Takeaways From Three Days Watching The Greensboro Grasshoppers

The Pirates’ High-A affiliate, the Greensboro Grasshoppers, was nearby this week, and I attended three games of their series against the Bowling Green Hot Rods. The Grasshoppers are 72-47 on the year and 31-20 in the second half, fighting for a spot in the South Atlantic League playoffs.

The team is also loaded with young talent and is one of the more exciting teams in the Pirates organization. Greensboro is currently home to eight of our Top 30 Pirates prospects.

This week was a little extra special, too, because two of those prospects, both 19-year-old pitchers, were making their High-A debuts after being promoted this week: No. 17 Reinold Navarro and No. 18 Levi Sterling. More on them later.

So let’s get to my main takeaways from watching this team up close.

Reinold Navarro Stole The Show

Reinold Navarro’s stuff is incredible. I knew that going in. The issue that currently has him as the No. 17 prospect and not in the Top 10 anywhere is that he hardly has any command of that stuff.

Navarro struck out almost 40% of the batters he faced this year for Single-A Bradenton, but also walked over 20%. That is a highly unsustainable number. You simply cannot be a Major League pitcher while walking that many hitters.

To put those numbers into context, the only qualified MLB starting pitcher with a strikeout rate that matches Navarro’s is Jacob Misiorowski. Not one MLB starting pitcher has a walk rate over 12%, let alone the 20% Navarro had while in Bradenton.

But the stuff. It’s easy to dream about what this guy can become if he can learn to harness it.

And he showed a glimpse of that dream Friday night in his Greensboro debut. On a night when I expected him to be amped up and a little wild, he did the exact opposite. He dominated.

He controlled his pitches, worked around the zone and landed breaking balls and offspeed pitches for strikes. He was unhittable.

His line: 5 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 8 SO, 1 BB.

The one hit allowed was a bunt single. The run scored after not one, but two balk calls. It’s the low minors. Weird stuff happens!

Navarro threw 68 pitches, 43 of them for strikes, struck out 50% of the batters he faced and induced 17 swings and misses, good for a 55% whiff rate.

He flashed three pitches: a four-seam fastball that touched 98 mph but sat 95-97 throughout the game and generated most of his whiffs, an 83-85 mph slider that he was able to throw for strikes and use to completely catch hitters off guard when they were expecting the heat, and an 87-88 mph changeup that he didn’t always have the best command of but, when he did, completely fooled hitters.

Here you see him facing a RHB. He starts him off with a fastball that just misses off the plate, then comes back and lays in a changeup in the exact same spot to generate a very early swing-and-miss for strike one. Then he finishes him off with two heaters.

In this at-bat, he gets ahead of the LHB with a slider, then overpowers him with a high fastball and ends the at-bat by inducing very weak contact as the hitter basically just flails at a well-located slider.

It’s one game, but if Navarro can locate more consistently like he did in this one, he will absolutely shoot up prospect charts. Fast.

Edward Florentino

I haven’t seen Edward Florentino in a bit, and I had never seen him in actual baseball games that mattered, so I was excited to get some eyes on him.

He is the Pirates’ No. 2 prospect behind Seth Hernandez and is a consensus Top 100 prospect in all of baseball. Baseball America has him at No. 41, MLB Pipeline at No. 35 and FanGraphs at No. 78.

Florentino is having an OK season for Greensboro after really bursting onto the scene last year. He’s hitting .222/.341/.463.

It’s easy to see what people like about him. He has a swing that generates massive power when he connects, has a good eye at the plate and has the athleticism to stick in the outfield, even if it’s not in center field.

You can also see the things he needs to work on. There is swing-and-miss in his game, which is a trade-off you come to expect with the power. I don’t know if he can stay in center field, which means he will have to hit even more if he’s pushed to a corner.

Looking at his swing, there is a lot going on here, but as he loads and comes through the baseball, he generates loads of power with an uppercut swing that makes the ball just jump off his bat.

He homered on this pitch. The ball went very far.

I was trying to think of who this swing best compares to and, I don’t know, maybe there’s some Cody Bellinger in it? Bellinger is a lot quieter, but generates similar massive power with an enormous uppercut like this.

Anyway, Florentino is a dynamic player with a lot of upside. He will take some time. We’re not looking at someone like Konnor Griffin who will be debuting in April next year.

But being able to generate this much power at just 19 years old is something you don’t typically see. There are things he will need to continue working on as he progresses, but there’s a lot to work with here.

Wyatt Sanford

The Pirates’ No. 5 prospect serves as the leadoff hitter for Greensboro and has completely changed his profile from when he was drafted in 2024.

