The Pirates have outrighted Peter Solomon, Beau Sulser, Jason Delay, Blake Cederlind, Eric Stout and Zack Collins off their 40-man roster, per a team announcement. Both Stout and Collins have elected free agency. The made the moves after reinstating Canaan Smith-Njigba, Colin Holderman, Yerry De Los Santos, Cederlind and Max Kranick off the 60-day IL.
Solomon, 26, was claimed off waivers from the Astros in September. He never made it to the majors in Pittsburgh, staying at Triple-A for his brief stint with the Bucs. Across both team’s Triple-A affiliates he threw 109 2/3 innings of 5.58 ERA ball, striking out eight batters per nine innings and walking 4.4. He did make it to the majors in 2021 for the Astros, throwing 14 innings of 1.29 ERA ball, although that was held together by an 88.9% LOB rate.
Sulser was a tenth round draft pick in 2017, and made it to the majors for the first time in 2022. He had a 3.72 ERA across 9 2/3 innings in Pittsburgh, before the Orioles claimed him off waivers in May. There, he spent much of the year in the minors but threw 12 2/3 innings of 3.55 ERA ball in the bigs. Altogether, Sulser would strike out 19.1% of major league batters and walk 9.1% in 2022.
The Pirates used no fewer than eight catchers in 2022, and despite Delay spending the first few months of the season at Triple-A, he wound up as their starter by season’s end and his 57 games at catcher were the most on the team. Across those appearances, he hit just .213/.265/.271 with one home run. The bat was never Delay’s strength, and he does grade out well defensively behind the plate.
Cederlind came through the Pirates system as a strong relief pitcher, but injuries have derailed his career in recently. After making his major league debut in 2020 and tossing four innings out of Pittsburgh’s bullpen he underwent Tommy John surgery in early 2021. That is never a quick recovery, but Cederlind had to undergo a second surgery this year to remove loose bodies from his elbow, and as such never pitched in either 2021 or 2022.
Pittsburgh purchased Stout from the Cubs midway through the 2022 campaign, and wound up throwing 18 2/3 innings out of their bullpen. His 5.79 ERA doesn’t show much promise, and Stout will need to find a way to limit the walks, after he gave up 15 free passes this season in Pittsburgh.
The sixth man to be outrighted was Collins, a former top-100 prospect out of the White Sox system. It never worked out for the catcher in Chicago, and the White Sox shipped him to the Blue Jays for Reese McGuire at the start of the season. He struggled there, hitting .194/.266/.417 with four home runs across 79 plate appearances. The Pirates claimed him off waivers in September, but he picked up just a solitary hit across 29 plate appearances.
After these moves, and Pittsburgh’s earlier acquisition of first baseman Ji-Man Choi from the Rays, their 40-man roster is full.
Never heard of any of them. In fact, so far I’ve never heard of any team’s outrighted players mentioned on mlbtr.
So you just outed your self as a passive bandwagon Baseball fan. But that’s okay, no one has ever heard of you, and at least they accomplished making it to a big league roster at some point in their career.
Hey Avenger65 was the 6th best Avengers movie
So you are clearly not much of a baseball fan. Why do you think anyone cares if you have heard of these players?
Delay was in a substantial number of games as their catcher last season, a real Pirates fan would know this
All you need to know is they were the first ones taken off of the pirates 40 man roster. That’s like being voted the fattest pig at the Jenny Craig convention.
Never heard of Cederline? The rest of them played for the Pirates in 2022. Maybe you should follow the Dodgers
The Pirates are shrinking their roster without Delay.
It’s definitely not as Stout as it used to be.
I like Delay and Cedarlind.
The Pirates will hope to keep both as minor league reinforcements as necessary.
I read somewhere that Cedarlind has not pitched in 2 1/2 years so they are not afraid that he will be picked up in the Rule 5 draft.
Delay is a good AAAA player at this point but falls short as a ML hitter and probably always will.
He’s been hurt and has had TJ
These guys were all on my for sure and possible lists for outrighting.
I think that Beasley,Underwood,and Park will be next up for trade or outright.
Just saw that they acquired Choi from the Rays to play 1st. Don’t know what to make of that
…I mean, the limited tomes I’ve seen him tell me he’s an upgrade over having virtually nothing at 1st, but I didn’t see enough Rays games to comment on his hitting and defense. 11 homers last year
Collins was a prospect with the white sox. I thought he might do well. Not much yet.
Offense first catcher and a defense first dh.
And still they are at 40 without counting any of the guys they want to protect from Rule 5.. You should see as many as 10 more players coming off their 40 man roster through trades or DFA’s in the coming week or so. They should be trying to get down to 36 or 37 before considering their Rule 5 roster additions that they want to protect from the Rule 5 draft, Allow room to make a rule 5 pick (or 2), free agent signings, and even picking up a DFA from another team trying to get to 40. Rule 5 = The Pirates have 3 locks to be protected—Endy Rodriguez, Malcolm Nunez, Mike Burrows. They have 2 more should be’s—Jared Triolo, Matt Gorski (Defense, Speed, Hitting). Two A-Ball considerations that are potential impact bats in Dariel Lopez and Rodolfo Nolasco. These two would be the toughest calls. After that, you have Blake Sabol, Abrahan Gutierrez, Connor Scott, Matt Frasier, and 3 pitchers—Cody Bolton, Tahnaj Thomas, and JC Flowers.