The Pirates have designated first baseman Chris McGuiness for assignment, the club announced. The move creates a 40-man roster spot for right-hander John Holdzkom, whose contract was selected last night.
McGuiness was originally acquired by the Bucs from the Rangers last December in exchange for righty Miles Mikolas. He didn’t see any action at the big league level for Pittsburgh this season and hit .264/.358/.412 with nine homers in 489 PA for Triple-A Indianapolis. Originally drafted in the 13th round of the 2009 draft by the Red Sox, McGuiness has an .801 OPS over 2438 career PA in the minors. The 26-year-old made his Major League debut in June 2013, appearing in 10 games with Texas.
McGuiness joins Mike Carp (Rangers), Bruce Chen (Royals), Rich Hill (Yankees) and Sergio Santos (Blue Jays) in DFA limbo, according to MLBTR’s DFA Tracker.
Now that the Bucs have five first basemen on the active roster, I guess it makes sense to DFA the only first baseman who can hit for any kind of average. Pedro > Ike > Gaby > Lambo > T. Sanchez? They really need to do something about that corner.
.264 at AAA is hitting for average?
It was a tongue-and-cheek comment, but I do have my doubts that none of Gaby, Ike, or Pedro could hit .264 even in AAA.
You put too much value in straight-up average. Pedro is not the top producer among those by a long shot, either. Ike and Gaby have much better OB%, fielding and are close enough on slugging because El Whiffo’s contact rate is still that bad.
I don’t actually; the comment was really more of a shot at the inability of the Pirates’ major league first baseman to hit with any kind of consistency. I’m hoping w/ Polanco up tomorrow, that Lambo gets more ABs at 1B ’til Pedro’s back.