. Florentino’s 2026 season got off to a delayed start due to a spring ankle injury, but after two weeks of rehab games at Low-A, he was promoted to High-A Greensboro, where he’s one of eight position players in the South Atlantic League who is still a teenager.

Florentino has an uncanny knack for catching the baseball out in front of the plate and elevating to his pull side. His swing has a big backside collapse, creating natural uppercut that has him launching a huge portion of his contact at angles that generate power. His timing and selectivity add to a power-hitting cocktail that has enabled him to produce in-game thump considerably better than his raw juice, which is still comfortably below average. Florentino has a projectable frame and is an exciting rotational athlete whose body uncoils in a way that evokes a young Cody Bellinger, but it takes full-body effort for him to do so and he still isn’t especially strong just yet. While we expect Florentino’s strikeout totals to rise as he climbs, his strength and power output should as well, giving him a potent OBP/SLG combo that would allow him to profile as an everyday corner outfielder. Florentino began his career playing a lot of first base but has seen more time in center field of late, including exclusively this year. He isn’t great out there, but he has the range, skills and arm to be a good right fielder at maturity. Though the structure of Florentino’s output will likely take on more of a power-over-hit flavor as he progresses through the minors, he should produce enough to be a part of Pittsburgh’s long-term core.

De Los Santos is a diminutive speed demon with a great early-career bat-to-ball track record. He tracks pitches well, he’s adept at flattening his bat path to cover the top of the strike zone (and above), and he’s run single-digit strikeout rates at both rookie ball levels. De Los Santos sprays a lot of fairly light, low-lying contact into play and then uses his speed to wreak extra-base havoc on rookie-level defenses. He’ll post home-to-first times right around 4.00 seconds, and netted five triples in his first 19 games this season (but as of this writing, has no doubles). De Los Santos is small-ish but isn’t in Jorge Barrosa territory or anything like that. He likely won’t grow into big power, but he should have enough strength to weaponize his feel for contact against upper-level pitching rather than run low, skill-diluting BABIPs as a result of poor contact quality. For a guy with a slasher’s statline, he’s frequently on time to pull.

Where De Los Santos fits on defense is still very murky. He’s played both middle infield positions, but we’ve had him speculatively projected to center field since he was an amateur because he really struggles to field choppers and hoppers, anything where the baseball is kicking up off the ground. He certainly runs well enough to play center. His future will be dictated by how he settles on defense and how much power he can grow into. This is a similar skill set to that of Slater de Brun, who just got a $4 million draft bonus. De Los Santos has a puncher’s chance to be a good everyday center fielder or (maybe) second baseman.

Sanford was one of the best defensive players in the 2024 draft, a precocious leathersmith with velcro hands who was committed to Texas A&M but was coaxed to pro ball with a bonus just shy of $2.5 million. Though he had a great bat-to-ball track record in high school (82% contact rate on the showcase circuit), neither his swing nor his physicality were in position to do any kind of real damage. His path to an everyday role in pro ball was going to require added strength and maybe a swing change. After a debut season during which Sanford performed more or less as expected (.243/.384/.376 line split between the complex and Low-A), we’ve started to see some of those adjustments. His profile has done a complete 180 on offense in 2026, as his hard-hit rate has exploded (from 34% to 56%), he’s put several balls in play at 110 mph or above (his airborne max in 2025 was 105 mph), and his swing has changed a lot (his stance has opened up, and his stride is bigger than before). Curiously, Sanford does not appear to have gotten much stronger, but he is swinging a different, heavier-looking bat, and the combination of that and his swing change (plus what might be changes to the minor league baseball that have measurable power up across the board) are reasons to buy that he is now a meaningfully different offensive player.

Unfortunately, the changes have also seemingly impacted Sanford’s bat-to-ball ability to an alarming degree. He has a 60% contact rate as of list publication, a big drop compared to his 73% mark last year and well below what is acceptable from a big league middle infielder. Will he be able to adjust to his new swing and bat, or add strength so that he can manipulate the barrel more precisely and doesn’t look like a kid swinging a tree branch? The changes that were made here are so specific that it’s tough to say. Right now Sanford’s skill set is akin to a lefty-hitting Gabriel Arias, but if he can somehow get his contact north of 70%, then he has lots of favorable comps. There are two variables to key in on over the next 12 months: the way Sanford’s contact rate trends throughout the rest of this year, and whether he can add meaningful strength during the offseason and show up more in command of his bat in 2027.

Dotel struggled with walks and limited strikeouts in 2023 and 2024. Then his fastball added about three and a half ticks of velo over the next couple of seasons (going from 92-97 to his current 96-100) while Dotel polished his strike throwing and ate more and more innings, culminating in a 125.2-inning, 24.5% K%, 8% BB% performance at Double-A in 2025. He was added to the Pirates’ 40-man roster during the offseason and made his big league debut this year as a long reliever, stretched out enough that he could easily re-enter the rotation if the Pirates needed him to.

Dotel has huge arm strength, but none of his pitches have played like a plus or better offering. He has a cutter that averages 93 mph and has purely vertical movement, a slider that averages 89 mph, and a changeup that averages 87 mph. All three have miss and chase rates hovering around 30%, which is the big league average for secondary pitches. Though his game is more about limiting contact quality and his ability to throw strikes with these offerings gives him big league utility as a starter or long reliever, at least one of them will need to become a truly plus bat-misser if Dotel is going to have a considerable impact.

And so Dotel and the Pirates appear to be in the midst of some changes. He has seemingly scrapped the sinking version of his fastball, and the specs of his four-seamer have changed (a bit more extension and a slightly lower release) compared to last year. The Pirates have also changed Dotel’s position on the rubber, moving him more toward third base just before list publication, and his arm angle has seen a corresponding rise. He turned in two great long relief performances during my work on this piece and is very likely to exhaust his rookie eligibility this year, especially if the Pirates continue to scrap above .500.

Dotel’s long-term role is likely going to be in a rotation, as industry inventory demands that the durable strike-throwers like this end up eating innings. Here he’s graded as a rock solid no. 4/5 starter who needs to sharpen a secondary pitch to profile as a contender’s mid-rotation guy.

