In The System: Three prospects who took a big step in 2023

The minor-league season is coming to a close. Class Low- and High-A Bradenton and Greensboro are already done for the season, and Class AA Altoona wraps on Sunday.

To commemorate the end of the year, the next few In The System features will take a bigger picture at the organization as a whole, starting with prospects who took a step forward in 2023, even if they did not come out of the gate in the best spot.

INF LIOVER PEGUERO

Perhaps this is cheating to kick off the list, but Peguero entered the year a top 10 prospect, though his stock seemed to be trending in the wrong direction. He had a .692 OPS for Class AA Altoona and made 31 errors in the field, raising concerns of if he could adjust to the upper levels of the minors.

Peguero came into this season more mature, wanting to take a step forward. It turns out the biggest adjustment was on the mental side of the game.

"We talked a lot about developing better mental processes," Curve manager Callix Crabbe said recently. "I'm definitely not taking credit for the entire experience. It was a full-staff effort. But being very intentional about that, but when he gets to the big leagues, he can't take pitches off, he can't take at-bats off. The stakes are much higher. There were moments early in the year when that was the case, and that's no longer the case. I've gotten some texts from Shelty [Derek Shelton] talking about the change in the player from that regard."

Peguero got off to a slow start in Altoona, but when things started to click, he quickly made the leap to Class AAA Indianapolis and then the majors, where he has held his own in the field at the bat. There are still areas to iron out, like learning how to hit spin consistently, but his strides on both sides of the game have made into a viable major-league option. Which is good for the Pirates, because he brings energy to the clubhouse.

"That was one of the main things I worked on with him," Crabbe said. "To be consistent with him, not to have the highs and lows. You want to be like a rolling hill, in the analogy I use with him. But I also reminded him to be who he is. Some thing are energy creators, some people need people to give them energy. And he is the energy creator.

"He has to be mindful that's his job in the lineup, to play hard and to take the extra base and bring the extra energy, but to be mindful of that because he's so energetic that if he's not the same, it can turn out to be a bad thing, and that has not happened."

RHP JARED JONES

Jones was the subject of an In The System feature when he rose to top 100 prospect status in early June, where he showed the mentality change that helped the 2020 second-pick rise towards the top of the Pirates' top prospect chart.

“I wouldn’t say that it’s angry that where I’m p---- off on the mound," Jones told me earlier in the season. "Just that ‘F you’ attitude, that’s how I like to say it more. I’m going to throw whatever I have with total conviction, and you’re not going to touch it. That’s how I view myself on the mound, and if you do touch it, then I just need to throw a better pitch.”

Jones was promoted to Indianapolis shortly after that story was published, where he started off very shaky, and where I heard opinions that he might have been better off staying in Altoona a little longer. There was some on-field maturation going on at that time though, where he learned to handle the bumps of the game better and become more stoic.

That's starting to translate to results, where Jones has recorded three quality starts in his last four outings, including striking out a dozen over his last two starts, totaling 13 scoreless innings. 

Will we see Jones in Pittsburgh to end the year? Eh, I wouldn't count on it. He doesn't need to be added to the 40 man roster this winter, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to use a roster spot and potentially an option year before they need to.

A 2024 call up looks very in the cards for the pitcher MLB Pipeline ranks as the third-best prospect in the Pirates' system.

RHP BUBBA CHANDLER

Chandler was told before the season that the two-way player experiment was going to be put on hold in favor of him just pitching in 2023. The move was for the sake of his development, but going by his results, it looked like he hit a wall for the opening months of the season.

"The first couple of months of that he was pitching on the moon, not quite on the moon, but Greensboro is a hitting environment," Ben Cherington said. "We put him in a challenging position the first time he ever focused on pitching and the ERA was a little ugly the first couple of months. He was working hard through that. We were still seeing the work between starts. It was probably the first time he experienced any real adversity as an athlete. He’s been pretty successful at anything he’s ever done. I think in the long run that was actually good for him to experience that."

Chandler's owned up to his first half struggles. In his eyes, he wasn't putting in the work he needed, and other pitchers, like Anthony Solometo, advance to Altoona before him.

"If you want to put it plain and simple, I was kind of soft in the first half," Chandler said. "I was immature, to say the least. I pitched immature. I threw. I just threw and hoped for the best, rather than focusing on my craft day to day and preparing the right way like the guys around me did down in Greensboro."

Chandler finished strong, going 7-1 with a 1.66 ERA and 51 strikeouts over 48 2/3 innings, including eight punchouts over five innings of one-hit ball. It's a setup that could potentially put him on the major-league radar as soon as 2024.

And as far as hitting goes, any chance that gets revisited?

"I don’t think I’m going to hit, nor do I want to hit anymore," Chandler said. ... Shohei Ohtani is a god. I couldn’t imagine playing at least five times a week, pitching seven innings a week and doing that every five days and playing every day."