The Pirates have designated right-hander Heath Hembree for assignment, per a team announcement. The move clears a spot on the 40-man and active rosters for veteran righty Jerad Eickhoff, whose contract has been formally selected from Triple-A Indianapolis (as was originally reported yesterday).
Signed to a one-year, $2.125MM contract as a free agent back in mid-March, Hembree came to the Bucs as a potential late-inning arm with ample experience as a big league setup man. From 2015-19, Hembree racked up 238 innings of 3.59 ERA ball and notched 44 holds (plus two saves) as a stalwart option in the Red Sox’ late-inning relief corps. He became increasingly homer-prone in 2020-21, however, leading to an unsightly 6.43 ERA over those two seasons combined.
That number didn’t deter the Pirates from taking a low-cost look at a pitcher whose strikeout rate soared to a career-high 34.4% during the 2021 season. The uptick in strikeouts was accompanied by a 95.5 mph average fastball — a significant jump from his 2019-20 levels and the highest mark he’d posted since a career-best 95.7 mph average back in 2017. Hembree also boasted high-end spin rate on his fastball and above-average spin on his breaking ball, all of which surely combined to pique Pittsburgh’s interest.
Things simply haven’t panned out with the Bucs, however, as the 33-year-old has logged an ugly 7.16 ERA with more walks (14) than strikeouts (12) over the life of 16 1/3 innings. Hembree’s average fastball velocity has dipped back down to 94.2 mph, and he’s allowed runs in eight of his 20 appearances with the team. Along the way, he missed two weeks with a calf strain, and since returning, he’s walked five batters in three innings.
The Pirates will have a week to trade Hembree, pass him through outright waivers or release him. It’s unlikely that a team claims him, however, given the $1.23MM that’s still remaining on his contract. Even if Hembree clears outright waivers, he has enough service time to reject an outright assignment while still retaining the remainder of that salary owed to him. At that point, he could become a free agent and sign with any team. A new team would only be responsible for paying him the prorated portion of the league minimum, with the rest of his salary still coming out of the Pirates’ pockets.
Great to see them making the correct decisions. Now on to Yoshi, Chang and Van Meter.
VanMeter and Yoshi are on the IL, but they should be DFAd when they return. I imagine Chang is DFAd once Marcano is healthy.
I think the Pirates should sign Workman and then trade both him and Hembree to the Red Sox for Pivetta and Seabold.
Oh wait a minute … the Red Sox aren’t the Phillies.
What a magical deal that was Fever.. Fixed Pivetta’s issues and have control of him for 4y and thru 1st 1 and a half, looks like will be golden steal. Still don’t know what they got out of Seabold yet.
was nice seeing Workman have the 1 superb season, but it was a fluke it looked like and tho loved Hembree early on.. Once the velo ceased being 97 it seemed his issues with both RH and LH was magnified and his issues vs lefties was always there
Dombrowski, even with the Sox was to careless with throwing away to much for veterans, often coming back to bite him. this is just another case.
Just a minor correction here: That was not Dombrowski who came to the Phillies the following year.
Also Nick Pivetta was horrendous for the Phillies for years and given every opportunity. Happy to see it work out for the Sox, but he had to get out of Philly. It was a good trade on paper. Phillies didn’t expect much from Hembree and Workman, but they needed a save or two in the bullpen. Unfortunately, they got even less than they expected and missed the playoffs by one game. Pivetta was a detriment to the Phillies on the field and in the clubhouse. He needed to go. Hope he works out in Boston.
Sorry John.Nick was traded in August 2020 by the immortal regime of Matt Klentak.DD did not take over the Phillies until December 2020.
Agree on all three. I think Chang is only sticking around because he bats righty though. It’s something the Pirates seem to lack at the moment (all the young outfielders are lefty hitters). Let’s just hope that’s not a reason they keep a guy like Chang.
Yoshi’s job can be filled by any of Madris, Gamel, or even Vogelbach.