Valdez is a selective power bat who had a breakout 2025 as he cut his strikeout rate from 30.6% to 24.6%, posted his second consecutive 20-homer campaign, and went nuclear in the Arizona Fall League, earning himself a 40-man roster spot in the process. So far in 2026, he has again cut his strikeout rate (to 21% as of this update) while his walk rate has continued to inch within arm’s length of his K%, and he’s producing comfortably above the Triple-A average at age 22.

Valdez has excellent plate discipline and shows no splits of suspicion that might indicate he’s simply passive. He’s a selective hitter; he’s doesn’t expand a ton with two strikes or against breaking balls, and he also attacks pitches in the heart of the plate. This helps weaponize Valdez’s dangerous all-fields power against pitches in the lower two thirds of the strike zone. He has enough juice to go deep to the opposite field gap, and when he isn’t crushing mistake breaking balls, he’s hooking a lot of them down the third base line for potential doubles.

What is different early this year compared to Valdez’s 2025 look is that he’s more frequently late against fastballs than before. This guy has noisy hands. That was also the case last year, but it was less of an issue. He’s swinging underneath a lot of fastballs right now, often enough that it’s tough to move his previous hit tool projection even though his strikeouts are trending down for a second straight year. Plate discipline isn’t a solution to an in-zone hole versus fastballs. But he’s still going to slug and reach base enough to be a decent five- through seven-hole hitter at peak.

Valdez’s overall impact will be hindered by his defense, as he is rather slow and not always comfortable at the catch point. He’s been tentative fielding balls on the ground since one got through him a few weeks ago, at times slow enough to concede extra bases. He’s not unplayable out there, but he is the kind of guy who you’d like to have a defensive replacement for. Valdez recently made his big league debut and was quickly sent back down. If he keeps hitting at Triple-A, he’ll have earned himself a longer look.

Garcia, who broke out in 2024, was squeezed out of Boston’s crowded big league outfield picture and traded to Pittsburgh during the offseason. Jhostynxon’s nickname, The Password, loses some of its juice in a city where sports fans have learned to spell and pronounce Fuamatu-Maʻafala and Kasparaitis, but Garcia returned from an IL stint (lower back tightness) and was called up to make his Pirates debut shortly before publication, so let the cult hero journey begin.

Garcia is a toolsy, volatile young outfielder with a ferocious swing and a real appetite for chase. This is a muscularly dense young man who has a shocking amount of fluidity in his hips and shoulders for someone so strong, and Garcia had back-to-back 20-homer seasons entering 2026 despite both missing some time with injury and making contact at a 70% clip, which even in center field is toward the bottom of what is viable for long-term occupants of the position. He has impressive power to the opposite field gap, which he often needs to access because his swing’s length frequently makes it tough for him to pull fastballs, especially when they’re located lower in the zone (Nick Castellanos is a swingalike). His chase rates, which are especially bad against fastballs and explode to over 50% with two strikes, are a ruby red flag of volatility. While Garcia’s tools are big enough to expect he’ll have some productive power-hitting seasons, chase like this is an indication of year-to-year (probably week-to-week) variability in his performance. The Cedanne Rafaela, Pete Crow-Armstrong, and Michael Harris II types show us every season that guys who swing at everything run hot and cold for long stretches. Those are three elite defenders who find a way to impact games even when they’re mired in a long slump, and while Garcia is speedy enough to play center field, his ball skills are unexceptional and he’s more of a 45- or 50-grade defender out there. As such, this forecasts Garcia to produce like more of a below-average regular in center when you look at his stats across a multi-year sample, though he’ll probably have a peak season or two in which his production is above average, similar to Colton Cowser or Jose Siri.

The 6-foot-3, 230-pound Gray was a big time mid-major performer who was ranked toward the back of the first round on the 2025 Draft Board but was selected at the end of the second. Though it was necessary to apply a small conference adjustment to his college statistical performance (headlined by plus or better contact rates in both his sophomore and junior years, and a 91% contact rate against fastballs), he really hit in a big Cape Cod sample (.329/.367/.500) during his pre-draft summer, reinforcing the notion that he could perform against select pitching. As Gray’s pro career gets off to a hot start, we are faced with some of the same questions as we were before the draft. He spent the first six weeks of the season at Low-A, crushing pitchers below his skill level, and then was promoted to Greensboro the week prior to publication and stayed hot, hitting four homers in his first six games.

Gray has excellent plate coverage. He’s short to the baseball on the inner third and can pull pitches in there, and is also strong enough to be dangerous hitting outer-third pitches the other way. He also has seemingly preternatural feel for striking the middle/bottom of the baseball, lining tons of hard contact over infielders and toward both gaps. That’s a lot to like, and you can make a strong data-driven case for Gray to vault into the 50-FV tier if you’re willing to take his lower-level performance at face value. But he had chase issues in college that haven’t yet been stress tested by pro stuff because of his initially conservative assignment, and visually there is still enough breaking ball chase to pump the brakes on upping his projection at this stage.

Gray also isn’t a good third base defender. He has below-average hands and struggles to field hot shots, and he’s also a little too slow to field rollers in front of him. Chase-prone righty corner bats are scary prospects, even scarier when there’s a possibility that they’ll eventually be first base-only defenders. Gray is an exciting prospect who I’m glad is hitting given that clubs seemed to like him about a round and a half less than I did before last year’s draft, but let’s give our collective assessment of his plate skills some time to breath. He retains his pre-draft grade as a potential second-division regular.

A prominent high school southpaw known for his funky, low arm slot, Barco ended up at Florida, where he was part of the Gators’ rotation for three years until his final season there ended with a Tommy John surgery. His first pro innings came late in 2023, he enjoyed a two-tick velocity bump in 2024, and then he scraped 100 innings (a career high) in the upper minors in 2025 and saw his first big league action. Barco was up for five games early this season, then was optioned; he is currently at Triple-A Indianapolis, where he is lined up with Bubba Chandler’s start days.

Barco’s distinct, low-slot delivery creates crossfire, uphill angle on his fastball, which makes hitters uncomfortable when the pitch is properly elevated. He will pitch backwards off his breaking balls (he has a distinct sweeper and slider), then elevate his fastball for chase. Righties get a nice long look at the baseball, but Barco can crowd them in on the hands with his fastball’s angle, and he keeps them off balance with multiple offspeed pitches, a changeup and split that feature roughly 1,000 rpm of separation. His slider lacks much pure spin and isn’t a great chase pitch, so Barco can be predictable against lefties as he dumps slider after slider into the zone against them. How much his delivery actually bothers big league hitters, and how nasty he can make his sinker over time, will dictate a lot of how successful Barco can be. Here he’s projected as a no. 4/5 starter.

