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Keith Law Ranks Three Pirates Among Top 25 Prospects

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Keith Law has unveiled a new top 25 prospect list for Insider subscribers and he has three Pittsburgh Pirates players listed.

Cole retains his top spot in the Pirates system (Photo Credit: David Hague)
Cole retains his top spot in the Pirates system (Photo Credit: David Hague)

Rated first among Pirates players is pitcher Gerrit Cole in the 12th spot. That is four spots down from his pre-season ranking.

Law then has Jameson Taillon ranked #14, which is six spots higher than he had him in the pre-season.

Finally, he has Gregory Polanco making the huge jump from 55th place earlier, all the way up to the 22nd spot.

That is the same order we listed our top prospects on in the Pirates Prospects guide.

The Pirates are the only team on the list that has three players. None have more.

Cole has struggled this season with high pitch counts and he isn’t getting the strikeout totals that you would expect from someone with his plus offerings. He is 3-3, 3.67 in ten starts, with 39 strikeouts in 54 innings. He has shown a strong groundball rate at 1.31 and his holding batters to a .207 BAA. Cole also showed some great signs in his last start, allowing three singles to start the game, then throwing six no-hit innings to close out his day.

Taillon has been more consistent this year compared to Cole, going 3-5, 2.91 in his ten starts, with 63 strikeouts in 55.2 innings. While Cole has never struck out more than five in any game this season, Taillon has done that seven times, twice reaching his career high of ten. He has also pitched slightly better in May, stepping up his strikeout rate, lowering his ERA and getting the groundball rate(1.53) that the Pirates like to see.

Polanco is picking up where he left off last year in West Virginia, hitting .310 with twenty extra base hits,  19 stolen bases and a low strikeout total(26 in 171 AB’s). Law brings up that some scouts have questioned whether he is a future center fielder. Polanco has made six errors this year already, a career high, but he has spectacular range and a great arm. Plus, if he moves quick enough in the Pirates system, where he plays won’t be a problem with Starling Marte and Andrew McCutchen already there.

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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