Can’t see why Van Meter is a better option than Hoy Park at this point…time to cut him loose unless you really need an extra catcher for when your starter gets hurt and your backup gets ejected…
And Heyward. Oops, wait, that’s the Cubs. Hard to tell them apart now that they are so bad.
is he is still as fat as he was when he was with the red sox? fat tub of nothing but excuses for being a terrible pitcher, 1 of the worst mistakes boston ever made
Jeez, simmer down there Amanda.
Acting like they gave up Babe Ruth a second time for him, jeez.
If you look in the mirror Amanda, if you’re honest with yourself, you won’t like what you see. What a disgusting comment. Besides the obvious, you’re wrong as he was decent to good for a time period
I’m gonna take you by surprise and make you realize Amanda….that your post was over the top
dave – Probably not many would get that … but I did! LOL!
Well done Dave, well done.
Wow, you channeled Boston. I’m in awe. Thanks
Makes sense Amanda would be a Boston fan
If Amanda really was a Red Sox fan, she would know that Hembree helped the Red Sox win the World Series in 2018 in the regular season and the post season.
I got it too. I love Led Zeppelin. /s
being a terrible pitcher, 1 of the worst mistakes boston ever made
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Are you talking about Hembree? If you are, then you need to back off the pipe. Hembree was 15-5 with a 123 ERA+ with the RS.
Every Roster has 2 or 3 players who just hang on. This guy still has something in the tank, look at his stats, Good Luck!
Are you looking at the same guy? Because I see a horrible walk rate, horrible HR rate, horrible ERA.
It’s about time.
Back to the Giants where he started his career.
Pirates told hembree to eickoff
They gave him the Heath-ho.
Very nice! Both of you!
FOREVER GIANT
Wasn’t anything wrong with signing Hembree and giving him a shot, it just didn’t work out. And thankfully they’re recognizing this. The bullpen overall hasn’t been terrible at all, but Hembree sure has.
I hate to say this but he was worse than Rhys Hoskins ever was in a Phillies uniform
75% of the current Phillies are worse than Hoskins ever was in a Phillies uniform.
One of several veterans who needed to be DFAd. Chang, Yoshi, Stratton, and Van Meter should be next. Trade Vogelbach to open up some ABs for Madris, Mitchell, etc. Let the kids play. I’d keep Gamel though, could be good trade bait or even just a good veteran presence in the clubhouse. (This wouldn’t really come at anyone’s expense either if you used him more as a role player and you trade Vogelbach, plus Gamel and Madris can both play 1B).
This also is good since it means the team can give De Los Santos a chance in setup relief. He’s not on as many radars as Cruz, etc…or, for that matter, the pitching prospects in general (who are all still a year or two away from their first call-up…think Priester, etc). Still, I think he’s going to develop into a nice reliever for the team.
De Los Santos so far absolutely looks like a keeper, I agree. The kid throws heat and isn’t afraid to throw it either.
Good. Signing made sense in theory, buying up hard throwing bullpen arms to see if they work. You can’t let these guys go out there and keep costing you games though, glad they cut bait now.
Only thing I’d do differently next time if I were GM is sign guys like Hembree to minor league deals. It worked with a guy like Jason Grilli in their last good run but if you get another Hembree, you can cut him for less cost if he’s not showing anything in the spring (and likely for less even if he does at first since you can structure the deal differently).
Acura-You will need to give a ml deal to anyone of real value.I am not against minor league deals but they are crapshoots.In Hembree’s case they probably had to do that to get him.
The most promise I’ve seen coming from the Pirates since Cutch, Walker, Marte et al, were youngsters. That said, it’s time to get rid of all the deadwood now. Let the kids play, whether they lose or not. I see some are listing names that can be DFA’d immediately. Fine. But get some value in trades for the others.
Only wish they had a number of kids ready to pitch at this level. Seems that will take some time
Tired-I think that even the pitching is adequate now,but it is not deep enough to withstand the inevitable injuries.