Curtis began his college career at Texas A&M, where he had a botched nerve transposition surgery and needed a second to correct it; he transferred to ASU, where he ran an ERA over 7.00. But Curtis was throwing hard, and that was enough for the Pirates to give him just shy of $500,000 and try to tease something more out of him in pro ball. They have. Curtis is striking out over 11 batters per nine and leading the Altoona group in innings. His arm slot has changed a bit this season, and he’s more behind the baseball. He’s added vertical life to his fastball, which is now averaging 19 inches of vertical movement, and better vertical depth to his curve. But Curtis’ fastball performance is pretty much the same, and his slider hasn’t been as effective as last year with the new look. He can change the pace and shape of his breaking balls from cutters to sliders to curveballs, but more often he is leaning on his sinking changeup as a finishing pitch, including against righties. We’re in the early days of assessing Curtis’ breaking ball utility and effectiveness with this new delivery. If he can dial in a slider more like the one he had last year while keeping his new curveball and changeup, then we’re talking about the repertoire of a good team’s fourth starter. For now, he’s projected a shade below that.

Gourson was a three-year starter and remarkably consistent performer at UCLA, posting a 123ish wRC+ in each of his Bruins seasons. He has kept chugging along at a similar clip in pro ball and spent most of his first full season at Altoona, where he slashed .284/.372/.431 last year. His surface stats so far in 2026 aren’t as stellar, but his underlying metrics are identical; Gourson has produced a peak exit velo and contact rate roughly in line with the big league average while playing a mix of second and third base. Compact lefty bats like Gourson are the kind of part-timers you often see in the Rays and Brewers systems. His swing is athletic and features big bend and strength from his lower body, while his shorter levers help him stay on time even though he’s using a pretty big move. This guy is going to beat up on righties enough to merit 400 annual pate appearances as part of a 2B/3B infield platoon.

The fourth pick in the 2022 draft, Johnson’s projection has settled into that of a second-division regular at second base. After some pretty serious early-career strikeout issues, he has made sufficient adjustments to his swing and approach (like cutting his stride with two strikes) to stabilize his hit tool projection. Johnson struck out much less in 2024 and 2025 (18-21%) than he did in 2022 and 2023 (26%), and slashed a respectable .272/.363/.382 as a 21-year-old at Altoona last year. He began the 2026 season, his 40-man platform year, at Triple-A, where he’s struggling early on.

Johnson has had to adjust to each new level and assignment. He swings impressively hard for a 5-foot-7 guy and has some pull power against pitches on the inner third, especially breakers hanging in that area. It takes a lot of movement and noise for him to wind up his little body and swing hard, but it’s a lot of fun to watch him do it, and his compact stature helps keep him short enough to the baseball for this style to play. As he has aimed to pull the ball with power, he has become vulnerable to whiffs against pitches on the outer third, but he’s selective enough to target stuff he can drive early in the count before he goes into oppo slasher mode with two strikes.

This is definitely an OBP-driven offensive profile, as Johnson’s pure hit tool and power are both likely to be average or a shade below. Because he can’t really play any other infield position besides second base, he isn’t someone who can be assessed as a utilityman. Instead, his future role exists in a binary: Either he does enough on offense to play every day at second, or he isn’t rosterable. His output projects to be similar to Josh Rojas and Cavan Biggio. With Konnor Griffin locked in at shortstop, the second and third base mix in Pittsburgh is starting to look a bit clogged with players of Johnson’s caliber.

Flores broke out in 2024 when he slashed a cartoonish .279/.379/.495 in a season split between High- and Double-A, a performance that was great for a small school undrafted guy in his second full pro season, but was a little tougher to contextualize given his age and mature physicality. Similar to Ben Rice before him, Flores looks the part of a late-blooming catcher/1B/DH in the uniform, as he’s a hulking 6-foot-3 and body comps to Tyler Flowers. As he’s transitioned from catching part-time to catching most of the time during the last couple of seasons, some aspects of Flores’ defense have improved (receiving and ball-blocking), while others have not (botched exchanges, throwing inaccuracy). We’re at the point where he can be declared a viable (but flawed) big league fit at catcher, as teams will probably run on him with impunity until he proves he can better handle the baseball (his pure arm strength is actually pretty good). He became part of Pittsburgh’s magmatic short-term catching contingent after the David Bednar trade at last year’s deadline.

Flores has uncommon power for a catcher, and while aspects of his swing path (it’s long) and his tendency to chase make him likely to strike out a ton against big league pitching, if he can get to power in games anyway, he’ll do enough to be a valuable bat-first backup. He’s best when he can get extended against pitches up and away from him, which he’s a threat to deposit from pole to pole. There are all kinds of late-bloomer traits here (Flores’ size, late arrival to catching this often, and small school background), and it’s possible that Flores will have a peak year or two where he hits 15-plus bombs as a part-time cacher and 1B/DH, just as there will probably also be years where he hits .180 and can’t control the run game.

Plaz presents a less extreme version of Jorge Alfaro‘s skill set — big power and arm strength, a concerning approach — on a scaled-down version of Alfredo Duno‘s physicality — he’s built like a pop star’s body guard at a thick-necked 5-foot-11. Plaz has traversed the low- and mid-minors at a measured pace. He spent the bulk of both 2024 and 2025 crushing at Low-A Bradenton, and is on a similar path of destruction at High-A Greensboro to start 2026. This is an explosive rotator with very strong hands who has produced comfortably plus measured power (113-mph max exit velocity, 108-110 EV90) each of the last two years. But Plaz comes with some warts and warning signs. His spray is oriented to the opposite field in the extreme, his happy zone is fairly limited to hanging breakers and pitches on the outer third, and he has well below-average plate discipline. These are the characteristics of a streaky hitter who will probably strike out much more than the 19-20% range he’s lived in the last couple of years.

