Year in and year out, lesser known prospects jump onto the map. Guys who aren’t nationally recognized or ranked by any of the big media outlets take huge strides to make a name for themselves and potentially establish themselves into an organizations future plans. This new piece to the blog will be to take a look at some of those guys in the Pirates’ system. I wondered how many we’d see make a jump coming off of no baseball for some these guys in 2020. There have been several. The first one that I am going to look at is Jared Triolo.
Drafted 72nd overall by the Pirates in 2019 out of Houston, Triolo was ranked as the 115th best prospect in that draft by Baseball America. Triolo was seen as a solid hitter with potential to develop more power. Everything else with him was average. His debut season for the Pirates was just ok. The hitters that the Pirates drafted in 2019 didn’t have the best start. Triolo was probably one of the better ones. He only hit .239, but it was one of the better averages among that group. Obviously, he had no stats in 2020, but this year has been a big year for him.
Jared Triolo started off hitting .237 with 2 homers for the first month of the season. Since then, he’s been relatively consistent. He hit .346 with 4 homers in July and .330 with 5 homers in August so far. Triolo can play all over the field if needed, but is a solid 3rd baseman and could stick there. With Ke’Bryan Hayes a lock for the big league spot for a while barring injury, Triolo may have to play elsewhere. If he can keep his production near his current level as he advances, he could be a nice piece to the roster in a few years. Triolo is currently batting .304 with 14 homers so far. He also has .847 OPS. Those are very impressive numbers.
Keep an eye on Triolo as the year finishes out and when prospect rankings start to get put together for next year. He may not crack a top 30 this year, but he could as some point in the future if this is the real player. For now, he’s at least on the map in a deep system for the Pirates.
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