The Pirates have designated right-handers Dugan Darnell and Michael Darrell-Hicks for assignment, the team announced Thursday. Pittsburgh also reinstated catcher/first baseman Endy Rodriguez and utilitymen Ronny Simon and Emmanuel Valdez from the 60-day injured list.
Former top infield prospect Liover Peguero, who was placed on waivers earlier in the week, went unclaimed and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Indianapolis. Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports, however, that Peguero will reject the assignment to become a free agent. Meanwhile, Alex Stumpf of MLB.com reports that Pittsburgh will select the contract of minor league righty Ryan Harbin to its 40-man roster.
Darnell’s stay in the Pirates organization lasted only a week. He was claimed off waivers from the Rockies last week. He made his MLB debut in Colorado this year, tossing 11 2/3 innings and holding opponents to five runs on seven hits but with more walks (seven) than strikeouts (five). The 28-year-old undrafted free agent sits 94 mph with his heater and posted a 3.19 ERA, 28.8% strikeout rate and 8.7% walk rate in an extremely hitter-friendly Triple-A Pacific Coast League setting this season.
Darrell-Hicks, 28 next week, is another waiver claim and former undrafted free agent. The Bucs picked him up from the Angels back in June. He pitched 9 2/3 innings between the two clubs this year but was tagged for eight runs on 10 hits and four walks with eight strikeouts. He sits just under 95 mph with his heater. Darrell-Hicks posted outstanding numbers in the upper minors in 2024 (2.60 ERA, 26.4 K%, 5.0 BB% in 62 1/3 innings) but was rocked for an ERA north of 8.00 in Triple-A this season.
Peguero was once a touted prospect whom the Pirates acquired from the D-backs in exchange for Starling Marte. He’s a former top-100 prospect who was once viewed as a possible shortstop of the future in Pittsburgh. In an all-too-common refrain for Pirates position prospects, however, his bat never came around. Peguero has seen action in four big league seasons but has mustered only a .227/.278/.368 slash line in 315 turns at the plate.
Peguero has also looked overmatched at the top minor league level. Outside of a late-2023 cameo in Triple-A where he smacked a pair of homers in 30 promising plate appearances, he’s produced well below-average numbers with the Pirates’ top affiliate in Indianapolis. He’s a .253/.317/.403 hitter in 888 plate appearances there, including a career-worst .247/.313/.375 showing in 75 games with Indy this season. Baseball America and other outlets have lauded his quality defensive tools but also noted a penchant for slipping into poor mechanical stretches that lead to far too many throwing errors.
The 24-year-old Harbin was a 17th-round pick in 2019. He was about to become a minor league free agent, but the Bucs didn’t want to lose him after he posted such gaudy strikeout numbers in the minors this season. Harbin’s 4.69 ERA isn’t much to look at, but that mark is skewed by an ugly 17 earned runs allowed in his first 13 1/3 innings of Triple-A work this season. He’d posted sharp numbers in High-A and Double-A, and even while struggling to keep runs off the board in Indianapolis, Harbin continued missing bats.
Overall, the 6’4″ Harbin fanned 32% of his opponents in the minors this year — albeit against a brutal 16% walk rate. He averaged better than 97 mph on his heater and missed bats in droves with his upper-80s slider. Harbin posted a very strong 14.1% swinging-strike rate on the season overall, including an eye-popping 17% mark in Double-A, where he fanned nearly 38% of his opponents. Now that he’s on the 40-man roster, Harbin will be in major league camp and compete for a spot in manager Don Kelly’s bullpen next spring.
Good luck to Peguero. I thought Pirates did him dirty. Don’t blame him one bit for choosing FA.
He did them dirty by not hitting and playing sus defense with the time they gave him.
The entire team didn’t hit pirates can’t develop hitting period not his fault he was a great prospect they ruined him
it seemed that most of the players at Indy hit well, until they were promoted to the parent club
Bae, Suwinski and Peguerro included
It’s mind blowing, really. How does a GM spend six years in his job and not develop one impact position player? You’d think it could have happened by accident. It’s almost unbelievable.
Roman Anthony, Franklin Arias, Luis Perales, & Kyson Witherspoon for Paul Skenes. Who says yes or no?
The Pirates organization says no, Skenes won’t be traded for a few more years
I don’t say yes or no. I don’t know if any of these guys has real MLB-level talent, enough to turn a franchise around
Skenes is a generational pitcher, but the Pirates are going nowhere with him. They have lots of quality arms (including in the minors) so why not trade for a generational bat in Anthony?
The problem with the Pirates acquiring Anthony is the fact that the Red Sox have committed more money to him than the Pirates (namely, Bob Nutting) would be comfortable spending. Skenes, on the other hand, has one more pre-arb season left and then he’ll get too expensive for the Pirates. I expect Skenes to be pitching elsewhere sometime in 2027 or 2028 if there’s a lockout.