What will actually garner Plaz a prolonged big league opportunity is what he’s capable of on defense. He has a great arm — his footwork as he exits his crouch is often perfect — and has improved a lot as a framer, especially to his glove side, generating five framing runs in just 50 games behind the dish last year; he also plays a competent first base. Plaz struggles to move laterally out of his one-knee’d crouch, and his ball blocking would be a big problem if he had to catch a major league game tomorrow. But he doesn’t. Plaz turns 21 in August and, if you count last year’s Arizona Fall League, has only caught in roughly 40 games above Low-A as of list publication. It’s okay that he’s green in this way, and he has the requisite athleticism and physical density to be a good ball blocker eventually.

It will be interesting to see whether Pittsburgh decides to promote Plaz to Altoona this year. Doing so would theoretically put him more in range to be added to the 40-man following the season. But the Pirates have to vet a number of other catchers already on or near their 40-man roster, and keeping Plaz in Greensboro all year (which would be consistent with the pace at which Pittsburgh has promoted him so far) would help to avoid a premature logjam, and also makes it tougher for other teams to confidently pop Plaz in the Rule 5 Draft. But if Plaz has a .980 OPS all season (as he does as of this update), it’s going to be tough to justify that to the player. Plaz is set to enter the big league fray as a part time C/1B in roughly 2028.

Morel had a deal with the Dodgers for a little north of $1 million, but once their pursuit of Roki Sasaki spilled into the 2025 signing period, a game of bonus pool musical chairs began. Morel worked out for teams the week before the 2025 period opened (in Dodgers gear) and was offered $1.8 million by Pittsburgh the next day. He slashed .287/.425/.414 in his DSL debut, then was assigned to the 2026 extended spring group and then the Florida complex, where he is striking out a lot more than he did last season.

Morel has continued growing and is now a lanky 6-foot-4, built similarly to complex-era Elly De La Cruz and with similar power projection. He already swings with exciting ferocity when he gets off his best cut, rotating hard enough for his bat to finish in the dirt behind him. There’s huge long-term power projection here, with Morel having room for such substantial strength that it isn’t out of the question that he’ll grow into more pop than is expected.

His look on defense so far in Florida has been impressive enough to change Morel’s projection from third base to shortstop. At his size, there’s still risk he gets too big to play there at his physical peak, but he looks good right now. He bends incredibly well for someone his size, he has the actions, agility and body control to make quick plays in on the grass, and he has just enough arm strength to make throws from deep in the hole (and might grow into more). Lefty-hitting shortstops with this kind of power are rare, and from a tools standpoint, not only is Morel one of the more exciting prospects in this system, but that a 30-homer shortstop right tail outcome is in play for him makes him one of the splashier, more exciting-to-monitor prospects in the entire minors.

The problem is that he might not hit enough for any of that to matter. Morel’s contact rate has tanked, plunging from an unspectacular 73% in 2025 to a very concerning 63% early in 2026 as he flails at lefty breaking balls and struggles to get around on fastballs that are just a little bit harder than what he saw last year. Were he a high school draft prospect, there’d be a subset of teams for which the risk in Morel’s profile would simply be too much. For those more open to players of this ilk (we’d count ourselves among them), Morel would be graded on the periphery of the first round.

Blanco has some of the biggest, most explosive raw power in all of pro baseball, and has since he was 19 years old. He is a gargantuan 6-foot-7, 250-pound righty masher whose BP and Home Run Derby exploits are rivaled only by the feats of figures in ancient mythology. This guy is a unicorn. Blanco has produced measurable power on par with the strongest hitters in baseball — think Oneil Cruz, Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, and Giancarlo Stanton — in each of the past few seasons. He’s put balls in play at 115 mph or more 13 times since the start of last season, and that’s despite missing a lot of 2025 with one of the several lower body injuries he has dealt with as a pro. Indeed, Blanco has yet to play more than 40 games in a single season, and has already matched his career-best single-season homer mark in 2026 because he has actually been healthy.

The injuries have kept Blanco from getting the reps he needs to improve his hit tool to a place of viability. He had a 56% contact rate in 2025, much too low for the big leagues, but has been hovering around 64% so far in 2026. That still isn’t good, but it’s a sign of improvement for the first baseman, and within a few percentage points of other big leaguers who actually play regularly and are productive. A top-heavy athlete, Blanco struggles to get into his lower half as he swings and is vulnerable on the outer half as a result. When he can successfully alter his posture, he’s capable of covering the whole strike zone with power. If regular reps and/or improved lower body conditioning can help him find the feel for doing this regularly, he’s going to be a 40-homer threat. As his skills are currently constituted, Blanco is more likely to have a Franmil Reyes arc, with a few productive power-hitting seasons followed by an early athletic decline.

Kelly is a powerfully built, loose-in-the-hips righty who the Pirates successfully developed from a rookie ball reliever into a big league starter, as he had a breakout 2025 (107.1 innings split between High- and Double-A, 3.02 ERA) and was put on the 40-man roster during the offseason. His upper-90s fastball lacks the explosive life and movement of a true impact pitch, and it generated a merely average big league miss and chase rate last season in the mid-minors; it has a below-average rate thus far in 2026 as he works at Triple-A Indianapolis. This is a round-down fastball to a significant degree, and it’s shockingly vulnerable to damage for a pitch that’ll crest 100 mph. Kelly’s breaking ball is an upper-80s “cutter” that has a slider’s velo separation from his fastball but lacks depth such that it’s tough to call it a slider; this lack of depth also makes it hittable for opposing lefties. Kelly’s power changeup, which sinks and tails in the 86-88 mph range, is easily his best pitch from a stuff standpoint and is effective against hitters of either handedness.

It might take some time and tinkering, but pitchers who throw this hard tend to find a way to have an effective fastball. For Kelly, that might mean an eventual shift to the bullpen so he can live at the absolute apex of his velo range all the time. Kelly is also a shorter guy, but he isn’t small. He’s bulky but not stiff, and has demonstrated starter’s stamina. Still, he does have to nibble with his fastball to keep it out of trouble, which can lead to more walks than is typical of a starter. For now, Kelly will develop as an optionable starter and hopefully find more effective fastball and slider movement that will allow him to stay there. Here, he’s projected for an eventual bullpen move (late next season is the earliest it should be considered) and a seventh or eighth inning role long-term.

The Pirates got Travieso, a hard-throwing teenage (likely) relief prospect, in the offseason’s five-player Johan Oviedo trade. He worked 64.2 innings across 19 appearances (16 starts) on the Red Sox complex and A-ball rosters in 2025 and posted a 3.06 ERA. He has yet to make his Pirates affiliate debut due to a forearm strain, for which he’s on the 60-day IL.

