On Monday, Baseball America had an article looking at some of the top performers during instructional league ball. Quinn Priester received high praise in that article. On Wednesday, BA looked at ten under-the-radar prospects who stood out in instructs. The Pittsburgh Pirates were represented on that list by talented 18-year-old outfielder Sergio Campana.
Campana received the second highest bonus ($500,000) for the Pirates when the 2018-19 international signing period opened up. He was also the top rated prospect for their initial group. After his first season in pro ball, after putting up a .737 OPS and stealing 24 bases, we rated him as the second best prospect for the DSL Pirates (both teams) after gathering information from multiple people who saw the teams often. Just recently I asked for an updated list and Campana received a lot of praise for his work, showing strong improvements from Spring Training to Fall Instructs, making good use of the down time. He was still rated second on the list I received, but that’s only because infielder Dariel Lopez made huge strides as well after batting .341/.404/.485 in 47 games as a 17-year-old rookie in 2019. In our new rankings, Campana jumped over last year’s #1 ranked prospect, Juan Jerez, who still had a strong showing overall this year and was ranked third on the updated list.
BA points out that the Pirates had a talented group of young international signees that they brought to instructs this year. We also received an excellent report on Rodolfo Nolasco, who continues to make harder contact than anyone else in camp. He rounded out the top four prospects from the 2019 DSL teams.
This quote from BA from the article sums up why Campana made their list, and probably won’t be an under-the-radar prospect for long:
The 18-year-old showed the potential to hit for average and power, displayed the athleticism and instincts to stay in center field and had impressive polish to his game for his age
In case you missed it last night on the Pirates Prospects section of our site, Wilbur Miller took a look at the new structure of minor league baseball
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
