Pirates

Pirates All 40: What Does Tristan Gray Have to Offer?

Published

3 weeks ago

January 2, 2025

This is one in a series of stories breaking down members of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 40-man roster.

The Pirates picked up infielder Tristan Gray off waivers in October 2024, giving them some depth they’d lacked at first and third base.

Originally selected by none other than the Pirates in the 13th round of the 2017 MLB Entry Draft, Gray has all of 17 big league games to his name, making 15 appearances (seven starts) between the Marlins and Athletics in 2024 and often serving as a pinch hitter. How did he perform in that role? A .107/.194/.143 slash line with one double and 16 strikeouts in just 31 plate appearances.

It’s a small sample size, to be sure. In terms of process — rather than results — Gray’s 93 mile per hour exit velocity, 58.3 percent hard-hit rate and 74.1 mile per hour average bat speed all would’ve ranked among the upper echelons of MLB hitters had he taken a qualifying number of plate appearances.

A low launch angle meant that when he did connect (far from a given in light of poor chase and whiff percentages), the ball often dropped harmlessly into a glove, rather than carrying into the outer reaches of the ballpark. Gray cleared the 30 homer benchmark in Triple-A during both the 2022 and 2023 seasons, so there’s power to tap into.

Gray is about average fielding and on the base paths, and his approach at the plate means the Pirates have some tools to work with in a depth piece… but he’ll need results in order to spend any serious time with the organization, whether with Pittsburgh or in Indianapolis.