BRADENTON, Fla. – Miguel Yajure and Roansy Contreras first met back in 2017. Yajure was rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and went down to the Yankees’ Dominican Academy for part of his rehab. Contreras, a still recently-signed 17-year-old, was part of the Yankees’ DSL team and got to talk to the 18-year-old who had already pitched stateside.
Yajure, being a little older, was almost always a Class level ahead of Contreras, so they didn’t spend much time together as teammates in their journey through the Yankees’ farm system. Last year, though, they were forever linked together by being two of the four players the Pirates got back in the Jameson Taillon trade.
Both right-handers got a small taste of the majors in 2021, but should play a much larger role in the Pirates’ rotation in 2022.
It’s something the two talk about often.
“We need to get our spot here,” Yajure was telling me. “We came here together. We grew together. And so we want to be good together.”
Yajure has yet to appear in a game this spring as he continues to rehab back from a lumbar spine injury, but he has thrown live batting practices and threw a bullpen Thursday, so that spring debut could be coming sooner. Contreras made his second spring appearance in the Pirates’ 3-3, five-inning tie to the Phillies at LECOM Park Thursday, and while he was touched up for a pair of home runs, his output in general this spring has been encouraging.
While Yajure’s delayed start and Contreras’ inexperience in the upper levels (he has made just one start in Class AAA) could have them start the season in Indianapolis than with the major-league team, the Pirates are going lean on both for a good chunk of this upcoming season and beyond. Contreras is currently ranked by Baseball America as the Pirates’ No. 4 prospect and No. 80 overall. Yajure is ranked at No. 17 in the system.
This is their second major-league spring training with the Pirates, and both are feeling more comfortable the second time around.
“When I first got here, like any human being, I was a little nervous,” Contreras said this week through translator Mike Gonzalez. “I did feel a little timid coming into a new organization, being around a new group of guys.
“However, briefly into spring training, I began to feel a lot more comfortable. I feel very embraced by my teammates. Throughout last year, I felt like I belonged here. Coming into this year, I feel very, very comfortable.”
It’s easy to see why Contreras is so highly touted. Even a bullpen, the mechanics are smooth and the results are eye-popping, throwing upper-90s heat with wipeout sliders and curveballs that flirt with 3,000 RPM.
“You don't really don't realize that it’s 97 and 99 because it's effortless,” Derek Shelton said.
When asked if Contreras ever takes a peek at the radar gun when he’s in a groove, he gave a big smile. Take that as a yes.
But last year was almost cut short when he suffered a forearm injury in early July. He was able to treat it with just rehab, but the scare was enough for him to do some reevaluating ahead of this season.
“Just the way that I train, my routines, and just the way I go about my business, how important it is to just be mindful of that, about my body and my training regimen,” Contreras said. “It was a little scary, but something that it's over with and something that helped me grow and be more mindful going into my career.”
Velocity doesn’t come quite as easily to Yajure, sitting in the low-90s normally. At the end of last year he was not at 100% because he had recently recovered from a forearm injury and was throwing in the upper-80s, mostly.
“It’s coming out better than how I finished last year,” Yajure said about the fastball. “I’m back at 91, 92 [mph]. In a game, with adrenaline, hopefully 94.”
That’s all Yajure needs to be able to get major-league hitters out because of his breaking stuff, with a pair of breaking pitches than can either run or dive, as well as tunnel off of the fastball to be even more dangerous.
“If I locate it, I know it’s going to be really, really good,” Yajure said. “That’s what I’m trying [to do] right now, just locate those secondary pitches.”
The main concern, though, is his recent injury history. That forearm injury sidelined him for most of the year, and the lumbar injury prevented him from going to the Arizona Fall League to make up those innings.
This winter, he made a commitment to lose some weight and came in noticeably trimmer. He also believes those injuries aren’t going to slow him down now.
“It’s all good now,” Yajure said. “That’s what’s important.”
If both are healthy, they should emerge from the rotation competitions that are currently going on, where basically the only two pitchers who could be firmly written into the rotation at the moment are Mitch Keller and José Quintana. Yajure says the conversations the two have are beneficial to both, and the competition for a major-league job is something they both welcome.
“For me, I believe that that's something that really helped us, especially the communication that we had, the chemistry that we have,” Contreras said. “It's something that we were able to gain from each other.”
