Pirates Sign Beau Burrows To Minor League Deal

Right-hander Beau Burrows, who opened the season pitching with los Tecos de los Dos Laredos in the Mexican League, has signed a minor league deal with the Pirates. Beisbol Puro first reported the signing, which Burrows himself has also announced on social media this morning.

Burrows, 28, was selected by the Tigers with the No. 22 overall pick out of Weatherford High School in Texas back in the 2015 draft. He ranked among the Tigers’ top prospects for several years following that draft and garnered some top-100 fanfare at MLB.com and Baseball Prospectus in the 2017-18 offseason after logging 135 frames of 3.20 ERA ball between High-A and Double-A. The 6’2″ righty punched out 24.9% of his opponents that season and limited walks at a solid 8% clip.

A second year at the Double-A level in 2018 yielded lesser results (4.10 ERA in 134 innings), but Burrows reached 26 starts and topped 130 innings for a second straight season. He seemed like a good bet to make his big league debut in 2019 — at least until the injury bug bit. Burrows missed more than two months at the beginning of that ’19 season due to biceps tendinitis and inflammation in his right shoulder. He returned in June and was back on the shelf two months later after straining an oblique muscle, which cost him another month. He pitched only 74 innings across three levels — including his Triple-A debut — and worked to a 4.84 ERA.

Burrows felt very much like a pitcher who could use a mulligan at Triple-A in a hopefully healthier 2020 season. Of course, the pandemic wiped out the entire minor league season that year, depriving him of that opportunity. Burrows pitched at the Tigers’ alternate site and wound up making his MLB debut with five relief appearances (four runs in 6 2/3 innings). He was trounced for 17 runs in just 11 big league innings the following season and struggled to an ERA north of 5.00 in Triple-A between the Tigers and the Twins (who claimed him off waivers following a midseason DFA).

In the three years since that time, Burrows has pitched between the Dodgers, Phillies and Braves organizations but never returned to the majors. His work in a tiny sample during Mexican League play this season hasn’t exactly stood out; he’s tossed 5 2/3 innings out of the bullpen and allowed six earned runs on seven hits and nine walks.

Rough as those numbers appear, Beisbol Puro notes that Burrows’ velocity and curveball have caught the attention of major league scouts. He’s typically sat around 93 mph in recent Triple-A stints but has bumped that a couple ticks in 2025 and has seen his heater climb as high as 97 mph. This would only be Burrows’ second full season as a pure reliever, and if those velo readings are accurate, it’s a jump over his 2024 stint in the Phillies’ system, when he averaged 93.3 mph even following a move to short relief.

For the Pirates, there’s little harm in betting on ostensibly improved stuff from a former first-round pick who’ll still pitch nearly the entire 2025 season at 28 years of age. (Burrows turns 29 in mid-September.) He’ll presumably head to Triple-A Indianapolis, and if he can rein in his command while maintaining the improved stuff, Burrows could pitch his way into consideration for a big league look later this summer. Pittsburgh relievers rank 20th in the majors with a 4.24 ERA this season, but that includes a combined 20 2/3 innings of excellent work from Justin Lawrence and Tim Mayza, both of whom were recently moved to the 60-day injured list.