A Full Breakdown of the Pittsburgh Pirates prospects headed to the Arizona Fall League

The Arizona Fall League rosters have been released this week with a lot of intriguing prospects on each team. There are six teams full of prospects from Major League teams that will play starting October 6th. I’ll be writing an article and making Twitter posts about each team’s roster. This will cover the prospects from the Pittsburgh Pirates who will be on the Salt River Rafters this fall. The team will consist of players from the Los Angeles Angels, Arizona Diamondbacks, Boston Red Sox, and Colorado Rockies as well.

Pittsburgh Pirates:

Derek Diamond RHP: The 6th round pick out of Ole Miss in 2022, Diamond has slowly climbed the minor leagues the past couple of seasons. After a pretty solid 2023 that saw him pitch 118.2 innings to a 4.74 ERA between Low-A and High-A Diamond spent the entire season in High-A pitching to 95.2 to a 4.80 ERA. He has great control only walking 4.6% last season and pretty good stuff striking out 20.3%. This season he has struggled through injuries all year starting the year in AA Altoona where he pitched in 9.2 innings to a 16.78 ERA giving up 18 runs before being put on the injured list with an undisclosed injury. Diamond didn’t pitch until the middle of August where he had 2 rehab appearances in Low-A and another 2 in High-A. He returned to the AA roster for the end of the season pitching 4.1 innings out of the bullpen. He looked good in his first two outings but gave up 5 runs in 1.1 innings in his last appearance of the season ending his 2025 in AA pitching a total of 14 innings to a 14.79 ERA. He has a full pitch mix already with a sinker that sits in the mid 90s, a slider in the mid 80s, a low 80s changeup, and a mid 70s curveball. He changes speeds a lot and all his pitches have pretty solid movement. He doesn’t get a ton of whiffs in the zone but he gets good chase on his breaking stuff.

Joshua Loeschorn RHP: Drafted in the 20th round of the 2022 draft, Loeschorn had a pretty good first season in pro ball in 2023 where he pitched in Low-A and High-A in 68 innings to a 3.97 ERA. He was able to strike out 32.6% of batters while only walking 7.3%. He had Tommy John surgery in 2024 and he finally started back on his rehab this June. After pitching 4 games in the Complex League and 2 in Low-A he was back in High-A in early July. He pitched in 19 games out of the bullpen in 20.1 innings. He pitched great to a 2.66 ERA and 2.80 FIP. He lowered his walk rate to 4.1% but his strikeout rate dropped to 23%. He was promoted to AA right before the end of the season and made one appearance out of the bullpen for 1.2 innings. He gave up 4 hits and 2 walks but all 4 of his runs were unearned. Loeschorn doesn’t have big velocity but a sinker in the low 90s and a cutter in the high 80s get very weak contact. His secondaries are a high 70s slider and curveball plus a changeup in the low 80s. His slider and curveball have great movement and spin even with the lower velocity and get a good amount of chase from batters. 

Dominic Perachi LHP: Drafted out of Salve Regina University a Division III school in the 11th round of the 2022 draft Perachi has had a good career so far for the Pirates organization. He pitched 90.2 innings in Low-A in 2023 to a 4.76 ERA but broke out in 2024 High-A pitching to a 2.08 ERA in 73.2 innings. He was moved up to AA that season but struggled in 41 innings to a 6.15 ERA. He dealt with an injury this season and started his rehab in early July. He was back with the AA team on August 1st and pitched the last month and a half there pitching 35 innings to a 4.89 ERA. He struggled to get strikeouts and his walk rate rose to 9.7%. Perachi doesn’t have the best fastball as it only sits around 92 mph but he’s able to hide it well. His slider is his best pitch sitting in the low 80s with sharp movement. He also throws the occasional curveball and changeup at times. He’ll look to bring back his 2024 self this fall. 

Carlson Reed RHP: Drafted in the 4th round of the 2023 draft Reed broke out in 2024 pitching 108.2 innings in 23 starts to a 1.99 ERA at only 21 years old between Low-A and High-A. This season he started late due to a back injury only making his first start in High-A in early June but he ended up pitching 63 innings in 16 starts to a 4.14 ERA. His walk rate jumped from 11.7% in 2024 to 18.2% this season in High-A while his strikeout rate dropped from 29.7% to 22.2% this season. His fastball is pretty below average, only sitting around 94 mph and he doesn’t control it well throwing it in the zone less than half of his pitches. His secondary stuff, a slider with 11.7 inches of horizontal break and a changeup are easily plus pitches were above a 51% whiff rate each in 2024. Not sure what happened this season with no Statcast data but his long delivery points towards little control in the future and he likely couldn’t throw strikes. It’ll be interesting to see what he’s been working on this fall. 