Travieso brings serious heat for an 19-year-old. He’ll touch 101 and be parked around 95 for as many as five innings at a time. He leans more on his mid-80s slider to throw strikes, dumping them into the top of the zone to get ahead before trying to rip his fastball past hitters at the belt and above. Travieso’s lack of size and high-effort delivery are bullpen indicators. He’s 5-foot-11, of narrow build, and has a short-striding delivery dependent on trunk tilt and arm speed to generate all that velo. He’s a good young pitching prospect who has some chance to be a late-inning reliever down the road, though a middle-inning outcome is more likely.

Suero came to Pittsburgh from the Padres in the Rich Hill/Ji Man Choi 2023 deadline trade. He has the build of an NBA wing player at a long-levered 6-foot-6, and possesses the big time power projection that comes with that kind of room for added strength. Over the last three seasons, Suero has actualized a lot of his raw power projection, but he has yet to exit A-ball, in part because of excessive strikeouts and in part because he’s missed a chunk of time with injury each of the past three seasons. He is currently on the IL with elbow inflammation.

Over the past three seasons, Suero’s hard-hit rate has risen from 22% to 38%, and then to 55% last year and during the very early going of 2026. This is rare, freaky power for a switch-hitter, especially one who is a few weeks younger than most draft-eligible college sophomores. But Suero’s contact rate plummeted with exposure to A-ball pitching, way down into non-prospect territory south of 60%. His persistent injuries (he’s had hamate, quad, and ankle stuff in prior years) and multiple late-bloomer traits (really tall hitters take longer to develop, and so do switch-hitters — this guy is both) mean he simply hasn’t had the time to find his footing. Even though Suero hasn’t played center field yet this year and looks like a corner-only defender going forward, it feels too soon to damn his hit tool to prospect hell. He’s undoubtedly behind the developmental curve and might have the opportunity to become a minor league free agent before he sniffs the majors, but we’re talking about plus power from both sides of the plate here, so I’m going to value Suero highly for another season or two even if he’s striking out a lot.

Navarro is a power pitching lefty relief prospect with a chance to develop a truly elite fastball. Not only does his heater feature big velocity, but it has a nearly perfect backspinning axis that helps him generate 21 inches of vertical break. If Navarro can develop any semblance of command of that pitch (as of now, he has none), it will be enough to spearhead a late-inning relief profile on its own. If he not only dials in his fastball command but also can find a more consistent breaking ball or changeup, we’ll be talking about one of the better relievers in baseball.

Navarro flashes these things — his slider occasionally has power break, his changeup big fade — but his delivery, especially the use of his lower body, is wildly inconsistent, and he’s walked over a batter per inning as a pro. He has a high-maintenance build that could lose athleticism quickly if he doesn’t stay well-conditioned, which he appears on the brink of right now. His arm speed is incredible, but he’s often totally imbalanced and out of control as he gets over his front side. If Navarro’s control remains as bad as it is right now, then we’ve got another Burl Carraway on our hands. If things tighten up, then Navarro could be lefty Félix Bautista.

Campbell is a small but mighty program that has helped produce several relevant prospects over the last few years, including three first rounders since 2019. One of those was Harrington, the 36th overall pick in 2022 as a draft-eligible sophomore, a pitchability righty who pretty much coasted through the minors until prolonged exposure to Triple-A. Harrington’s lack of fastball velo and movement has made that pitch extremely vulnerable, and in his last four starts prior to list publication, his fastball has only generated two total whiffs. He attacks the strike zone with a variety of junk, amounting to seven different pitches when you factor in all of his various breaking ball and fastball shapes. Sweepers spearhead his attack against righties, while cutters do so against lefties.

Harrington is currently in a piggyback role at Indy. He’s rarely completing five innings per outing and, for the last year plus, has looked more like a kitchen sink fifth or sixth starter than a steady no. 4/5.

Ager is a sturdy, 6-foot-6 righty with an ideal pitcher’s build and mechanics so smooth he looks like he’s pitching from a BarcaLounger. Aside from his 90-94 mph fastball, which plays up thanks to Ager’s 6-feet-8 extension, none of his pitches have been dominant from a swing-and-miss standpoint. But he hides the ball well, he hammers the strike zone, and he has been deceptive enough to limit opponents’ contact quality and pitch his way from Greensboro to Altoona very quickly in 2026. Ager mixes cutters, sliders, and the occasional slow curveball. His slider is the best of these right now, and by far the one he worked with the most in college. His other pitches, including a mid-80s changeup, are being stress tested by Double-A hitters. Because of his mechanical consistency, Ager’s changeup should improve and allow him to pitch at the back of a rotation.

Sterling ranked 68th on our 2024 Draft Board and was seen as more of a projectable strike-thrower than a high-upside power pitcher. The Pirates paid the Texas commit like a late first-rounder ($2.5 million), and he’s spent the first two full seasons of his pro career in Bradenton, first in the extended spring group and then on the Low-A roster, where he remains.

Sterling has a low, short, super consistent arm stroke, and he fills the zone with a low-90s fastball and a precocious slider. He attacks east/west with those two pitches and dots them with advanced skill, generating strike rates in the 65-68% range with both offerings so far this season. He seldom uses his changeup and might eventually need a second breaking ball (lower-slot pitchers tend to develop cutters), so while Sterling is most certainly advanced as a strike-thrower, his repertoire is still growing. His projection remains the same as it was before he was drafted: Sterling is tracking like a command-oriented fifth starter.

Carmichael has special twitch and agility for a catcher, and his upside as a defender is big enough that, at peak, he’s going to be one of the top 50 backstops in the sport even though he isn’t going to do a ton on offense. His quickness enables a swift exchange that, along with deadly accuracy, helps him control the run game despite him lacking big arm strength. Some catchers struggle to move laterally out of their one-knee’d crouch when they have to block a pitch in the dirt, but Carmichael makes it look easy, sliding himself in front of errant pitches with perfect technique and backpicking balls in the dirt when it’s called for. He’s improving as a framer, and already looks stronger and quieter at the catch point than he did in college despite lacking typical catcher size and strength.