Good point. What if the Red Sox included Abreu and took on Reynolds entire contract? The Red Sox need a power hitting middle of the order RHB and this would offset Anthony’s contract.
Including Abreu and Reynolds definitely tips the scales in the Pirates favor, but I don’t think the Red Sox want to take Reynolds and his contract.
The Pirates say no because the Red Sox have committed too much money to Anthony.
Seems like the pirates front office doesn’t have a clue on player personnel. Picking up a guy then 4 days later getting rid of them. Totsl chaos. Total dysfunction. Nutting runs the pirates like Bezos runs SCAMAZON.
The Pirates DFAed Darnell, they did not get rid of him. If another team claims him, the Pirates will have gambled and lost a low cost bet. If no one claims him, they can assign him to the minors and win the gamble. Not a move of a dysfunctional organization, but a typical gamble made by lots of franchises. Rather than knee jerk criticism of such moves, you should applaud them. Minor moves, taking chances on players who might turn it around and make a small contribution, moves that cost next to nothing.
If Nutting ran the Pirates like Bezos ran Amazon, the Pirates would have won their tenth consecutive WS, be bringing in billions of dollars and have the largest fan base. Pirate fans should be so lucky.. unfortunately, that is not the case. Note: I don’t use Amazon, haven’t for twenty years and have an incredibly low opinion of Bezos and all that he represents, however, that hasn’t stopped him or Amazon from dominating the American market and imagination.
Also these,as you say typical moves,are the only moves cherrington makes. And you want life long fans like The man3 and mendoza and myself, to applaud these decisions???
Actually Mendoza is lukewarm on it.
Moves like this definitely do not make up for his bad trades.
He only has so much money for free agent signings so Cherington has relatively little blame in that regard.
One does question why a move like this would be made and I actually feel more for the player himself in getting jerked around.
These are young men who have feelings and goals but for the most part understand what is going on as a business.
What is going on in my view is simply that these transactions are simply a way to get players into the organization at the AAA level with little thought in actually maintaining them now as MLers.
I think that if one looks at it that way it is not in itself frustrating.
What is totally frustrating though is the lack of total progress for the whole organization after six years.
That would try the patience of Job.
And true Pirates fans should feel the pain.
It is a typical move. Low risk roll of the dice. Although it is a smart move, I wouldn’t go as far as to say BC should be applauded for it, he also shouldn’t be chastised for it either. What’s the downside of doing it? It costs nothing, if he goes unclaimed and is able to contribute in any positive way it’s a win. With all the roster moves taking place right now it’d be stupid not to if they think there’s a chance there could be something there. Every GM in the MLB makes moves like this, claiming a guy off waivers with the intent of trying to pass them through in the very near future with the hope he’ll make it through and u can stash them for minor league depth. If they get claimed by another team they still lost anything in the process
Or how the majority runs this country
Skeptical….just try to return a product to Amazon. And see the run around you get. Mostly having to wait a month for a refund. And they don’t want to credit your original payment method….they want to give you store credit. So you don’t really get a refund.
So nutting runs the pirates like bezos does. By putting out a product that is the worst in baseball. He should be refunding pirate season ticket holders
Interesting u say this, bc I actually just returned something from Amazon last week. All I had to do was go to my recent purchases, select the item and hit return. Sure I had to give a reason but that’s just how it is. My refund was there the same day they received the item. In fact, it was there before ups updated the tracking information. It’s frustrating being a pirates fan and that’s an understatement and BC needs to be better, especially with development. That’s truly where everyone is on an even playing field. IMO when you complain about everything the guy does just muffles your voice when you complain about things that really are bad. To claim a guy (costs nothing) with the intent on trying to pass him through waivers in the very near future is a solid baseball move. Especially with so many roster moves happening at this time. If there’s something they like or think they just need more time, it would be stupid not to
Cora…amazon deals differently with customers. Yes you are correct about s sometimes refunds are done the same day,has happened to me. But according to their terms,if a customer goes over the refund limit. Amazon can hold back refunds or just nof give them. I have returned numerous items recently for one reason or another. Mostly for products that are either damaged or cheaply made. I had to even download my DL so that they could verify my identity.
Now people can say all they want about these moves. The problem is that these are moves that cherrington is making more and more of. By not giving more than a one year contract to free agents. By watching other teams sign people to contracts that the pirates most certainly could have matched. Sends the wrong message to free agents and mostly to long suffering pirate fans.
Actually I really don’t care what they do anymore, because its not going to change as long as nutting is the owner. Young stars like skenes and chandler will be sent packing and cherrington will never get quality back.
To me there are more things going on in this country, to worry about the pirates.
I never thought I’d say these thing about the pirates. But at 70 years old,frankly I don’t give a damn
If you are old enough to remember going downtown to Kaufmans and Gimbels. You can member going to the basement to the bargain floor. Yep you can find deals. This is how cherrington thrives on picking up other teams misfits. Yep I’m applauding such moves. I applaud these moves like I applaud the orange mist. NEVER