It's pretty remarkable how it seemed to have clicked this year. His A ball experience in 2019 and 2021 led to that mediocre profile in FG this summer (a 40, with questions on his arm and his OBP skills).
Pineda began 2022 where he spent most of last year: at High-A (Wilmington is Washington’s new affiliate), where he still flashes big pull power but has stagnated in other areas. Scouts don’t think Pineda is a lock to catch because he doesn’t have a great arm, but they love his workmanship and makeup, and think he’ll find a way to be a viable defender through his competence in the other facets of catching via sheer effort. He projects as a low-OBP hitter with above-average raw power, likely a bat-first backup so long as he remedies his rough-around-the-edges defense.
A .325 OBP at A+ and higher over ~110 PAs at AA and AAA. I guess that probably translates lower at the MLB level if you discount AA/AAA as a small sample, so say that really is a .300 OBP +/- .015. I guess that's low OBP, but among the 51 catchers in MLB with > 150 PAs (IOW, most of the regulars and backups other than call ups), that would put him in the middle third (#16 Narvaez to #34 Alfaro). It looks like he had a lot of passed balls in 2019
(26 in 709 innings) but has cut back some (9 in 479 innings in 2021, 8 in ~650 innings in 2022). For comparison, Ruiz has 4 in 815 innings, and only 2 catchers have 8 (Maldonado and Stassi). I don't get the comments on his arm - he's been at a about a 40% rate his whole career.
I wonder if Jorge Alfaro (.305 OBP, throws out about 1/3 of his runners, some pop) is a good comp.