Carmichael can struggle in situations that require an infielder’s skill, like fielding throws and applying a tag, but he is otherwise a really great defensive catching prospect with special quickness. Offensively, he has pedestrian bat speed and barrel feel. There are a couple of niche locations where Carmichael can run into one (pitches crowding him middle-in, and pitches that tail into his barrel down and away), but he is mostly hitting liners over the heads of infielders. This is a backup catcher’s skill set with extraordinary defense.

Bidois is an Australian power reliever with a big vertical fastball/breaking ball combo. He has tended to live an FV tier or two lower than where someone with this kind of stuff tends to because his strike-throwing is so erratic. His overhand, trebuchet-style delivery creates nearly perfect vertical ride on his fastball, and a power slider that can creep up around 3,000 rpm at its best tunnels nicely off his fastball. Bidois seems to have slimmed his repertoire down a bit and is throwing fewer cutter-shaped breakers than in prior seasons, but his changeup usage against lefties has doubled to 10%. That pitch is erratic, and Bidois might be better served trying to give his breaking ball some arm-side bend against them instead. Bidois has good enough stuff to be considered an on-roster reliever rather than an up/down guy.

Diamond, with his Pirate appropriate facial hair, is an oft-injured righty who, when healthy, has been an excellent reliever since he permanently transitioned to the role after the 2024 season. Granted, he’s only thrown about 50 career relief innings (and that’s counting two Arizona Fall League stints) because of persistent injury, including two IL stints already at the start of 2026. Diamond is currently healthy and really humming in Altoona, where he’s been in the 93-97 mph range and bending in hellacious sliders. He’s moved toward the third base side of the rubber this year, and the angle on his stuff has become tougher for hitters to match. Diamond’s frequent injuries cloud his future, but from a pure stuff standpoint, he is a standard middle-inning righty who should debut next year if he can remain healthy for the rest of this season.

Brannigan is a polarizing former two-way player whose swing features extreme pull-and-launch characteristics that allowed him to club 30 homers in 115 combined High-A games in 2023 and 2024 despite fringe-average contact rates and measurable raw power. He has spent the bulk of the past two seasons on the injured list. He tore the labrum in his right shoulder in 2025, then broke his nose (among other injuries he sustained) when a bad hop hit him in the face during 2026 spring training. As of list publication, he’s on the IL again, this time with a strained hamstring.

Brannigan is polarizing because there’s disagreement about how sustainable his swing and approach are. His hands load super deep and low, which cause him to swing underneath a ton of elevated fastballs, but this approach also has him geared for a ton of pull-side launch. He’s averaged 20 degrees of launch each of the past two seasons and had an incredible 59% air pull rate at Altoona this year before he got hurt. Granted, he’s 25, he’s only at Double-A, and while he’s doing his best Andy Pages impression, he’s also striking out almost 39% of the time. This is a skeptical assessment of Brannigan’s approach that forecasts an output similar to Zack Short. But the guy can play defense. He has good hands and one hell of an arm. The Pirates put him on their 40-man during the offseason because they lacked depth at shortstop, but Konnor Griffin’s ascendance means healthy Brannigan will be limited to a utility role.

Delgado is an undersized middle infield prospect who came to Pittsburgh as the Player to be Named Later in the 2024 JT Brubaker trade with the Yankees. After striking out in the 11-13% range in rookie ball, he has struggled to improve as a righty hitter and to adjust to better breaking balls as he’s climbed the minors. He has a 59% contact rate against breakers so far this year, and the sort of contact performance that made him look like a potential regular is now multiple years in the rearview. He remains an electric athlete for a little 5-foot-8 guy and has sneaky pop from the left side, as well as great range and max-effort arm strength on defense, though his hands are less consistent. Delgado will turn inaccurate throws into highlight reel plays by making a great tag or finding an acrobatic way to touch the bag. He’s an athletic fit at shortstop, which has become the crux of a utility profile.

De Los Santos looked poised for a meteoric rise through Pittsburgh’s system early in 2023, when he posted an .850 OPS in the FCL and was promoted to Low-A for the bulk of the summer. The physically impressive youngster — he had plus bat speed, a plus arm, and exciting body projection — cut his strikeout rate to a promising 14.1%, but as soon as he was promoted to Bradenton’s full-season roster, he began a multi-year period during which he struggled to perform, either due to excessive strikeouts or poor contact quality. He finally found some semblance of even footing last year, as he posted a 95 wRC+ in Bradenton. After a brief IL stint to start 2026 (hamstring strain), he rehabbed and was promoted to Greensboro, where he is hitting better than ever before.

De Los Santos’ hard-hit rate is now way up near 50% (from 33% last year), and he isn’t chasing nearly as much as before, but he’s only been healthy for a couple of weeks and this sample is too small to totally trust that the latter change will stick. He does swing hard and has enough power to hit oppo homers, which his swing’s length makes necessary. De Los Santos has consistently run sub-70% contact rates and tends to lunge at pitches off the plate. Though he has exciting power potential for a young shortstop, the odds that he will hit enough to be a regular are pretty low. He plays a decent shortstop and, despite an odd throwing stroke, has enough arm for the position. José Barrero is a fair comp for De Los Santos, who is similarly toolsy but is likely to have a sub-70% contact rate and end up on the active roster fringe. As Sammy Stafura returns from his own hamstring issue, it’s possible we’ll see more of De Los Santos at second and third base.

Stafura signed with the Reds for just under $2.5 million (a late first-round bonus) in the 2023 second round rather than go to Clemson, and spent the bulk of his first two full seasons at Low-A before Cincinnati traded him to Pittsburgh as part of last year’s Ke’Bryan Hayes deal. Speed, defense, and plate discipline drive his prospectdom, but a grooved swing limits his ability to do damage on offense and will likely relegate him to utility infield work at peak.

Stafura’s range and acrobatic agility allow him to make some great plays in the field, and he more than clears the bar as a viable defender at shortstop. The lone wart of his defense is throwing accuracy, as he throws too many one hoppers to first and occasionally pulls his teammates off the bag. On offense, Stafura’s swing cuts through the down-and-in portion of the zone, and he can do damage when he snatches a pitch there, but he has struggled to make contact throughout the rest of the box and has been K-prone in the lower minors (24% K% the last two years, 70% contact in 2025). Though his breaking ball recognition is more average, his ability to diagnose fastball balls and strikes is plus, and Stafura attacks the mistakes he sees. Plate discipline and walk rates in the teens are why he was able to produce above-average offensive lines in A-ball with the Reds, but he’ll probably strike out more as he climbs due to the lack of barrel control. The Pirates promoted Stafura to Greensboro late last year, but he’s barely played so far in 2026 because of two IL stints, the most recent for a strained hamstring, which he returned from just before publication. He’s on a two-year track to the Pirates’ 40-man and is likely to carve out a glove-first utility role around 2029.

