2024 Draft Class Check In

7-19-2025 – By Corey Shrader – @CoreyShrader on X

With the 2025 MLB Draft now in the books, it felt like a good time to take a stock of how the 2024 Pirates draft class is faring as professionals. The development of prospects is generally a long-haul process. It is absolutely nonlinear. Many of these players will go through cycles of success, struggle, & adjustment. It is just the nature of the game.

Here is my current recap on the performance of the 2024 draftees to date:

1 (9) – Konnor Griffin, SS/CF, A+- At the time of the draft last year it was widely acknowledged that Griffin was an absolute toolshed of skills. Along with this acknowledgment came the same refrain from just about every single outlet; hit tool & swing & miss make him very risky, tools be damned.

Flash forward to present day and Konnor Griffin has put most all of these concerns to bed. He has read them a bed time story, tucked them in tightly. The concerns are dozing in their Victorian sleeping caps, snoring so soundly they are doing that thing that happens in cartoons where they’re blowing a feather up in the air while going “honk-shoo, honk-shoo.”

I must come clean, on two separate podcast appearances I advocated for the Pirates not to select Griffin based upon their recent history in developing hitters (prep hitters specifically). Now, in fairness to myself, pre-draft I expected the picks that preceded the Bucs to go differently than they did. Operating with immediate post-draft hindsight; Griffin was the best pick on draft day with how everything flowed. Looking back with long term, what we know now hindsight, he has a shot to not only be the best player in the class , be he has legitimate mega-star ceiling.

What we have seen so far from Griffin has been nothing short of total destruction of the lower minors. As of writing, one of the only nits to pick was some swing & miss present in A ball. In his early taste of A+ action, he has already improved this “flaw” raising his BB% from 6.5 to 12.2 while modestly cutting his K%.

Furthermore in his publicly available Statcast data from Bradenton, he is posting big time batted ball data at a precious age; 90.7 avg ev, 107.8 90th percentile ev, 114.2 MAX ev, & .492 xDamage. On top of this, he also swiped 26 bases in just 50 games. Unfortunately there will be no publicly available numbers like this again until he reaches AAA Indy, but if he keeps this up, the wait might not be all that long.

Not only is he the Pirates #1 prospect, but I think he is the #1 prospect in all of baseball.

1 (37) – Levi Sterling, P, CPX -A University of Texas commit that was pried away from the collegiate ranks with a $2,508,900 signing bonus. Touted as a one of the prep arms with the best “feel” for pitching along with having a relatively deep arsenal. Baseball America & Bucs on Deck’s own, Anthony Murphy, detailed the organizations’ belief that Sterling’s change-up has plus-offering potential.

The early results have been slightly mixed, but that is all but expected when it comes to a kid so early in his developmental track, especially when this is the first time he has ever focused solely on pitching. He will be one to follow closely.

2 (47) – Wyatt Sanford, SS/2B, A -Pirates were able to lure Wyatt Sanford away from a Texas A&M commit with a $2,497,500 signing bonus. Draft day scouting was certain to mention that Sanford looks like a sure-thing shortstop long term. Interestingly, he has been splitting his time between SS & 2B in A ball. Some of this is positional flexibility is due to sharing the field with Konnor Griffin.

Sanford is having himself a very successful debut too. After having sped through the Complex level the returns in A ball have begun to slow down after a torrid start. Of course there is often a acclimation period any time guys are elevated to a new level, especially youngsters like Sanford. But what we can see is that he just isn’t impacting the ball all that well yet in his current funk (sub par EVs & xDamage in A ball).

All in all, still an exciting piece to have in the system. He’s got an opportunity to finish strong still and I expect that he will do just that.

4 (112) – Eddie Rynders, 3B/SS, CPX – The third prep hitter selected in the Pirates first 5 picks of the draft, Eddie Rynders is a “cold weather” HS player. He has debuted in the Complex league where he has exclusively played 3B. Not as explosive of a debut as his Pirates peers, but encouraging nonetheless showing a sound approach walking 14.4% of the time and striking out at 23.8%. All in all, a fine debut for a young man making the adjustment to professional baseball. Hopefully Rynders will get the opportunity to play in A ball once the Complex league concludes in late July.

