D-backs’ Andrew Pintar Is Healthy And Hitting
For the past three years, outfielder Andrew Pintar has alternated between suffering an injury and going through rehab, a vicious cycle in which the 23-year-old has seemingly spent more time in the training room than on the baseball field.
It is what has made his start to this year at High-A Hillsboro so sweet.
Pintar is beginning to show the promise the Diamondbacks saw when they drafted him in the fifth round out of Brigham Young in 2022.
Through 42 games in the Northwest League, he hit .273/.381/.476 with seven home runs and 14 stolen bases. He has also continued last season’s transition from second base to center field.
One rival scout said he now views Pintar as belonging among Arizona’s better prospects.
Pintar’s batted-ball data corroborates his hot start. He makes contact at an above-average rate, with high exit velocities and a low chase rate.
It has been a long and frustrating road for Pintar to get to this point. In 2021, he played through a shoulder injury at BYU, putting up good numbers despite it. He had surgery at the end of the year, but “it wasn’t the right surgery,” he said.
He was 17 games into his draft year the following season when he had to shut it down and get another surgery.
“The (initial) surgery didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to, and it caused more problems,” he said. “I ended up tearing my rotator cuff, my capsule, just about everything you could think of in there has been torn.”
The injury bug wasn’t finished with him. Last year with Low-A Visalia, Pintar was playing second base when he charged in on a slow roller. Just as he took his eye off the ball to glance at the runner, the ball hit the lip of the infield and took a weird bounce. Pintar stepped directly on the ball.
“Broke my foot,” he said. “I had to get a screw put in there and was out two months.”
It is no surprise that Pintar has put an emphasis on doing everything he can to stay healthy this year. So far, so good.