Reed had a fantastic first full pro season in 2024, posting a 1.99 ERA across 108.2 innings. He dealt with a back injury during the early portion of 2025, and when he returned, he had lost a tick and a half off his fastball (an issue that has continued in 2026) and struggled to throw strikes. Though Reed hasn’t been quite as wild so far this year, his long arm action is tough to repeat and is the kind more typically found in relief. Late this season, it might behoove the Pirates to see what happens to his fastball velocity with a shift to the bullpen as they assess whether he should be added to their 40-man roster this fall. His changeup has nasty sinking action and very consistent finish that will play as a bat-misser in the big leagues, but Reed’s slider is average and his fastball has been below since the back issue popped up. His starter pedigree and repertoire depth opens up the possibility for a multi-inning role.

Woods pitched out of Georgia’s bullpen as an underclassman and became their Friday night guy as a junior before he was shut down toward the end of the 2023 season with biceps tendinitis. Deployed exclusively as a reliever in pro ball, though often for more than one inning, he has the look of a fair lefty reliever thanks mostly to his above-average slider. Woods’ delivery is gorgeous and features a cross-bodied stride and lovely vertical arm stroke, though he tends to pronate over top of the baseball on release and generate more sink than ride. His slider, usually in the 81-84 mph range, has typical two-plane movement, 10-to-5 on the clock face. Neither pitch is so nasty that Woods is ticketed for late-inning relief, but he should be a serviceable second fiddle lefty reliever.

Originally a Yankee, Perez came to Pittsburgh via last summer’s David Bednar trade. During his rookie ball era with New York, Perez looked like he had a puncher’s chance to become a primary catcher. That has dialed down during the last two years as he has struggled to do anything on offense that would indicate he has a power-hitting future. Instead, Perez’s carrying tool is his arm strength, and he now projects as a developmental backup.

Perez isn’t an especially great receiver (visually, anyway — he did well from a framing runs standpoint last year) or ball blocker right now, but he is agile and athletic and should excel at both with time. He has an uncanny ability to uncork strong throws from all kinds of funky platforms, and he controls the run game with pop times hovering around 1.90 seconds. Offensively, Perez has great feel for the strike zone and above-average bat-to-ball ability, but the quality of his contact (tons of grounders and oppo pokes) causes both skills to play down. Upper-level pitchers are going to attack him without fear of him doing real damage and limit his ability to walk. He’s off to a good start in his second season at Bradenton and might get back on his chalk 40-man timeline (after the 2027 season) if he’s promoted to, and thrives at, Greensboro during the second half.

Custodio has huge power, a 70 on the scale when adjusting for his age. He’s a physically mature corner outfield power bat with a huge arm and hit tool risk. He has the skill set of a pretty typical high-variance right field profile and signed for $900,000 in January. He has not played in either of Pittsburgh’s first couple of DSL games for reasons unknown to the author.

The latest in a long line of baseballing Guerreros, young Wilton is a speedy, slick-fielding shortstop whose lack of size (he’s tiny) and projected offense likely cap his ceiling in the utility infield realm. He signed for a little shy of $2 million in January and just began his pro career in the DSL.

Callihan was a high-profile high school prospect who signed for about $1.5 million in the 2019 third round. He was divisive due to questions about his defense, which have more or less persisted for the last half decade as Callihan has played a below-average second base and gotten reps at first base and in left field. He was put on the Reds’ 40-man roster after the 2024 season, got a four-game cup of coffee early last year, and then spent the rest of the season in the minors. He was traded to Pittsburgh for righty reliever Kyle Nicolas during spring training and has struggled to find traction at Indianapolis.

Cracks in Callihan’s approach were evident early in pro ball, but he’s been more selective the last two seasons, though he is still apt to chase high fastballs. Lefty bat speed like his tends to play in the big leagues, and he has above-average power and is geared to pull. A hole in his swing against elevated fastballs has limited his ability to make contact, and he’s run sub-70% contact rates for the last couple of seasons. At the positions he can actually play, that puts Callihan on the 40-man fringe. He’s an above-replacement depth bat for a Pirates team that has been aggressively cultivating other clubs’ castoffs for the last few years, but they’ve struck enough gold now that it’s tough to envision Callihan cracking their lineup without injuries occurring ahead of him.

Cook comes from a very athletic family, especially on his mom’s side, as she played basketball and volleyball at Air Force and was one of three Division-I athletes in her family; for his part, Cook’s dad played baseball at Air Force. Cook went undrafted during the shortened 2020 season and returned to Pepperdine for his senior year, which was impacted by an oblique injury. A shrewd senior sign by the Orioles in 2021, Cook broke out in 2023 when he hit 24 home runs and stole 30 bases at Double-A Bowie. The Pirates targeted him in trade in 2024, sending pitching prospect Patrick Reilly to Baltimore. Cook made his big league debut after the deal, getting a 16-game cup of coffee in September, during which he played all three outfield positions and first base. He wasn’t up for long enough last year to exhaust his rookie eligibility, then broke 2026 camp with the big club and struggled in limited reps before he was optioned to Indy.

Cook is really to toolsy, but his tendency to over-swing in order to sell out for pull power puts his overall profile at risk. He will hit some epic pull-side homers (you do not want to hang a breaking ball against this guy), but he swings underneath a ton of elevated fastballs. Even though he has been an older prospect, Cook’s relative inexperience and nomadic defensive development (he’s seen time at multiple infield positions in addition to the outfield) meant he stood a chance to develop as a center field defender a little later. That hasn’t happened to the degree that it would need to for him to secure a big league role. He’s looking like a reserve 40-man piece.

Yorke was a surprise 2020 first rounder, as his recovery from a shoulder surgery, combined with the pandemic, made him tough to evaluate before the draft. His 2022 was impacted by myriad injuries (turf toe, back stiffness, wrist soreness), but he was otherwise a high-performing minor league hitter for the Red Sox from 2021 through 2024, and was traded to Pittsburgh at the 2024 deadline for Quinn Priester. Yorke made his big league debut after that but didn’t play enough to lose rookie eligibility until this season.