5 (145) – Will Taylor, OF, A+ – Taylor is a premium athlete. A two-sport collegiate athlete for the first two years of his time at Clemson, now focusing on baseball for just his second full year at the professional ranks. His A ball debut showed some of what he is capable of, showing an intriguing mix of power/speed driving 4 homers & 10 doubles along with 8 stolen bases in just 29 games.

Taylor has made the move to A+ ball & while the bat is still adjusting some, production wise, the approach still looks good sporting a 12.2 BB% versus a 22.6 K%. July has been good to Taylor and the tools are shining through right now. Fun player.

6 (174) – Matt Ager, P, A – Product of UC Santa Barbara, Ager is a large right-handed hurler. Standing 6’6″ one of the most intriguing aspects of his profile is the borderline elite extension (6.9 feet). The velocity is currently subpar sitting mid-80s & topping low 90s. Granted, with how much extension he gets this plays up quite a bit to the hitter. His pitch mix is rounded out by a slider, change-up, & curveball. Of the trio, his slider has been the most effective so far.

There is plenty of reason to believe that Ager will continue to develop within the Bucs pitching dev system but building up to a higher consistent velocity & refining command will go a long way toward his pro prospects.

7 (204) – Connor Wietgrefe, P, A+ – Wietgrefe is a lefty with a somewhat low arm slot. While the velocity is not “big”, the release point appears to help his stuff play up and get some whiffs. Unfortunately there is not much publicly available Statcast data so we have to be reliant on the eye test here. Should Wietgrefe be able to add some velocity perhaps there is some upside waiting to be uncovered yet. Either way, he has had a pretty good first full season in A+ ball.

8 (234) – Gavin Adams, P, CPX – Adams has appeared in 12.1 IP in the Complex league where he is posting the ever mind boggling negative K-BB ratio (-3%). He features BIG time velocity putting up triple digits, but the control/command has been more elusive than Big Foot. Given the huge velocity & K potential, he will at least be fun to monitor.

9 (264) – Duce Gourson, 2B/SS, AA -Gourson hit the ground running in A ball immediately after signing and found himself promoted to A+ just 11 games in to his pro career. 2025’s stint in A+ saw Duce handle his business earning a promotion to AA after 39 games and a .382 wOBA & 133 wRC+. Now with 17 AA games Gourson is still adjusting to the new level as his performance has not yet approached his A+ success.

10 (294) – Derek Berg, C, A+ – Hailing from Army West Point, Berg was a 10th round pick in 2024. He posted some interesting batted ball data in A ball (91.6 EV, 106.8 90th EV, 111.1 MAX). That did come with a whiff heavy approach. At best there might be a low-BA slugging back up catcher in here. He is currently in A+ Greensboro where his contact metrics has trended upwards in his small exposure to the level thus far.

11 (324) – Jacob Bimbi, P, A – Will not pitch in 2025, currently on the full season injured list.

14 (414) – Ian Farrow, OF, A – Farrow was a 16th round selection out of Florida Gulf Coast University on the strength of a monster Senior campaign. In his time in Bradenton he has flashed some interesting game power on the back of a lift & pull profile. He is pulling line drives & fly balls at a 36+% clip that is allowing his roughly 40 grade power EVs to play up in game. While the swing & miss is a bit much, he at least has shown the ability to draw a walk (11.5 BB%). If the swing & miss can come down there could be a fun player in here somewhere.

15 (444) – Ethan Lege, 3B, A -15th round pick Ethan Lege finds himself repeating A ball again in 2025. Thus far he has been over matched slashing just .227/.310/.297. At this point in time, it appears that Lege is merely organizational depth.

17 (504) – Andrew Patrick, OF, A – Picked 504th overall in 2024, the Wright State product has struggled to find a foothold in pro ball. He has shown his ability to draw a walk, but thus far this is where his successes have seemed to halt. Similarly to Lege, Patrick has an uphill battle to find relevance in the organization.

18 (534) – Jake Shirk, P, A+ – Jake Shirk has found himself in the Greensboro history books just 8 innings in to his A+ tenure. He tossed clean innings in not one, but two combined perfect games within a 2 week span. He has been a highly effective reliever in A+ thus far. Generating a lot of groundballs (50%) and throwing strikes (22.2 K-BB%). Take this in tandem with his cumulative 2.85 FIP between A & A+ and there could be a bullpen future here.

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