Well, the kids are here. After Henry Davis and Nick Gonzales were called up last month, Endy Rodriguez, Quinn Priester and Liover Peguero will all be called up Monday (Priester will also have his contract selected). Peguero had a cup of coffee last year because of a COVID-19 scare and played one game, but this is game should have two major-league debuts and an unofficial proper start to a big-league career.
It may have come after the Pirates' playoff odds have dwindled away to almost nothing, making this more of a preview of what's to come next year. But this has been one of the most highly-anticipated group of young Pirate players that has come up in some time. This group was in Class AA Altoona last season and now they're in the majors. If this rebuild is going to work, the Pirates are going to need to get production out of this group.
"The thing that stands out is the last couple years, those guys were in A-ball or AA," Derek Shelton told me during the All-Star break. "Now they're in Indianapolis. They're getting closer to the big leagues, and at some point will be in the big leagues. It's just another step in their development and our complete evolution as a team."
In the case of these three players, their time is now. And while there can be some frustration on what took them so long to get here, each of them got off to slow starts in April but have since rebounded to show why they are regarded as top 10 prospects. There are reasons to be excited for these players, and also a couple of warts that are reminders that they are far from finished in their development.
Priester was touched up for 17 runs over his first five starts (totaling 19 2/3 innings), but clicked once the calendar turned to May. Since then, he has pitched to a 3.31 ERA over 68 innings, striking out 59 along the way. Talking to him a couple months ago, it was clear that he wasn't putting too much stock in those first couple outings.
"I knew we were just one play away," Priester told me in May. "I was pitching fine. It was just the pitch that needed to be made wasn't being made. It's not like we were that far off, but that's just how quick these games can get away from you."
While the mentality is the same, Priester's peripherals have gotten a lot better since April, especially the breaking balls. His curveball whiff rate has dipped in July -- possibly because of the smaller sample size -- but besides that, he had been consistently getting more swings and misses with his curve and slider every month:
He's going to need those breaking balls because the fastball is still sitting around 92 mph. The curve and sliders are plus pitches, but there's a lot less enthusiasm around his fastball. He can command it, but he's going to need to pitch backwards, relying on his breaking balls to set up his heater.
You know what has also gotten better every month? Rodriguez's exit velocities.
After his monster 2022 season, Rodriguez stumbled out of the gate this year. Some of that was due to injury -- a forearm scare landed him on the injured list in April -- and when he returned he had timing issues. It wasn't until recently that he made an ideological change at the plate: He was going to swing less and search for the pitch he wants to hit more. In his eyes, he was getting himself out too often by chasing a pitcher's best pitch.
"I think it was more on me, trying to do more than I can do," Rodríguez said at the Futures Game in Seattle last week. "Obviously everybody wants to come here and break [with the major-league team] the first months. Go to the show. But sometimes it's learning how to be patient and just try not to do too much."
The approach has worked, not just because he has .329/.416/.506 with two home runs in his last month of games leading up to Sunday, but because the peripherals back it up. Here's how his exit velocity has increased per month:
April: 84.5 mph
May: 87.5 mph
June: 88.2 mph
July: 89.3 mph
Those exit velocities the last couple months put him right in line with All-Star catchers Elais Diaz and Jonah Heim. It's still not up to what Rodriguez did last year, but paired with better swing decisions and his ability to lift the ball to all fields, that will certainly play.
In the Mound Visits on Davis and Gonzales, I cited that how hitters perform against high velocity is an important metric the Pirates weigh when deciding to call up a player. Rodriguez has a swinging strike rate of just 8% against those high velocity pitches, which is basically what Davis had (7%). It's a good sign that he shouldn't be just blown away by heat.
Peguero's stats against high velocity fastballs isn't quite as flattering, whiffing 12% of the time with just a .050 isolated slugging mark, but that is over just 96 pitches and 23 plate appearances since he spent most of the season with Class AA Altoona. That shouldn't overshadow the steps he's taken as a hitter this year, however, seeing his average exit velocity rise from 87.2 mph last year to 90.6 mph. Obviously it's apples and oranges to compared major-league and minor-league stats, but that would be the fifth-best exit velocity on the Pirates' major-league team.
For someone who is a free swinger, he's done a much better job honing himself in and getting a better read on pitches.
"Being able to recognize pitches a little bit deeper and control the zone a bit better and slow everything down at the plate, that's the biggest thing right now," Peguero told me at the end of May.
All three are going to get consistent major-league playing time out of the gate to showcase their talent. The Pirates could certainly use the boosts. Their middle infield has hit just .179 with a .503 OPS since the start of June, both dead last in the majors. The rotation has an open spot after Luis Ortiz and Roansy Conteras were optioned to the minors. As for the catchers, well, I think everyone already understands that getting Austin Hedges' bat out of the everyday role is going to help the offensive output.
It's up to the prospects to do that, if not for 2023, then for the future and what the Pirates have spent years building towards. Metrically speaking, this group looks like they're ready for the bump up in competition.
