The Pirates announced they’ve selected catcher Jason Delay onto the major league roster, with reliever Duane Underwood Jr. landing on the COVID-19 injured list in a corresponding move. Pittsburgh also recalled outfield prospect Canaan Smith-Njigba and infielder Hoy Park, optioning outfielder Travis Swaggerty and reliever Aaron Fletcher to Triple-A Indianapolis.
Delay, 27, was a fourth-round senior sign out of Vanderbilt back in 2017. He has spent the past six years in the minor leagues, reaching Triple-A for the first time last season. Delay is a career .230/.302/.332 hitter in a bit more than 800 professional plate appearances. He’ll add some depth beyond the primary catching tandem of Tyler Heineman and Michael Pérez.
Smith-Njigba is also up for his first big league look. Pittsburgh added the Dallas native to their 40-man roster to keep him from being taken in the Rule 5 draft, but he’s spent the entire season thus far in Indianapolis. A former 4th-round pick of the Yankees, Smith-Njigba went to the Bucs as part of the January 2021 trade that landed Jameson Taillon in the Bronx. Baseball America has slotted him near the back of the Pirates top 30 prospects in each of the past two years, writing that his combination of bat-to-ball skills and raw power could give him a chance to carve out a role in a corner outfield rotation.
Through 218 plate appearances in Triple-A, Smith-Njigba is hitting .277/.387/.408. He’s walked in a robust 15.1% of his plate appearances against an average 23.9% strikeout rate. The left-handed hitter has only one home run with Indianapolis, but he nevertheless did enough to convince the front office he merited a major league look. He’ll take the active roster spot of Swaggerty, a former first-rounder and another notable prospect who was promoted for the first time on June 4. The South Alabama product appeared in five games, collecting a hit in nine at-bats before being sent down.
Canaan Smith-Njigba sounds like a game of thrones character
And you look like something that floats in a toilet.
Would have liked to see Swaggerty get more ABs while he was up, but i understand the move. On my wish list is a Vogelbach DFA – the novelty of having a fat slob in the middle of the lineup daily has worn off rather quickly.
Why would we DFA a guy who has a .746 OPS, has a .353 xwOBA, and is signed for 2023? I will admit he has fallen into a slump the last month, but that’s not rare when a guy is injured and comes back from injury.
Maybe he doesn’t have enough RBI and he’s not a .300 hitter.
who’s getting RBI on the Pirates?
No one cause our offense sucks. Pitching hasn’t been bad though. The starters have a 3.53 ERA since May 1st, if you discredit Bryse Wilson’s contributions. He only has pitched 3.1 innings in that time span.
@DarkSide you mindless comments are overrated. I so wish they would bring back the thumbs down for comments such as this. You always say something off the wall and not even remotely relevant.
MLB you now that is false lol. Go kick rocks
it ain’t false. I’ll show you the math if you want.
Going into today, Pirates’ starters have given up 79 earned runs in 172.1 innings:
(79×9)/172.1=4.13
However, Wilson is responsible for 13 of those earned runs and has pitched 4.1 innings since May 1st. If we do some 5th grade level math and subtract 13 ER from 79 ER and 4.1 IP from 172.1 IP, we get 66 earned runs and 168 innings:
(66×9)/168=3.53
How about you go kick rocks and learn how to do some elementary level math.
Not likely to be a .300 hitter on the team so cut everyone?
“The Thumbs Down Button” AKA “The Refuge of Angry Nameless People With Nothing To Say.”
Forwhomthejoshbelltrolled. .a nameless clueless person with nothing better to do
@MLB I wasn’t referencing the pitching. It’s been a surprise to be honest. I still think Keller is a bust. But for offense, it’s not horrible by any means. There are like 14 teams worse than the Pirates offensively. The offense still needs improvement but like what the Pirates are doing with the young guys. From Castillo to Cal Mitchell, it’s been interesting to see what these guys have. Jack has been a very interesting case this year and potentially ROY.
PFan- The offense may not be horrible but it very very bad then.
No power.
Reynolds is just now getting better.This is about the max for Hayes.
Suwinski has been a power surprise and has promise but how high we do not know.
Marcano has looked good but in a very small sample size.
Castillo and Mitchell need to go to AAA to get experience there.
Their patience with Keller could pay off.
They will call up the young players left to see how they perform.
The starting pitching lately has been pretty good.
There are several relief pitchers who need to go.
As I do not doubt that they have several minor leaguers who will need a 40 man roster spot that will eventually enable them to get rid of Banda,,Chang,Park,and others,if not then than sooner.
ML see I disagree with you on the power shortage. Not every ball needs to clear the fence. Pirates had plenty of games where there were multiple homers. Down side of it is, after the 5th inning, someone comes in and blows the lead and game. With the current offense, it’s not horrible or bad. The pitching has been decent until around the 5th inning. Look at their losses and see on the box score of those losses. Look specifically at when the Pirates had the lead and when they lost the lead. Hitting has been mediocre this year and has been slightly better than the pitching. There has been too many losses by blown pitching from the bullpen or starters struggling to get out 5 innings.
