The Pirates have agreed to a contract with free-agent righty Jandel Gustave, Robert Murray reports (via Twitter). The agreement is still pending a physical. The Giants outrighted Gustave off the 40-man roster last weekend, but as a player who’d been previously outrighted at least once in the past — the Astros outrighted Gustave following the 2018 season — he had the right to decline the assignment in favor of free agency.
Gustave, 27, didn’t pitch in the big leagues for the Giants in 2020 but logged 24 1/3 frames with them last season. He’s tallied a total of 44 1/3 innings in the Majors between Houston and San Francisco, logging a 3.43 ERA and 3.97 FIP — albeit with a lackluster 32-to-20 K/BB ratio.
Gustave has found success due in no small part to limiting home runs in the big leagues (just three allowed). A 0.60 HR/9 mark is difficult to sustain in any environment but seems particularly tough to continue at a time when 15 percent of fly-balls are clearing the outfield fence, league-wide, for a second straight season. Gustave, by contrast, has seen just seven percent of his fly-balls in the Majors turn into home runs. To his credit, he’s also been quite adept at avoiding the long ball in the minors (0.39 HR/9), so perhaps he can continue the trend.
Last season, Gustave averaged a healthy 96.1 mph on his fastball and paired that with a well above-average spin rate. Gustave has generally posted average or better ground-ball rates in the minors and averaged a bit shy of a strikeout per inning. Details of his arrangement with Pittsburgh aren’t clear yet, and the club hasn’t formally announced the move. Given that Gustave went unclaimed on waivers a week ago, it seems likely to be a minor league pact that adds him to the 60-man player pool and sends him to the Pirates’ alternate training site.
Welcome back, to the majors inspector Gustave
This will surely turn the Buccos’ season around.
A full 360 degrees.
Shame this is a short season because I think this Pirates team has the potential to be the worst of all time.
In all seriousness though, these are the types of players they should be looking at.
Record notwithstanding, this isn’t even one of the top ten worst Pirate teams in the past 25 years.
They trot out some impressive piles of garbage.
Mike Benjamin, Pat Meares, JR House, Chad Hermensen, Brian Bohringer, Derek Bell, John Jaso, Argenis Diaz, Tike Redmond, Bobby Hill, Brad Eldred, …..just threw up.
Of that list, yes, those were just a few of the many bums they have fielded over the years. But I would elevate Brian Boehringer a little higher than ‘bum’ status. They kind of stumbled upon him accidentally, and he had some decent games in relief. He was pretty useful compared to the rest of their bullpen during those years, especially his first year with the Bucs. I always wanted them to let him go back to starting, but he never got the chance. He had been a decent starter for the Padres earlier in his career.
Mike Benjamin had awesome sideburns.
The Giants bullpen is a steaming pile. I wonder why they didn’t give Gustave a shot before outrighting him. Maybe they didn’t realize the guys they have would be overexposed as they quickly as they have been.
His numbers look good, except for k rate. Nice spin rate and velocity, keeps the ball in the park, nice ground rate. Strikeouts are overrated. I hope he goes on to a long successful career outperforming the guessing stats.
Yeah, Gustave’s numbers look okay enough for the Pirates. A strikeout an inning isn’t bad, actually. As long as he is keeping the ball in the park he’ll do fine with them.
I like Tyler Bashlor’s numbers too, with the exception of just that, he has trouble keeping the ball in the yard. If they can get that part of his game straightened out, Bashlor can be of use too.
I also think Nick Tropeano has some potential. He could start or relieve. I see him as another Chris Stratton type basically.
Stratton has been one of the few bright spots in their bullpen this season, which hurts his chances of ever getting any starts, but if they keep going down health-wise the way they have so far (Archer, Keller, Musgrove), he may be forced into the rotation at some point.
Got lit up last game and is now at 6.30, I wouldn’t call that bright.
Stratton pitched reasonably well last year and in his first several appearances this year.
His last game was bad and that inflated his ERA,which is only a so so indicator for even a long reliever.
The data bank is not exactly huge this year and at this point cannot be accurately used for him.