A former Clemson quarterback commitment – now the top pitching prospect in all of baseball – is headed to the big leagues.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are calling up Bubba Chandler, according to multiple reports.
His contract is expected to officially be selected by the Pirates on Friday before their game against the Colorado Rockies at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.
The flamethrowing righthander is ranked as the No. 1 pitching prospect and the No. 7 overall prospect in baseball, per MLB.com.
Though the Pirates see Chandler as a future starter, he will reportedly be used out of the bullpen at first, as a bulk reliever, in order to get his feet wet at the major league level and gain big league experience. He will still have the opportunity to get starts this year.
A former two-sport star at North Oconee High School (Bogart, Ga.), Chandler committed to Clemson as a quarterback in May 2020 before being selected by the Pirates in the third round of the 2021 MLB Draft (No. 72 overall pick).
Rather than play football and baseball at Clemson, Chandler decided to pursue a future in professional baseball, and he ended up signing a big-money deal with the Pirates. After he was drafted, Pittsburgh signed him to a $3 million contract, more than triple the slot value for his third-round selection.
Chandler, who will turn 23 next month, has since blossomed into baseball’s best pitching prospect. In 89 career minor league games (83 starts) across four seasons (2022-25), he has a 26-18 record with a 3.73 ERA and 1.29 WHIP. He has allowed only 308 hits in 372 innings pitched while striking out a whopping 457 batters. For his minor league career, opponents have batted just .224 against him. He owns a 4.05 ERA with 121 strikeouts across 100 innings in Triple-A this season.
You can read Chandler’s MLB Pipeline (MLB.com) prospect bio below:
When the Pirates went over slot to sign Chandler in the third round of the 2021 Draft, they were banking on the athleticism that made him both a two-way player on the diamond and a two-sport standout who could have played football at Clemson. After hitting and pitching for a season, Chandler put the bat away for good and has developed into one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, reaching Triple-A in 2024 and serving notice that he’s ready to contribute to a big league rotation.
Chandler has rapidly evolved from an athlete and thrower to a complete pitcher with a real idea of how to use all four of his pitches effectively. It still starts with his elite-level fastball that averaged 96.7 mph and touched 99 in 2024, according to Synergy. It has impressive vertical break, his command of the pitch has improved and he holds the premium velocity deep into starts. The Pirates challenged Chandler to focus on the development of his secondary offerings, and he responded with a much-improved 86-87 mph slider and upper-80s changeup while still dropping in the occasional low-80s curve.
The athletic right-hander showed that he’s learned not to lean solely on his heater by throwing slider-changeup-slider to start out the first batter he faced in Triple-A. His strike-throwing continues to improve, and he has the chance to eventually have three plus pitches he can land in the zone. Honing his craft while working out with Paul Skenes, Jared Jones and fellow prospect Thomas Harrington will only help him reach his considerable ceiling.