Hayes is just a defensive first third baseman. I don’t expect great offensive numbers from him and never have. Cal Mitchell has done alright but nothing close to his AAA numbers. Castillo has cooled off and I’ve been hoping he’d find his swing by now again. The guy I really want a hard look at is Mason Martin. His strikeouts are worrisome, but like to see what he can do. I am a bit disappointed Swaggerty didn’t receive more playing time than what he got before being sent back to AAA. That burns me and I don’t understand why the Pirates do that and mess up his development if they weren’t going to play him. Idiotic PR move by the Pirates there. I see Priester is starting to come back and pitch. I’d love to see him at AAA this year.
PFan-With all due respect I think that we see the Pirates from two different angles.
We will have to agree to disagree on some things,
I think that their hitting except in a few spurts has been bad.Compare the slugging % to teams in both leagues and you will see how low it is.
The starting pitching through half this season was terrible,but since has been decent.They have no depth,as few small market teams do.
The promoted minor leaguers have mixed results,but do show some promise.They should get better with time,but it has been my experience through five years on this site that in general they are quite often over rated by site posters,
The relief pitching was very good for the first two months but has been very bad recently.Some of these guys need to go but quite frankly the upper minor leagues is not burgeoning with good pitching prospects.We shall see.The Pirates probably have to live with what they have,hence the recent recall of Bryce Wilson,
Martin’s strikeouts are more than worrisome.He is striking out more than 40% of the time in AAA,and only walking 10% of the time.His call up would put him in a no win situation with well over a 50% strikeout rate which would be devastating to his career,even for a short period.
They brought Swaggerty up just to give him a taste of the big leagues which was a good idea as far as I am concerned.Some of the position players need to be sent back to AAA for further seasoning but again they just do not have enough ML players.
I agree with you on Hayes but his errors have cost them two games this year.
I do think that the Pirates have a plan and generally it is a good one.They just do not have the superstar prospects to ultimately compete at the highest levels.
Seriously?? “Fat Slob”? He’s actually one of our better threats at the plate. That ain’t saying much, but it’s reality.
Wish I picked that as my username…..fat slob….I like it
Better threats? Is there a cheeseburger on the mound? Again, the novelty has worn off. April is over. Please look at his numbers since May. I’d rather see anyone else getting ABs than him.
I agree….he should be gone by the deadline….along with more of the vets.
Happy to see Smith-Njigba. Once he makes his debut, that’ll be 3 of the 4 players from the Taillon deal who made their Pirates debut. But I am dissapointed to see Park over Cruz. I really hope Cruz is called up during this next homestand. He’s been on fire the last month-and-a-half and absolutley deserves the call to the majors. I’ve heard before that Delay is a decent fielder. Heck, if he can do well in the field and have a .500-.600 OPS, I’ll be estatic.
Cruz will be called up Friday for the homestand. But why not Ji Hwan Bae? I think he’s gonna be really good and he can fly. He’s better than Park and Castillo
I’m a Cruz fan and would love to see him soon too, but doesn’t he have like 14-15 errors on the season already?
The level of disrespect for Bae is insanity. Guys like Hoy Park and Yu Chang getting at bats is ridiculous.
Bae-Chang-Park sounds like a nice place for a picnic.
Why was there such a Delay in selecting Jason?
I was waiting for someone to make this joke. And if no one did, then I would have lol
Is he related to Jaxon Smith-Njigba if Ohio state? Jaxon is one hell of a receiver.
They’re brothers, yeah.
He is an absolute beast. Reminds me of a Mike evans type of receiver
C’mon, just get rid of Park already. He can’t hit at all, such a waste of a roster spot. I’d rather see Marcano/Castillo/any other of the outfielders play every day, no reason for him to be here.
Unpopular take, but this team is going nowhere. That’s fine, I get it. So slowly peddle all of the “veteran” deadwood you did the dumpster dive for, eat the $4m Tsutsugo mistake and just play the kids. Let them cut their teeth in the bugs. If a player is emotionally or psychologically fragile, keep him in the farm but otherwise, play the kids
In the bugs? Jeez. I’m tired. And old
The team is improving, you can see it in the pitching and some of the young guys. Marcano is up here and doing good, and the Pirates’ starers hvae like a 3.55 ERA since May 1st. You can look at my other comment about that above. Plus Suwinski is up here doing well. Not much can be done about the offense, but we definitley need to get Cruz, Bae and Martin up here. Massive improvements over what we have now, at least in terms of offense.
Tired- don’t be too tough on yourself
Hole- I think that Hoy has photos of someone..He is not even a good AAA player,and they have plenty of middle infielders.
Seems to me that they will play Delay to see if he is any worse than the other two.Losing Roberto Perez was a very big deal.
Shout out White Sox Dave for breaking this news