The Pirates may have another power bat worth tracking in the Arizona Fall League, and Jhonny Severino is putting himself right in that conversation.
That’s the same desert stage where Esmerlyn Valdez flashed major pop a year ago before carrying that momentum into a home-run burst at PNC Park. Severino is now trying to trace a similar line, and his first swing in Glendale made the point fast: on Oct. 6, he opened his Fall League stint with a two-run homer for the Glendale Desert Dogs. The blast was estimated at 417 feet and came off his bat at 106.6 mph.
For anyone who watched Severino’s 2026 minor league season, it wasn’t exactly a shock. The 21-year-old infielder spent the year at High-A Greensboro and produced a line of .256/.308/.524 with 31 home runs, 95 RBI and an .832 OPS over 113 games. He also added 16 steals, a reminder that there’s more to his game than just raw thump.
Those 31 homers were good for second among Pirates minor leaguers, even if Severino still hasn’t gotten the same attention as some of the more familiar names in the system.
Valdez is the recent template for why the Fall League matters. He arrived there after launching 26 homers between Greensboro and Double-A Altoona, then went on one of the league’s loudest power runs.
Valdez crushed eight home runs, drove in 27 and finished with a ridiculous 1.355 OPS, good enough to earn Arizona Fall League Offensive Player of the Year honors. He kept rolling from there, making his major league debut in May of 2026 and finishing his rookie year at .232/.345/.510 with 17 home runs in 72 games.
That’s the kind of payoff Pittsburgh has to notice, which is why Severino’s start in Arizona has some real intrigue behind it.
There are still plenty of reasons to keep the brakes on. Severino struck out 105 times and walked only 33 times this season, so his approach at the plate is still very much a work in progress. And Greensboro helped inflate the numbers, too - he slugged .565 at home compared to .484 on the road.
The other big difference: Valdez had already reached Double-A before his Fall League breakout, while Severino has not gotten past High-A yet. Even so, the power is real enough to matter, and the Fall League gives him another stage to show that Greensboro wasn’t the whole story.
The Pirates got Severino from the Brewers in the 2023 Carlos Santana trade, and what once looked like a modest deadline piece is starting to look a lot more interesting. Nobody should pencil him in for Pittsburgh next season, because there’s still development left to do, especially against better pitching. But after Valdez, the organization knows exactly what a Fall League surge can turn into.
Severino is trying to make that next leap hard to ignore.
In Other News...
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Bednar remains a high-end bullpen option, the kind of reliever any contender would be happy to plug into the back end, but Pittsburgh has to weigh that against a broader list of needs. The bullpen can always use help, yet the front office also has other roster areas demanding attention, and thats where the real tension sits for this winter. The Pirates may like the idea of a reunion, but whether they make a serious push could say more about their offseason priorities than about Bednar himself. [Read more 🡒]
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Pirates Still Lack The Late-Game Edge Contenders Rely On
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For a club trying to turn a modest step forward into a real jump, the relief corps remains the part of the roster that most needs sharpening. The Pirates have enough evidence now to know that better late-game run prevention is not just a luxury, and the next few moves will reveal whether they can turn a promising season into one with staying power. [Read more 🡒]