North Shore Nine

Our Sophomore Series will look at Pirates sophomores, specifically the ones who are the most likely to be contributing to the club moving forward. Each player’s profile will look at the following:

• Where they came from (draft, FA, trade etc.)
• How they played in their minor league seasons
• How they performed in their first taste of major league experience
• How each player is projected to play this year based on ZIPS projection, Steamer projection, and the Baseball Reference projection
• Some insight/speculation on what can affect the player entering the season

A few quick notes for the armchair quarterbacks. One of the players that is being spotlighted still holds his rookie status for this season, and another is technically entering his junior season, albeit only his second with the Pirates. Furthermore, one of these players is sadly injured and will be missing the season due to said injury. But as he remains an important piece of the future he will be covered in this series as a bonus profile. These profiles will be released weekly, so stay tuned.

Nick Gonzales

Drafted seventh overall in the 2020 draft, he quickly jumped into the Pirates Top 10 prospect rankings. He remained high on the list, ending 2021 as the Pirates second best prospect and ending the 2022 season in the first spot. On the national front, Baseball America had him at #51 and #49 leading into those respective seasons, with Baseball Prospectus having him at #39 and #29, respectively. He started the 2023 season in Indianapolis with a triple slash of .281/.379/.507 with a .886 OPS while hitting 27 doubles, 8 triples and 14 homeruns in over 99 games played.  This led to a call to the show and a June 23 debut.

Following his call up, Gonzales played seven games in June, six of which were starts, followed by 23 games in July (21 starts) and one final start in August before being sent back to the minors. He was called back at the end of September starting 4 games going 2-13 with 5 strikeouts and 2 walks.  Gonzales struggled in his first stint in the MLB, both at the plate and in the field. His .209/.268/.348 shows his offensive struggle, this was compounded by the fact he struck out six times per walk earned during this time.  Defensively he wasn’t better, his fielding percentage and range factor per game were both under the league average at 2B. At SS he was well under on the same metrics for the seven starts he got at the position. 

However, the reason he made it to the majors was because of his bat. The quickness of his hands were what the scouts and evaluators thought would get him to the show. Some within the Pirates organization are pleased with the progress he has made at 2B, though we have yet to see it in the limited MLB experience. Gonzales did not have enough playing time to be adequately compared to his peers in the savant rankings. As it stands, Gonzales ranked just above poor in xBA, xSLG, average exit velocity, hard-hit percentage, whiff percentage, strikeout percentage, and walk percentage. The only category he would have ranked average in was chase percentage, showing work needs to be done across the offensive spectrum as well as what he had shown on the defensive side. The question now is, when will he be able to add to this MLB experience and where does he fit in moving forward?

The projections for the 2024 season on Gonzales are consistent with how they believe he will perform with his triple slash and power projections as well as his K:BB ratio. The biggest point of contention appears to be how many at bats he will get this season. The ZIPS projection comes in the highest equating out to roughly a full season of MLB work, followed by Baseball Reference who projects he will see about as much action as Joshua Palacios got last season. Steamer comes up last projecting as much playing time as Jason Delay saw last year.  rojections being what they are, the potential positives here are plentiful. Across the board all three sets of projections have Gonzales improving, from homeruns, to triple slash, to WAR. Though the most telling reason for these projections all potentially stem from the idea he will cut his K:BB ratio to half what it was from last season.

What can we expect from Nick Gonzales this sophomore season, even though it is officially more his second freshman season? As it sits, Gonzales starts the season with some large question marks attached to him. The answers to these will greatly depend on a pair of things. One will be spring training; the second will be what Shelton and the Pirates are planning. If Gonzales comes out and has a dominant spring training while the other options play noticeably worse, than there is a chance he breaks with the team. If that is the case, he could be the starting 2B moving into the season. If he scuffles, then more than likely it is back to Indy to start the year. In the end, Gonzales needs playing time. Therefore, if he isn’t going to start in Pittsburgh, then going to AAA is the obvious choice. However, if he can get enough AB in a super platoon position, and has a good spring, then maybe he stays with the Pirates after spring training. Regardless, it all comes down to his ability to decrease the strikeouts, increase the walks, increasing his hard-hit rate, and his line drive percentage. It isn’t time to give up on him just yet, his bat remains his ticket to stay in the big leagues, and if we are being honest, this could be the year that it does.