The Pirates have acquired righty Chris Stratton from the Angels for cash considerations, per a team release. The 28-year-old was designated for assignment by Los Angeles earlier this week.
Stratton, 28, was acquired earlier in the season from San Francisco for lefty Williams Jerez. The former first-rounder fought through five and a half difficult minor league seasons before cracking the Giant rotation in mid-2017, where he opened eyes with a super-high spin rate on his hammer curve. The fastball, though, has always been a bit light, and the righty’s long struggled to miss bats and command the zone. In five starts with LA this season, Stratton posted a dreadful 142 FIP-/127 xFIP- with six homers allowed in 29 1/3 IP.
Still, he’ll likely get a crack at a decimated Pittsburgh rotation, which’s already lost righties Chris Archer and Jameson Taillon to the IL. Nick Kingham and Steven Brault had attempted to fill the temporary void, to middling-to-disastrous results thus far. Top prospect Mitch Keller, it seems, is not quite ready to make the jump.
Will he start or be a bullpen piece?
Could be either, to be honest. They need reinforcements all over because of injury and being forced to start 2 guys on pitch limits back to back last week.
and the congregation says “amen!”
Now he can go be terrible for another team.
Well, the Pirate pitching staff needed some warm bodies, and that’s what they got…
see if it sticks to the wall…
bring up Brubaker!
He’s hurt!
Amazing fans have not figured out that Brubaker on the IL himself…….we have been posting that every time someone says he should be brought up…..
Which’s? Never seen it apostrophized.
Way to be on top of that! Good Job!
Smh ………………..d.u.m.b.o
Perhaps the pitching brain trust of the Pirates can turn Stratton around..
Nice to see the all Giants’ prospects from the Evans era all in one place…..
Stratton was a decent enough starter last season in SF. His minor league numbers werent bad either before that.
I haven’t any knowledge of why he went so terrible in 2019, but its a dramatic change…Is he hurt or something?
One oddity I notice in his splits this season is that almost all of his problems have come while pitching in his new home park in Anaheim.. All 6 of his home runs given up, and most of the other extra-base hits all came at home. While on the road he hasn’t been hit much at all. An incredible swing of difference in his numbers there.
My guess is that Huntington and staff have identified the problem and they think they can correct it, and they plan to use him as a starter which he has always been.
With Taillon & Archer on the DL, they can use the help if Stratton can get back to pitching good like he did in San Francisco. Maybe it really is just the ballpark in anaheim that screwed him up.
I see he threw a complete game shutout last season in SF, so he isn’t far removed from being a pretty decent pitcher.
sooo glad to bid adieu to this guy.
How many of those Anaheim homers are outs at PNC?
Jesus chri$t when we said we wanted the Giants ace we were talking about Madbum, not Stratton.
And the butt pirates pick up more Giants discarded trash lol