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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.

Other Prospects of Note

Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.

Power-Over-Hit Guys
Javier Rivas, INF
Jhonny Severino, 3B
Callan Moss, 1B
Lonnie White Jr., OF
Carter Gwost, OF

Rivas is a very projectable 6-foot-6 infielder who, aside from his stint in hitter-friendly Greensboro, has never produced on offense. Still, Rivas’ size (we’re talking big NFL receiver size) and infield fit are a rare combo. He’s going to play for as long as he can hack it at shortstop and could end up with huge power in his late 20s. He’s a looming minor league free agent of note. Severino, who was acquired from Milwaukee for Carlos Santana a few years ago, has exciting power for a 21-year-old and he can really play third base. But he’s chase-prone to such a degree that it threatens to undo him against big league stuff. He’s begun playing some left field because of how crowded it is in Greensboro. Moss, who is cousins with former NFL running backs Cedric Peerman and Donald Brown, was acquired from Kansas City for Bailey Falter last year. A Division II (Saint Leo’s) undrafted free agent, he hit well in his first two pro seasons (.287/.384/.457 at High-A in 2025) but is currently struggling at Altoona. When you combine the past two seasons, Moss is an average contact hitter with above-average raw power on paper. He’s a stiff-legged guy with a funky swing whose plate coverage might not allow his recent contact rates (around 75%) to persist. White was a two-sport athlete committed to Clemson and then Penn State, but he instead signed with the Pirates out of high school. A better fit in an outfield corner, he struck out more than a third of the time in 2024 and 2025, but has cut the K’s a ton so far in 2026, including after a recent promotion to Altoona. Is it sustainable? He’s so comically geared to pull that I’m skeptical. Gwost is a very physical 6-foot-4 lefty-hitting outfielder who signed for about $500,000 rather than go to Nebraska. He’s struggling to adjust to pro pitching in the FCL and striking out north of 40% of the time.

Contact-Oriented Reserves
Mitch Jebb, CF
Will Taylor, OF
Jesus Castillo, INF
Dylan Palmer, 2B/CF
Fredderick Ovalle, 2B/3B/LF

Jebb is a former slash-and-dash infielder who moved to center field in a full-time capacity last year. His profile has turned completely on its head this season, with much more power and less contact than before, albeit in a very small sample because Jebb injured his hand/wrist diving headfirst into first base in late April. Taylor went to Clemson, where he briefly played wide receiver, and took until his junior year to break out. He’s a speedy, oppo-oriented depth outfielder. Castillo, 22, has the best barrel feel of this group, but also the least power and size (he’s a wispy 5-foot-10). He’s also been injured and was shut down again after just two rehab games in Bradenton. Palmer is a very speedy slash-and-dash hitter out of Hofstra who lets the ball travel so deep in the zone that he’s clipping catchers’ mitts. He has prior experience in center field, a position he’s revisiting now, but mostly played second and third base at Hofstra. If he can develop into a dynamite center fielder, then he’ll be an interesting bench piece. Ovalle, 18, is a contact-oriented rookie ball left fielder (he played mostly second and third base last year) whose conservative, stride-less swing limits the kind of power he can hit for.

Early DSL Names to Know
Jhoendris Santos, SS
Carlos Tejera, CF
Mingxuan Zhang, RHP

The Pirates stream their DSL games, and that league began play this week. They have two DSL rosters, so I wasn’t able to see all of their pitchers before publication, but this is a start. Santos, who’s hitting atop the DSL Pirates Black lineup, is a very twitchy 16-year-old shortstop with exciting projection and hand speed. He won’t turn 17 until mid-July, so he’s the age of most high school juniors. In that context, he’s pretty exciting. Tejera is a projectable, lefty-hitting center fielder with explosive (if noisy) hands. Zhang, 18, is a 6-foot-7 Chinese righty who hasn’t thrown yet, but his sheer size is notable.

Sleeper Projection Arms
Angel Soriano, LHP
Claudio Estelie, RHP
Robinson Smith, RHP
Yeraldo Salcedo, LHP

Soriano, 19, spent last year in the DSL. This season, he was promoted to the FCL, where he just moved into the rotation. He’s been walk-prone early on, but his delivery is balanced and graceful. For a lefty his age, he has good arm strength (up to 95) and a promising changeup. Estelie, 22, is a projectable 6-foot-5 righty who signed last year and pitched in the DSL. He’s now in the FCL and has scraped 96. Both he and Soriano have starter-quality mechanics. Smith, currently in the FCL, is the son of three-time Australian Olympic swimmer Nicole Livingstone. The 6-foot-4 18-year-old will top out around 96. He’s throwing almost all fastballs and is clearly just getting his feet wet. Salcedo, 19, is a quick-armed little A-ball lefty who has been up to 94 and has a promising curveball. Both he and Smith are more likely to be relievers.

