Best Breaking Pitches in the Pittsburgh Pirates Minor League System
There's a reason Seth Hernandez is one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball.
A little over a month ago, I wrote about the best fastballs in the Pittsburgh Pirates Minor League system. I’ve been wanting to continue that series, but the draft and trade deadline got in the way.
Today, I’m picking up with part two, taking a look at the best breaking pitches in the system.
Just like the last article, I’m only looking at minor league results.
There’s one issue with this approach. Statcast data is only available in the FCL, A-ball, and Triple-A. This article doesn’t include anyone who has spent the entire season in Greensboro and/or Altoona. So when I reference how many pitchers throw each pitch below, realize that there are more who are unrecorded.
Here are the best breaking pitches of the recorded results.
Slider
The slider is the most popular breaking pitch in the system, following a growing trend where the pitch has become the most popular in the Majors. There are 64 Pirates minor leaguers with recorded sliders this year, along with 30 who have thrown 50+ recorded pitches.
Best in the System: Seth Hernandez
The slider from Seth Hernandez is based off his stats in Bradenton, which are dated after spending half his season at a higher level in Greensboro. They’re also the only results for Hernandez until Triple-A. These limited results show a slider that is not only best in the system, but might be one of the best in the game.
Across 67 recorded pitches, Hernandez had a 71.1% whiff rate on his slider. That ranked second in the system. Opponents in A-ball were chasing 45% of the time, which was the highest rate in the system, even ahead of Paul Skenes and Braxton Ashcraft.
The obvious disclaimer is that those chase rates came against MLB hitters, while Hernandez was getting his results against the lowest level in full-season ball. What makes his results really stand out is that opponents only made contact on 5.6% of chase swings. He also only allowed contact in the zone 50% of the time.
This isn’t the only breaking pitch where Hernandez stands out. More on that later.
Runner Up: Carlos Mateo
There’s a reason I’m high on Carlos Mateo, and it isn’t just his triple-digit fastball. His slider had a 76.9% whiff rate between the FCL and Bradenton on 48 recorded pitches. He only allowed contact on chase swings 20% of the time, which is a top-three result in the system. He also only allowed contact in the zone 33.3% of the time, which is the best in the system.
Mateo’s problem across the board has been control. He only threw his slider in the zone 25% of the time. With the low contact rate, you’d have to think he’d still do well throwing the pitch more often in the zone. He started throwing his fastball in the zone much more often after jumping to A-ball. His slider also saw a slight uptick from 23.5% to 28.6%.
I think there could be a point in the future where Mateo realizes opposing hitters can’t touch his stuff, and starts throwing all of his pitches fearlessly in the zone. When that happens, I could see him rocketing through the system.
Honorable Mentions
Reinold Navarro has one of the highest whiff rates at 45% on 235 recorded sliders. He doesn’t stand out with a high chase rate, but he does have one of the ten lowest contact rates on chase swings. Navarro also has the third lowest average exit velocity.
Pitterson Rosa has 50 sliders in A-ball. He ranks with one of the three lowest zone contact rates, one of the five lowest chase contact rates, and the third-best whiff rate behind Mateo and Hernandez.
Curveball
The curveball has dropped in popularity, both in the minors and in the Majors. There are still pitchers who throw the offering, but the number is much lower than the slider. Only 37 minor leaguers in the Pirates’ system are recorded throwing a curveball, and only eight have thrown the pitch 50 or more times.
Best in the System: Seth Hernandez
Once again, Hernandez ranks at the top of the list. He threw 58 curveballs in Bradenton, with a system-leading 73.1% whiff rate. His chase rate of 43.3% (2nd in the system) and his chase contact rate of 7.7% (1st) go a long way to explaining the high swing and miss.
Hernandez is also difficult to hit in the zone, with a minor league leading 46.2% zone contact. He has an 88.6 MPH average exit velocity, which ranks around middle of the pack.
The curveball from Hernandez gets a lot of unsuccessful chase swings, and is difficult to hit in the zone, though hitters can do a bit of damage when they do make contact in the zone.
There’s a reason he’s one of the best pitching prospects in the game. His fastball/slider/curveball trio gives him three potential above-average to plus pitches, and his changeup adds a fourth to the mix.
Runner Up: Evan Sisk
You could make an argument that Evan Sisk has the best curveball in the system. He’s not a prospect, but he has thrown 47 curveballs in Triple-A this year, and the Pirates are so thin on pitchers who throw the curve that I wanted to highlight what a standout upper-level curveball looks like.
Based only on his Triple-A results, Sisk had a 51.9% whiff rate (2nd in the system), 50% chase rate (1st), 33.3% chase contact (4th), 65.2% zone swing rate (3rd), 60% zone contact (2nd), and an average exit velocity of 83.9 MPH (1st).
At the Major League level, Sisk has thrown 177 curveballs, giving a larger sample against the highest level of competition. His curveball has the lowest spin rate of nine Pirates pitchers with 40+ curves. That might be why he ranks bottom half in chase and zone swings. He does rank top three in lowest chase/zone contact, and ranks first in exit velocity.
The curveball from Sisk stands out as one of the best in the minor league system, but becomes less effective at the big league level.
Honorable Mention: Levi Sterling
Following up on the note about Sisk having one of the lowest spin rates in the big leagues, I want to highlight Levi Sterling as having the highest spin rate in the minors. His 2702 would also rank fourth in the Majors. He throws the curveball more than any other recorded pitcher in the minors, so this is a pitch that is clearly important to his arsenal.
Sterling’s curveball doesn’t stand out in any one area, but it’s solid across the board. He ranks fifth out of 14 minor league pitchers in whiff rate (40%), second in zone swings (65.3%), has the third lowest chase contact (28.6%), and is slightly above average in zone contact (78.7%) and exit velocity (86.6 MPH).
The higher spin rate means Sterling might not see as much of a decline in his results as he moves up the system ranks.
Other Breaking Pitches
I left out the splitter and cutter in this article. I’m going to do a future article on alternate fastballs and include those pitches, as they’re more in line with a fastball than a breaking pitch. There are two remaining breaking pitches, and I wanted to highlight the player who stands out with the best pitch of each in the system.
Sweeper: Brandon Neeck
The sweeper is almost as popular as the curveball, especially in the upper levels. There aren’t any lower-level pitchers that throw a sweeper, while there are 14 total minor leaguers who throw the pitch. Brandon Neeck stands out with the best sweeper. Neeck has thrown the pitch 112 times in Triple-A, getting a system-leading 54.8% whiff rate. He also only gets swings in the zone 46.5% of the time, getting a lot of free strikes. His chase contact rate is third lowest in the system, and his zone contact rate is fourth lowest. He also has the highest spin rate on the sweeper in the minors, with only Lake Bachar having a higher spin rate in the Majors.
Screwball: Noah Davis
Only one pitcher in the system throws a recorded screwball this year, and that’s Noah Davis in Triple-A. Davis doesn’t really get standout rates from the pitch. His whiff rate is 27.3%. He only gets chases on 11.6% of pitches outside the zone, despite only being in the zone 24.2% of the time. Davis actually has a better sweeper than his screwball.
Until the best changeups in the system…
-Tim Williams