Pirates Introduce Fifth Round Pick Jack Hartman
General Manager Ben Cherrington and his staff have been working diligently since the 2020 MLB Draft to sign each of their six picks. The Pirates are always searching for pitching depth, and they added five pitchers in their six picks this season. They ended up securing the third of those six pitchers when they signed Jack Hartman on Tuesday to his first professional contract. The right-hander has bounced around throughout his college career, playing for three different teams in four seasons, but he finally made it to the big leagues after two impressive seasons at Appalachian State.
Hartman is the only true senior in this year's Pittsburgh Pirates draft class, and two of those seasons came with Appalachian State. He started his collegiate career as a two-way player, but his stuff on the mound had his college coaches switch him to the bump full time. He has a strong two-pitch arsenal that he balances well on the hill to keep the opposition off balance. The first of those pitches is a four-seamer with a lot of cut, that consistently hits between 92 and 96 miles per hour. However, when he really rears back and lets it fly, he has hit 97 on the gun before. He complements the heat with a solid slider that breaks into lefties and away from righties. It hits in the mid to upper 80s offering about a 10 mile per hour split between his pitches. Movement at that speed can be hard for a better to pick up and is part of what has made Hartman so successful.
He began his collegiate career as both an infielder and a pitcher at Tallahassee Community College in 2017. He consistently played both sides of the ball that year and showed a pretty strong bat hitting .267 with three home runs, 34 RBI, and an on-base percentage of .418. However, he showed that not only could he hit, but he could pitch too. With a fastball that was hitting in the mid-90s, the Eagles started to use him on the mound at the end of the season. He ended up making five appearances and did not allow a base runner over his five innings of work. After showing some promise on the mound as well as in the field, Hartman transferred to the College of Central Florida, where he started to see some more regular time on the mound.
He was still jumping between the field and the mound to start the year and was seeing good results in both aspects of the game. As a third baseman, he ended up hitting .310 with seven RBI in 25 games. He had an on-base percentage of .452 that season, but his power that he generated in high school was not there. He faces pressure from other good infielders on the team, and halfway through the year, he made the transition to the mound full-time. It was a move that would end up benefitting Hartman in the long run as he got to work on just pitching and it helped him gain command of his pitches.
However, his transition to the mind wasn't as smooth as you think as he pitched to a 6.33 ERA in 19 games that season. He was still trying to figure himself out as a pitcher and this led to some control issues throughout the year. He walked 10 batters in his 22 innings of work and had an opponent batting average of .322. One of his positives was his strikeout rate as he set down 14 that season and had a strikeouts per nine rate of 5.73. It was one of the only bright spots on the mound for Hartman and he knew he would have to work harder than ever to succeed as a pitcher. He would once again transfer, this time to Appalachian State where he would spend the next two seasons.
Upon transferring to Appalachian State, Hartman immediately became one of the most used pitchers for the Mountaineers. He appeared in 20 games that season, the third-most on the team, and dropped his ERA to 4.98 in 21.2 innings of work. His strikeout rate ended up shooting up as he fanned 26 batters that season, including a career-high four strikeouts in a game against Troy. He pitched well, especially against conference opponents, and had a stretch of 12 straight scoreless innings against Miami and UTA at the end of the year. He had officially made the move to the mound full-time and was starting to see the fruits of his labor as his stats continued to improve with each outing.
That trend would continue into his senior season with the Mountaineers as he once again would appear out of the bullpen. He made 10 relief appearances for the Mountaineers before Coronavirus struck, and pitched to a 3.00 ERA. He moved to the back-end of the Mountaineers bullpen appearing several times as the team's closer. He led Appalachian State that season with 22 strikeouts and led the Sun Belt Conference finishing out 12 of the Mountaineer's games that season. By the time the season was over, he was gaining national recognition for his work on the mound. He ranked no. 231 on D1 Baseball's Top 250 prospects list for the MLB Draft. The Pittsburgh Pirates took particular interest in the right-hander due to his better than average velocity and the movement on his slider.
The Pirates would then act on their interest taking Hartman with the 108th overall pick in the 4th round of the 2020 MLB Draft. Given that he has only pitched in two seasons of college baseball, look for Hartman to more than likely be assigned to the West Virginia Black Bears in 2021. He will continue to work out of the bullpen and will hopefully develop into a strong back-end candidate. He has the stuff to succeed in the late innings of games, and his experience in college proves that he is able to succeed in that role. Although he will probably never pick up a bat at any level of professional baseball, he has the arm to be a potential closer or set-up man for the Pirates in the future.
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