I think its time to trade Reynolds for some quality young pitching. Its a small sample size so far, but this team has Suwinski, Mitchell and Madris for the outfield currently. Long term Cruz becomes the Right Fielder because Peguro is a better SS. Get Gamel back from the IL as a decent veteran presence. Marcano has shown he can play the outfield and Swaggerty is coming, Bae can play outfield and Smith-Njigba will be back. Reynolds is possibly a better outfielder than all of those players, but he’s playing a position with an incredible amount of depth and most likely could bring some pitching that this team could use a bit more of. Maybe I’m just too optimistic, but I think this team has a chance to be a contender a bit sooner than expected.
Sooner than later? And you want them to ship out Reynolds? Do you realize that there’s a bunch of younger arms on the way. Reynolds is part of the future. I doubt that none of these young outfielders will ever become another Bryan Reynolds.
I’d disagree on trading Reynolds. He has a track record in MLB (discount two years ago) and is a guy you can build around as both a team leader and center fielder. Madris could very well move to 1B, as he can play there, and seems a better hitter than Mason Martin (maybe less raw power, but Martin is going to be another Pedro/Brad Eldred/Mark Johnson). Reynolds is sort of the veteran on this team…Gamel is less useful but is a good 4th outfielder to have around and an even older veteran presence who would benefit the youngsters. Suwinski and Mitchell seem to be coming around but the jury is still out on the others, plus the Bucs don’t seem too high on Swaggerty if he got demoted after just 9 ABs.
Tough to say what happens with Cruz, Peguero, and Nick Gonzales, who is injured again. You also have Kevin Newman for the time being (non-tender, trade?) and Bae. I’d say one or two out of Peguero, Bae, and Gonzales will probably make it. Maybe use another as part of a trade for pitching? Newman would honestly be a good utility man to have around, better than Van Meter, though I think he wants to start and Hoy Park has a slightly better bat…
When Cutch, Walker, Marte, and the others came up, they went out and got veteran pitching to go with a few pieces they already had (Morton, Karstens, etc) since they only had Cole knocking on the door when they were in contention (and he came up in the first of the three years). They should absolutely find another Burnett, Liriano, and, for that matter, Russell Martin. Granted, both Burnett and Liriano seemed almost done and turned things around, but it’s not entirely impossible to get some pieces like this. Budget is always a constraint, but you often can buy low on, say, a guy coming off Tommy John.
Acura- NH came up with a number of players that way.It remains to Be seen with BC,but Anderson and Quintana were both good short term pitching additions.
I think that they need another Russell Martin but R Perez and Stallings would form a good acceptable tandem.
They need to graduate out now from having max AAA players fill catching and pitching holes.
Their goal this year should be 71 wins as their pro rated 2020 wins were 51 and last year they had 61.The goal next year is a winning season.These increases would give hope to Pirate fans that they are not in a do loop cycle like several teams that have been in one longer than the Pirates.
He’d be a great depth signing for a team like Miami. Package him with Reynolds in a deal for one of the Marlins’ starters.
Will anyone be surprised if Bloom signs him?
At this point, Bloom could sign me and it would somehow work out.
Joe-I presume that you are referring to a front office job and I do not doubt that you would come highly recommended by MLB Rumors posters.Count me in on that one.
Not sure,though,that you could still hit a 90 mph fastball or make it to first base in less than a minute.Then again I could be wrong.
Nice of the pirates to call Eickhoff up so the Cubs can win their weekly game.
After watching him pitch last night, I have no clue as to why…in the middle of all of this euphoria for the future…you not only call him up, but start him, as well
It’s instances like this that tell me that even with such promising youth in their system, there are still elements of Pirates brass that are capable of screwing it up
Tired- They were stuck.They could not bring Wilson back up as he had a similar game last time when they did.When Thompson went down they started scratching.Such is the way with a small market team with no depth.I think that they need to start DeJong for four innings then go to their bullpen.They are only getting five innings from these guys anyways.
Yep, exactly my thoughts. This is what starting pitching has become for a great majority of teams. Why not?