He’s having a huge season for the Grasshoppers, hitting .284/.421/.533. He’s walking at a 14.5% clip and generating far more power than anyone thought he would. The power surge is coming at a cost, with a 30.7% strikeout rate, but his power-speed combo, along with his defensive ability at shortstop, is uncommon. He has also stolen 27 bases.

I didn’t really get a good look at Sanford’s defense. He DH’d the first game I was at, got a day off in the second game and then Navarro just struck everyone out in the third game, where Sanford did play shortstop. But all reports are that he’s really smooth there.

His speed and power were both on display, though. He had two hits and stole two bases in the first game. In the third game, he doubled on a ball that most guys wouldn’t have considered going to second on, then hit a line-drive homer off a LHP into the bullpen over the right-field wall.

Sanford changed his swing over the offseason, and it’s generating a lot more impact.

There are a lot of tools to like here. But he is going to have to cut down on the swing-and-miss and find a happy medium between the contact hitter he was when he was drafted and the more power-heavy hitter he is now, one who is generating plenty of impact but also plenty of swings and misses.

The current contact rate is not something that will translate at the MLB level, but the good news is that everything happening right now seems deliberate. Now it’s just a matter of seeing if he can put things together in a way that works from both a contact and power standpoint.

The glove and speed are additional tools that will help him as he progresses.

Levi Sterling

Sterling, the Pirates’ No. 18 prospect, also made his High-A debut at just 19 years old this week. While the results weren’t there for him, he certainly showed the stuff and projectability.

Sterling gave up six runs, three earned, in three innings. He struggled with command, issuing four walks and hitting a batter, and was pitching around trouble the entire time. It certainly wasn’t one of his better outings.

What stood out to me, though, was that the fastball velocity is certainly trending up, which is a pretty great sign for someone who is still a teenager this deep into August and 95-plus innings into his season.

According to Statcast, Sterling averaged 92.8 mph with his fastball in Bradenton. This night, he sat 94-96 and touched 97.

He also throws a slider, curveball and changeup, but this just wasn’t really the night for him as he struggled to command most everything.

Clearly, he has some things to work on, but the delivery is so smooth and repeatable that as he gets a better feel for everything he’s throwing, the command can improve.

Again, he’s just 19 years old and trending upward for sure.

Other Notables

Tony Blanco Jr. hits the ball hard. And he’s hitting it more often.

After being awed by him in Arizona last year, it was fun to see the progression he’s showing. He’s still a massive human with enormous power, but he’s making a lot more contact now. He’s upped his contact rate from 57.4% to 64% this year and cut his strikeout rate from 35% to 29%.

He’s still slugging, too, with 21 homers. The amount of power this guy can generate is enormous, and he will continue to be a fun prospect to watch as he advances.

Yordany De Los Santos is fast. And it’s game-changing.

There was a moment in the ninth inning of a one-run game where he got on with a runner on third and one out. I looked at the scoreboard operator I was sitting next to in the press box and said, “He’s gonna go here.”

Sure enough, after one pickoff attempt, he was off and running on the first pitch and stole second easily.

Being able to have that type of ability when it matters most and everyone knows your intention is a nice skill to have.

He has 44 stolen bases on the year. The Pirates’ No. 24-ranked prospect is having his best offensive year of full-season ball and is still just 21 years old, but all the tools that made everyone salivate when he was 18 and breaking out in the Complex League just haven’t translated to where you want them to be yet.

Defensively, he can handle just about anywhere but is probably best suited for second or third base.

He still flashes all the tools. I think he’s a good Arizona Fall League candidate, as he is Rule 5 eligible this offseason, but he’s certainly on the outside looking in for a 40-man spot.

Axiel Plaz didn’t have the best two games when I saw him. But he’s still built like a bowling ball, still hits the ball hard and did make a really nice throw to gun someone down at second base.

Jared Jones was kind of a Jekyll-and-Hyde situation this week.

He looked awful on Wednesday, striking out three times and going 0-for-5. But then he rebounded with back-to-back two-hit games, including a towering home run Friday.

He’s having a really nice season, hitting above .300, which is something I never thought we’d see from him, while still generating power with 17 homers and a .510 slugging percentage.

He’s still going to have to work on cutting down the whiffs a bit more as he moves up, though, while maintaining the power.

Conclusion

Greensboro is a fun and talented team. Reinold Navarro and Edward Florentino, in particular, left me dreaming about what they could eventually become.

All of these guys are still quite a ways from the Majors, but it’s always fun to get an up-close look at what’s coming through the Pirates’ pipeline.

Who are you most excited about on this Greensboro team?