By the numbers: Konnor Griffin's monster potential

Major League fans, get ready to meet the next five-tool monster.

No. 1 overall prospect Konnor Griffin is expected to be called up by the Pirates for his MLB debut in their home opener Friday, as Jason Mackey noted Thursday.

Taken ninth overall in the 2024 Draft, Griffin shot up the Top 100 ranks in his first full season as he hit .333/.415/.527 with 21 homers and 65 steals in 122 games across the Single-A, High-A and Double-A levels. Despite being only 19, he was firmly in competition to win Pittsburgh’s shortstop job this spring before he was sent to Triple-A Indianapolis shortly before Opening Day. He went 7-for-16 (.438) with three doubles, five walks and four strikeouts in five International League games before being summoned to the bigs this week.

All five of Griffin’s tools earned at least 60 grades on the 20-80 scouting scale in MLB Pipeline’s preseason report. To understand why – and further detail what makes the Bucs phenom so special – let’s dig into the early-career Statcast data for baseball’s next prodigy:

Hit
The hit tool will often be the one skill most put under the microscope for young players, considering hitting might just be the hardest thing to do in all of sports. So when Griffin was reassigned to Minor League camp last month, it became easy to point out that he hit just .171 and struck out 13 times while walking only twice in 46 plate appearances. More apparent were his struggles against heat; he went just 1-for-9 and whiffed on 35.3 percent of his swings against fastballs at 95 mph or above.

That could have been the case of a teenager getting thrown in the deep end of Major League velocity, or it could have taken Griffin some time to warm up to the heat. In any case, he performed better against velocity in that short Triple-A stay. He whiffed on only 14.3 percent of his swings against 95+ in his five games for Indianapolis, often fighting such pitches off for foul balls to live another day and crush breaking stuff.

Remember, the right-handed slugger entered pro ball with a reputation for a long swing but showed enough mechanical improvements, including involving the placement of his hands, to answer the hit-tool questions and vault to the No. 1 spot. To wit, Synergy Sports had him batting .355 with a .774 slugging percentage and low 19 percent whiff rate against pitches registered at 95+ mph across Single-A, High-A and Double-A last season.

Now, Major League pitchers can locate and move extreme heat better than their Minor League counterparts, and it’s very possible Griffin still will need an adjustment period to MLB-quality velocity and stuff. But the trendlines – both for his overall career and in recent weeks – are all positive.

Power
We could start real simple here. Griffin’s 111.2 mph homer on Feb. 24 against the Red Sox in Fort Myers is still the hardest-hit dinger by a Pirate in 2026, either in Spring Training or the Majors. It’s the second-longest homer at 440 feet, trailing only Oneil Cruz’s 444-foot shot Tuesday against the Reds in regular-season play. That one blast proved what happens when Griffin can get the fat part of the bat on the ball; it’ll go a long way at great speed.

But one home run is only a single data point, you might say. Fair enough, so let’s throw it back to last year in the Florida State League – the only non-Triple-A circuit with Statcast data in the Minors.

Since 2021, there have been 118 players aged 19 or younger that have faced 500+ pitches over a single season in the FSL. Griffin’s 49 percent hard-hit rate and 91.2 mph average exit velocity ranked third and fourth, respectively, over that five-year span. Among the eight with average EVs above 90 mph – a list that also includes Top 100 prospects Bryce Rainer, Alfredo Duno and Emmanuel Rodriguez – he was the only one with a whiff rate below 28 percent; his was 25.

In other words, Griffin came about his .338 average and .536 slugging percentage with Bradenton honestly, prompting the Pirates to push him to High-A after only 50 games. And while he’s years away from being similarly age appropriate in the Majors, that type of slugging output could be a preview of what’s to come.

wRC+
This isn’t a Statcast number, but it is too good not to share ahead of Griffin’s debut.

Since 2006, there have been 9,850 batters who have at least 500 career plate appearances in the Minors. Juan Soto (197), Kyle Schwarber (187) and Kris Bryant (179) top that group for career MiLB wRC+. Griffin ranks seventh at 168.

That’s higher than some of the most famous Minor League performers of the last two decades in Alex Gordon (167), Julio Rodríguez (167), Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (160) and, yes, No. 2 overall prospect Kevin McGonigle (163). As an aside and a potential preview of future NL Central battles, only one current Top 100 prospect ranks higher: Cardinals catcher Rainiel Rodriguez (170), who hasn’t yet seen the upper Minors.

Run
Between Single-A, Triple-A and Major League Spring Training, Griffin has played 79 games in front of Statcast in his young career. That’s not even half of a Major League season, but in that time, he’s registered 42 Sprint Speeds above 30 ft/sec, otherwise known as Bolts. Only Cruz (43) recorded more Bolts among Pirates during the entire 2025 MLB season, and he ranked 11th in the category among all Major Leaguers.

If Griffin maintained that rate and finished with 80-85 Bolts in a full Major League season, that would have ranked fifth in the Majors last year behind only Trea Turner (122), Bobby Witt Jr. (103), Chandler Simpson (98) and Victor Scott II (90). All four are at least two inches shorter than the 6-foot-3 Griffin. Given that size, Griffin may slow a tick as he matures, but even if he does, he’s off to enough of a head start speedwise that his wheels should continue to impact the game well into his peak years.

Arm strength
Overall defense is tougher to track through public Minor League Statcast data; Outs Above Average, for example, isn’t tracked in the Minors through Baseball Savant. Anecdotally, it’s been telling that the Pirates initially intended to let Griffin split time between shortstop and center field, but he showed enough range and athleticism at the six to stick there full-time and even win a MiLB Gold Glove award.

The velocities of Griffin’s throws are available, however, allowing us a chance to check in on his 70-grade arm.

Savant judges arm strength for shortstops as the average of the top five percent of their throws (min. 75 throws), eliminating some of the noise that can come with easier tosses across the diamond. Taking all of the available Statcast data for Griffin over the last two years, the average of his top five percent is 86.7 mph. That would have ranked 11th among the 57 qualified MLB shortstops in 2025, placing him between Geraldo Perdomo (87.2) and Zach McKinstry (85.8).

Those are only in measurable games for Statcast, and it’s possible some of Griffin’s throws in High-A and Double-A could have affected that average in one direction or the other. But we know there’s more in the tank here too. Griffin’s max velo on the dirt is 90.0 mph, and that came this spring on March 18. His MLB Pipeline Draft report also notes that he was clocked up to 96 mph from the mound as an amateur.

Out of all of these, here’s the stat that might matter most: Konnor Griffin will still only be 19 when he debuts Friday. (He turns 20 on April 24.) He’ll be the first teenaged position player in the Majors since Juan Soto in 2018 and the youngest position player to appear in his MLB club’s first seven games since Andruw Jones in 1997. “More in the tank” may be a theme for years to come.