Pirates announce preliminary Minor League rosters
The Pittsburgh Pirates today announced the club’s minor league rosters for the 2023 season at their four affiliates: Triple-A
Indianapolis Indians, Double-A Altoona Curve, High-A Greensboro Grasshoppers and Low-A Bradenton Marauders. The
rosters are subject to change.
Indianapolis (AAA)
Pitchers
Cam Alldred
Osvaldo Bido
Cody Bolton
Mike Burrows
Yerry De Los Santos
JC Flowers
Carmen Mlodzinski
John O’Reilly
Luis Ortiz
Angel Perdomo
Quinn Priester
Yohan Ramirez
Colin Selby
Caleb Smith
Hunter Stratton
Daniel Zamora
Position Players
Miguel Andujar
Nick Gonzales
Tyler Heineman
Tucupita Marcano
Mark Mathias
Cal Mitchell
Malcom Nuñez
Chris Owings
Endy Rodriguez
Aaron Shackelford
Travis Swaggerty
Chavez Young
Altoona (AA)
Pitchers
Bear Bellomy
Omar Cruz
Nick Dombkowski
Matt Eckelman
Oliver Garcia
Jared Jones
Cam Junker
Travis MacGregor
Justin Meis
Juan Minaya
Kyle Nicolas
Braeden Ogle
Tyler Samaniego
Aaron Shortridge
Sean Sullivan
Tahnaj Thomas
Noe Toribio
Position Players
Andres Alvarez
Carter Bins
Henry Davis
Claudio Finol
Matt Fraizer
Jacob Gonzalez
Matt Gorski
Domingo Leyba
Fabricio Macias
Drew Maggi
Mason Martin
Josh Palacios
Liover Peguero
Lolo Sanchez
Connor Scott
Dylan Shockle
Greensboro (High-A)
Pitchers
Braxton Ashcraft
Jack Carey
Bubba Chandler
Po-Yu Chen
Jaycob Deese
Santiago Florez
Grant Ford
Drew Irvine
Will Kobos
Valentin Linarez
Oliver Mateo
Dante Mendoza
Michell Miliano
Mitchell Miller
Cy Nielson
Anthony Solometo
Eddy Yean
Position Players
Angel Basabe
Jase Bowen
Luke Brown
Tsung-Che Cheng
Brenden Dixon
Maikol Escotto
Jackson Glenn
Abrahan Gutierrez
Hudson Head
Luis Hernandez
Mike Jarvis
Will Matthiessen
Ernny Ordonez
Sammy Siani
Eli Wilson
Bradenton (Low-A)
Pitchers
Elijah Birdsong
Julian Bosnic
Yoldin De La Paz
Derek Diamond
Wilber Dotel
Alessandro Ercolani
Darvin Garcia
Ryan Harbin
Thomas Harrington
Luigi Hernandez
Owen Kellington
Joshua Loeschorn
Carlos Lomeli
JP Massey
Dominic Perachi
Luis Peralta
Yunior Thibo
Mike Walsh
Position Players
Braylon Bishop
Jack Brannigan
Jesus Castillo
Nick Cimillo
Jauri Custodio
Tres Gonzalez
Wyatt Hendrie
Termarr Johnson
Alexander Mojica
Deivis Nadal
Rodolfo Nolasco
Geovanny Planchart
Shalin Polanco
Javier Rivas
Rayber Romero
Enmanuel Terrero
(*)Roster as of March 31
Looking Back At Last Year: Pittsburgh’s seven minor league affiliates combined for a 370-346 record (.517 winning percentage) in 2022, the fourth-best winning percentage among all National League organizations behind the Colorado Rockies (.549), Los Angeles Dodgers (.545) and San Diego Padres (.522).
Winning Ways: Pittsburgh’s minor league system has produced the eighth-best winning percentage (.526) among all organizations in baseball entering the 2023 campaign....The only two National League organizations to record a higher winning percentage in the minor leagues since the beginning of 2021 are the Rockies (.547) and Dodgers (.539).
United Nations: Pittsburgh’s minor league system enters 2023 with players represented from a total of 18 different countries along with the territory of Puerto Rico...Those 18 countries are Aruba, Australia, the Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, San Marino, South Korea, Taiwan, Uganda, the United States of America, and Venezuela.