A versatile defender (first, second, and third base, as well as the outfield), Yorke isn’t especially good at any position, and he plays wherever he can best be hidden. On offense, he’s had strange reverse platoon splits for his entire career — since 2024, he has a .780 OPS versus righties and a .638 versus lefties — and can do damage against center-cut mistakes, pulling breaking balls and shooting fastballs oppo. It’s a weird spray profile and overall a skill set on the fringe of the 40-man roster. Expect Yorke to bounce around to different orgs, maybe soon.

There were stretches at BYU when Nielson was throwing very hard, and though his velocity has settled into a below-average range, he’s had three years of bat-missing success in the minors on the strength of his slider. He has the look of a lower-leverage lefty reliever. Nielson’s slider plays like a plus pitch against hitters of either handedness, and he can show you more of a cutter look around 85 mph to keep you off his fastball. He’s had double digit walk rates each of the last several seasons, which is why he’s projected into an up/down role here.

The son of former big league starter Scott Sanders, Cam elected minor league free agency after the 2024 season, signed with the Pirates, and then dialed in his strike-throwing enough to make his big league debut last August. He’s back to walking a batter per inning so far this year, but he has three above-average or better pitches and should play an up/down role for now. Whether Sanders can stick in a bullpen once his option years are gone will depend on how his walks trend the next two seasons.

There have been times recently when Alfonzo was graded similarly to this system’s other exciting catching prospects because he’s a lefty bat with plus power and it seemed plausible that would develop further. It hasn’t yet. Alfonzo remains below average in most facets of catching defense, especially his framing, and his offense has tanked since he was promoted to Altoona last year. He was hitting for plus power (on the surface and under the hood) while he was in hitter-friendly Greensboro, but was also striking out a lot, which has been more consequential in roughly 100 Double-A games so far. It’s too early to completely write off a young player with this kind of left-handed power, but Alfonzo is treading water on defense while his offense backs up, putting him more on the long-term 40-man fringe.

Ramirez’s combination of arm strength, youth, size, and slider potential makes him a notable FCL prospect even though he lacks great command. His fastball shape is of the round-down variety, with equal parts rise/run movement. Ramirez’s slider, which has been in the 85-90 mph range so far, has tight two-plane movement and is a potential plus pitch.

Matoma was playing at the Dodgers’ academy in Uganda when he was signed out from under them by Pirates scout Tom Gillespie, who has been scouting in Africa for over a decade. The super athletic little righty was among the hardest throwers in the 2023 DSL and had a 0.00 ERA in his first pro season, then came to the U.S. in 2024 and posted a 0.82 mark. He has struggled with walks the last two seasons, and Matoma has yet to leave Bradenton, where he’s currently walking well over a bater per inning.

Matoma sits 95-98 and will touch 100-101. When his delivery is synced up, his fastball also has upshoot angle that lower-level hitters can’t even sniff. He has struggled to find any kind of release consistency, however, which has not only impacted Matoma’s control, but also the shape of his sider, which is often hittable. After two dominant seasons, Matoma is now treading water and looks like an arm strength lottery ticket.

Moody is an ultra-projectable construction crane of a righty who in high school would peak in the 93-95 mph range but live more 90-93 throughout entire starts. Fastballs would sail on him as an amateur, but his low-effort delivery made it reasonable to hope that he would iron that out. That was emphatically not the case in Moody’s first four starts as a pro, as he walked 14 of the first 28 batters he has faced. It’s a rough enough start to consider him a project of extreme variance.

Urbina is an early pop-up arm in the DSL, as the enormous righty has been sitting 95-97 mph and topped out at 98 in tuneup games prior to the start of the season. He has a low-spin, mid-80s slider with good depth, and big arm speed helps sell a low-90s changeup. All three pitches are potential bat-missers, but Urbina’s arm action is violent and long. He’s also not all that projectable for such a young prospect, and is relatively mature-bodied. But huge arm strength and plus potential secondary stuff is a great starting place for a teenage righty.

The Pirates signed Lee for a mere $160,000, but he led their DSL hitters in hard-hit rate last year and posted a 120 wRC+. He’s a fairly skilled hitter whose swing has been changed in 2026 to include a more aggressive load, similar to Termarr Johnson’s and Munetaka Murakami’s. Lee’s swing has gentle uppercut loft, and he’s capable of altering his body’s posture to maintain that loft while moving the barrel around the zone. He struggles to stay closed, especially against lefties, and might have pretty serious platoon splits once he actually starts facing southpaws regularly. There’s enough lefty bat speed and feel to hit here for Lee to be a notable young prospect with some trade value even though he isn’t an especially good defensive player. He’s likely to play a mix of second and third base, and hopefully develop enough at both spots to be versatile one day. There’s a glimmer of prospect status here, which a year and a half removed from a low-six-figure signing, is already a positive outcome for Pittsburgh.

Melendez is a stocky infielder with big rotational athleticism who signed for a little under $700,000 rather than go to Wake Forest. He measured in this spring at 5-foot-6, three inches shorter than his listed height as an amateur. It’s rare for players that size to make the majors at all, let alone thrive there, and while I liked Melendez as a draft prospect (he was ranked in the middle of the second round), this is a big enough change to round down my pre-draft evaluation even before we get to this guy’s skill set. He’s struggling to make contact on the complex, which flies in the face of his excellent showcase performance in high school. Despite his lack of size and short levers, he’s been late to the contact point rather often so far in pro ball.

Melendez rotates hard for his size but is already physically maxed out. He’s worked hard to make his little body strong, but there’s simply no room left for more, so he will need to adjust to the quality of pro stuff and return to his prior bat-to-ball excellence in order to climb through the minors. He’s a sound, versatile infielder with a great first step, actions befitting a shortstop, and heady, polished field awareness. He projects as a utilityman in the Yonny Hernández mold.

Jones was a notable high school power-hitting prospect who ended up at LSU, where he indeed hit for enormous thump but also struck out at a rate (at or above 25% in each of his three seasons) that is typically a red flag for collegiate hitters. He can crush pitches in the middle third of the zone and is capable of leaving the yard to a fields, but he really struggles with pitches away from him. His contact rate has been comfortably below 70% so far in pro ball, which is in Bobby Dalbec territory. Jones projects to be a similar player.