Yesterday, the Pirates called up 23-year-old utility man Max Moroff from Triple-A. Moroff was off to a hot start — he was slashing .258/.345/.546 — but to most this as a rather mundane transaction. It piqued my interest, however, because Moroff cracked the the All-KATOH team in the preseason thanks to his stellar minor league performance in spite of his lack of prospect pedigree.

Moroff spent last season at the Triple-A level, where he slashed .230/.367/.349 with a concerning 25% strikeout rate and an impressive 17% walk rate. He has something of a three true outcomes profile, which is somewhat uncommon for a middle infielder. His offensive numbers didn’t really drive KATOH’s optimism, however. Rather, it liked that he played premium defensive positions and has played them relatively well as a 22- and 23-year-old in the upper levels.

Fast forward a month into 2017, and Moroff has started to hit too. His strikeout and walk rates have both ticked in the wrong direction, but he’s added power to the mix. He belted eight homers in his first 24 games, which already ties his career high. The power has seemingly come out of nowhere, although erstwhile lead prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel did say he had “feel for the game and a little pop, but he has trouble getting to it in games” a couple of years ago.

Max Moroff suddenly looks like a 23-year-old, Triple-A shortstop with power and decent speed. As a result, my KATOH system projects Moroff for 6.6 WAR over his first six seasons by the traditional method and 4.4 WAR by KATOH+, which integrates his pessimistic prospect rank from Eric Longenhagen. Both are up a couple of ticks from the preseason. My model saw him as a no-doubt top-100 prospect over the winter, and he’s only improved his stock since.

To put some faces to Moroff’s statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps for the infielder. I calculated a weighted Mahalanobis distance between Moroff’s Triple-A performance and every Triple-A season since 1991. In the table below, you’ll find the 10 most similar seasons, ranked from most to least similar. The WAR totals refer to each player’s first six seasons in the major leagues. A lower “Mah Dist” reading indicates a closer comp.

Please note that the Mahalanobis analysis is separate from KATOH. KATOH relies on macro-level trends, rather than comps. The fates of a few statistically similar players shouldn’t be used to draw sweeping conclusions about a prospect’s future. For this reason, I recommend using a player’s KATOH forecast to assess his future potential. The comps give us some interesting names that sometimes feel spot-on, but they’re mostly just there for fun.

The scouting reports don’t share KATOH’s optimism for Moroff at all. Baseball America ranked him as the Pirates’ No. 17 prospect, citing his high strikeout rates and “fringe-average arm strength” that limits him to the right side of the infield. Eric Longenhagen placed him the “Other Prospects of Note” section of his Pirates list, ranking him just below Tyler Webb — a lefty reliever selected in the Rule 5 who was returned to the Yankees in spring training. He penned just two unencouraging sentences about the 23-year-old.

Moroff has some swing and miss from both sides of the plate and his right-handed cut is barely playable, but he’s an average runner and defender who can play multiple positions and sting right-handed pitching a little bit. He’s an up-and-down utility man for me.

It’s easy to see why a guy like Moroff would be passed over by scouts. As an undersized utility infielder without a standout tool, he’s basically the opposite of what scouts look for. And while his numbers have been decent, nothing about them jumps off the page. Yet despite his flaws, Moroff has performed at every level despite being relatively young for those levels; and he’s done so while playing up-the-middle defense. Once you’ve done that in the upper levels, KATOH tends to buy in.

It isn’t immediately clear how — or how often — the Pirates intend to work Moroff into their lineup. He’s played second, third and short in the minors this year and has dabbled in the outfield in the past, so there are multiple avenues to playing time. Regardless, I’ll be keeping my eye on him to see if his all-around solid minor league play carries over to the big leagues.