Fallen Famous Fellows
Dominic Perachi, LHP
Po-Yu Chen, RHP
Alessandro Ercolani, RHP
Carlos Castillo, RHP
Anthony Solometo, LHP
Jeter Martinez, RHP
Zander Mueth, RHP

Perachi had some of the best single-game statlines you’ll ever see while he was at Division III Salve Regina (they’re the Seahawks and have a 70-grade logo), and he’s had a fair amount of success as a swingman in two minor league seasons. But despite his projectability and small school pedigree, his stuff has been treading water. Chen signed for about $1.25 million, which is pretty sizable for a late-market international signee. He began his career with 26 consecutive walk-free innings, but his command has backed up as he’s climbed the minors, and his stuff remains fringy. Both those guys look like Triple-A depth arms. Ercolani hails from San Marino, and it will be a great story if he reaches the big leagues because he’s the country’s lone player in affiliated ball. He’s sitting 93 and has a cutter and curveball, a bit light for no-doubt relief work. Castillo is a young-for-the-level righty in Greensboro whose arm strength has plateaued in the low 90s after it looked, back in 2024, like he might on the fast track as an east/west operator. Solometo made two single-inning relief appearances in April, maxed out at 86, and was shut down with a shoulder issue. He hasn’t been healthy and pitched well since 2023. Martinez, who was acquired from the Mariners for Caleb Ferguson at last year’s deadline, was sitting 95 and touching 100 in Seattle’s system. This year in Bradenton, he’s sitting 92 and still struggling with command. At peak he looked like a potential late-inning reliever, but right now he isn’t a great prospect. Mueth was a big bonus high school pick in 2023 who looked like a Tanner Houck clone coming out. He has now struggled to throw strikes for several years and still hasn’t left Bradenton, where he’s walking eight batters per nine so far this season.

Fringe 40-Man Relievers
Michael Darrell-Hicks, RHP
Kyle Robinson, RHP
Alexis Torres, RHP

Darrell-Hicks was in Anaheim’s system as a starter and made a successful transition to the bullpen in 2024, then briefly reached the majors in 2025. He was a waiver pickup for the Pirates last year and outrighted to minor league camp in March. His fastball’s vulnerability was largely to blame for his slide off the Pirates’ 40-man, but MDH has a really good slider and could have a Collin Snider-type of career arc. A long, projectable right-hander who became a high-profile guy at Texas Tech, Robinson lasted until the 11th round of the 2024 draft after an underwhelming year. He sits 91-94 mph from a high slot and has a good changeup, but he struggles to land his slider. Torres, 23, is a 6-foot A-ball righty who K’d a batter per inning in 2025. His stuff was down a bit early this season (peaking at 97 last year, only 95 this year) before he hit the IL. He’s a bit behind the dev curve for his age, but he has the stuff of a typical sinker/slider middle-inning righty.

System Overview

The Pirates are in a fun, interesting, enviable spot. They have several of the game’s most exciting young players, including one hell of a homegrown pitching staff, and they’ve hit on enough of their recent acquisitions (Spencer Horwitz and Brandon Lowe via trade, Ryan O’Hearn in free agency) to give the lineup competitive depth and help balance out a roster that badly needed it. Their go-wide style of farm building has created enough depth that even as guys like Konnor Griffin, Bubba Chandler, Esmerlyn Valdez, and some of their other prospect arms graduate, the cupboard won’t be bare. In fact, we might be living in a reality where the Pirates are deadline buyers. Might they be best served to transact in both directions come July? Bryan Reynolds (who is set to make $15 million a year through 2030, his age-35 season) is an interesting sell-high candidate, especially if it frees up the payroll to extend Oneil Cruz and/or O’Hearn while also netting real pieces in return. And it wouldn’t preclude them from trading some of their prospects for big leaguers. Most of the small market teams that stay good behave in this way.

The Pirates entered this season with the best position player prospect in baseball (Griffin) and one of the best pitching prospects (Chandler), and they’ll end it with a different upper-echelon pitching prospect in Seth Hernandez. Their approach in each of the three realms of talent acquisition has been to target big tools and variance, often focusing on big, projectable athletes with massive power and arm strength. The rate of return on players like this, who can only be collected en masse when they come with a heaping helping of hit tool risk, is low. But it’s the player demo from which a Cruz or a Griffin emerges, and now lurking in this system are Tony Blanco Jr., Estuar Suero, Darell Morel, and (weirdly) Wyatt Sanford, among others. The only way a franchise like the Pirates can acquire a guy like Cruz is to do so before he actualizes, so it needs to be part of their strategy in the draft and international markets.

Are they developing pitchers? There are lots of hard throwers here, many of whom either have poor fastball movement or can’t throw strikes. The velo and strength and conditioning programs have been working, and now several of their pitchers’ deliveries have changed in a way that indicates the Pirates have an understanding of how to effectively change approach angles. It’s tough to quibble with a team’s pitching dev when its rotation looks like Pittsburgh’s does right now.

This is a strong system with a little bit of everything. It has several projected superstars up top, multiple high-risk/high-reward position players, lots of near-ready pitching depth, a number of role-playing hitters in line to replace some of the veterans who are on short contracts, and four of the top 51 picks in the upcoming draft.