Jaden Woods LHP: Spending his last season at Georgia as their Friday night starter Woods has transitioned to the bullpen since being drafted in the 7th round by the Pirates in 2023. He’ll usually go more than an inning pitching in at least 60 innings the last two innings. He was great in 25.1 innings in High-A last season with a 2.13 ERA but has struggled at the AA level in 2024 and 2025 where he spent the entire season. This year he’s thrown 62 innings to a 5.81 ERA and 4.23 FIP. Woods generates a lot of strikeouts but he has gotten less this season going from 27.8% in 2024 to 22.7% this year. He also walked 11.4% of batters this season and had his lowest strike rate of his career. Woods has a fastball that sits in the mid to low 90s with around 18 inches of induced vertical break as well as a low 80s slider. He also sometimes mixes in a changeup which is much worse than the other two pitches. He needs to work on that changeup because he’s been getting killed by right handed batters. It’ll be interesting to get some public data on Woods to see how he’s developing with more control. He has the potential to be a mid innings reliever for the Pirates soon. 

Tony Blanco Jr. 1B: One of the most fun bats headed to the Fall League Blanco Jr. is the son of Tony Blanco who spent 17 years playing everywhere from organized ball to Japan and playing in one Major League season for the Nationals in 2005. Blanco Jr. is huge standing at 6’7” 240 lbs at only 20 years old and has some of the biggest power in professional baseball. He hit a homer this year at 119.8 mph exit velocity which would rank him 4th in MLB by max exit velocity. After spending the last 3 seasons in the Dominican Summer League or the Complex League he was preparing to start in Low-A but was put on the injured list with a leg injury and didn’t make his Low-A debut until mid July. Even though he only played 28 games and got 125 plate appearances he excelled hitting .264/.368/.491 for a 135 wRC+ with 7 homers. He had an average exit velocity of 93.3 mph but that was when he made contact. He had some of the lowest contact percentages in Low-A. He only made contact in the zone 67.4% of the time. He chased at 35.1% of pitches out of the zone and had a whiff rate of 43.2%. He was able to walk 14.4% of the time but he struck out 33.6%. This has been his biggest problem since playing in the DR. He was signed as a first baseman and outfielder but has dealt with injuries every season and only played first or DH for the Pirates. The raw power has a chance to make Blanco Jr. a special hitter but his contact ability makes his floor really low especially without being able to really play defense so far. It’ll be interesting where he plays this fall. 

Esmerlyn Valdez 1B/OF: Another hitter with the same makeup as Blanco Jr. but with slightly more contact Valdez broke onto the scene in Low-A in the 2024 season. He hit .226/.352/.464 for a 130 wRC+. He showed his big raw power potential with 22 homer runs but struck out 30.6% of the time and whiffed on 33.6% of pitches he swung at. In 2025 Valdez made big strides starting in High-A where he hit .303/.385/.592 for a 176 wRC+ and 20 homers. He was then promoted to AA where he hit .260/.363/.409 for a 126 wRC+ in 51 games at only 21 years old. He cut down on his strikeouts to 24.6% and even though his walk rate dropped 3% he made the most contact of his career and his whiff rate dropped to 28%. He pulls the ball really well to left field and hits the ball hard. Not a great fielder in mostly right field or first base but the bat will carry him to the league. He’s one of the most underrated players in the Pirates system and could be up in AAA next season.

Will Taylor CF: The 5th round pick by the Pirates in last year’s draft out of Clemson has looked great in his first full season. Originally going to Clemson for both football and baseball he was on the Clemson roster as a quarterback, wide receiver, and punt returner before ending his football days in 2024. He dealt with a bunch of injuries throughout college but had a mostly healthy season this year playing 93 games. He started in Low-A hitting .333/.424/.569 for a 172 wRC+ in his first 29 games adding 4 homers and 8 steals. He was rightfully promoted to High-A and hit .231/.351/.410 for a 123 wRC+ adding 10 homers and 15 steals. Taylor doesn’t hit the ball hard but has great knowledge of the zone and makes good swing decisions. He walked at a 12.3% rate this season but struggled with contact despite making good swing decisions; he struck out 26.6% of the time and only made contact on 67.3% of swings. He’s shown good pull side power and his speed helped him play a good center field this year but he’ll need to fix his swing and make more contact to get more recognition.

Thank you for reading for shorter breakdowns check out my Twitter @drew-durstock. Each day I'll release a new team's prospect breakdown.