Future’s So Bright: MLB Pipeline ranked Pittsburgh’s minor league system as the eighth-best among all organizations entering 2023...This now the fifth straight year that Pittsburgh’s minor league system is ranked in the top 10 by MLB Pipeline... Pittsburgh’s minor league is also ranked sixth by The Athletic, ninth by ESPN.com and 11th by Baseball America.
Building The Bucs: Entering the 2023 season, 20 of Pittsburgh’s top 30 prospects according to MLB Pipeline have been acquired by Pirates General Manager Ben Cherington...In addition, seven of the organization’s top 10 prospects have been acquired since Cherington was named Pittsburgh’s General Manager on November 18, 2019 (the only three who weren’t are Quinn Priester, Luis Ortiz and Mike Burrows)...Of those 30 prospects, 17 were selected in the draft, seven were signed as non-drafted free agents and six were acquired via trade.
Representing Among The Top 100: The Pirates have four of MLB Pipeline’s top 100 ranked prospects entering the 2023 season...Termarr Johnson ranks 26th, followed by Endy Rodriguez (55th), Henry Davis (57th) and Quinn Priester (60th).
It Takes Two: The Pirates organization enters the 2023 season as the only one in all of baseball with two players ranked in the top eight among prospects at second base according to MLB Pipeline...Termarr Johnson is rated as the No. 1 prospect at second base, while Nick Gonzales ranks eighth.
Catch This: Pittsburgh’s minor league system enters the 2023 campaign with two of
MLB Pipeline’s top 100 prospects behind the plate...Endy Rodriguez is rated 55th among Pipeline’s top 100 prospects while Henry Davis is No. 57...The Pirates and Mets are one of two organizations with two catchers rated among MLB Pipeline’s top seven prospects at that position.
MVP Endy: Last season Endy Rodriguez was named the South Atlantic League Most Valuable Player, the catcher on the league’s All-Star team and the top MLB prospect by the league’s managers...Rodriguez was also one of just two players in all of Minor League Baseball to take home MVP honors in each of the last two seasons after also doing so in 2021 in the Florida State League (the only other player to accomplish that in the last two seasons was Jonathan Aranda of the Rays organization, who was the Southern League MVP in 2021 and International League MVP in 2022).
On Q: Right-handed pitcher Quinn Priester took home Bob Friend Pitcher-of-the-Year honors for the Pirates organization last season after leading Pittsburgh’s system (minimum 90.0 innings pitched) with a 3.29 ERA (90.1ip/33er) while making a combined 19 starts in 2022 between Bradenton (rehab), Greensboro (rehab), Altoona and Indianapolis...Beginning with his start on June 19 to September 20 last year with Altoona, the 18th overall selection from the 2019 First-Year Player Draft ranked fifth among all qualified pitchers at the Double-A level with a 2.87 ERA.
International Impact: This past offseason the Pirates signed right-handed pitcher Jun-Seok Shim as a non-drafted free agent out of Seoul, South Korea... Shim was ranked as the No. 2 pitcher (10th overall) by MLB Pipeline among players in this year’s international draft class...The Pirates have now signed two of the top 26 prospects from this year’s international draft class after the team also inked 17-year-old outfielder Raymond Mola from Peravia, Dominican Republic, to a contract on January 17.
Feeling The Draft: The Pirates hold the No. 1 overall pick for this year’s First-
Year Player Draft...The Pirates signed 19 of their 21 selections from the 2022 draft, which included each of their first 12 picks...In addition, the Pirates signed four of MLB Pipeline’s top 90 draft prospects in Termarr Johnson (fourth), Thomas Harrington (45th), Hunter Barco (75th) and Michael Kennedy (89th) and six total of MLB Pipeline’s top 250 draft prospects in Tres Gonzalez (138th) and Jack Brannigan (164th).
About Our Affiliates: The 2023 campaign marks Pittsburgh’s 24th season (1947-51 and 2005-present) to be affiliated with Indianapolis…Altoona begins its 24th consecutive season as Pittsburgh’s Double-A affiliate…High-A Greensboro begins its fifth season as an affiliate of the Pirates, while Low-A Bradenton is in its 13th season as a Pirates affiliate.
Curve Your Enthusiasm: Double-A Altoona is in its 25th year (24th season) of being affiliated with the Pirates organization...In 1997, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues decided the Eastern League would receive two new franchises (Altoona and Erie) to start play in 1999...Since then, a total of 195 Curve alum have debuted in the big leagues for the Pirates.