The Pirates are designating reliever Chase Shugart for assignment, reports Jason Mackey of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. They needed to create a 40-man roster spot for Ryan O’Hearn, whose two-year free agent contract was finalized this afternoon.
Pittsburgh acquired the 29-year-old Shugart in a minor trade with the Red Sox last offseason. The Texas product had only six games of MLB experience at the time. He made it into 35 contests in his first and potentially only season as a Pirate. Shugart managed a solid 3.40 earned run average across 45 innings. That came with well below-average strikeout (17.1%) and ground-ball (33.3%) marks, and the majority of his outings came in low-leverage situations.
The Bucs kept Shugart on the active roster for most of the season’s first half. He went on the injured list with left knee inflammation shortly before the All-Star Break. That cost him more than a month, and the team optioned him to Triple-A shortly after he returned. He only made three MLB appearances in the second half.
Shugart sits in the 94-95 MPH range with his four-seam fastball and sinker. He has a pair of breaking pitches, a low-80s sweeper and a cutter that sits around 90 MPH. It hasn’t led to many whiffs against big league hitters, but he has posted slightly better than average strikeout numbers in the minors. He also has better control than most up-and-down relievers.
There’s a decent chance he’ll get him some attention on the waiver wire. Shugart has one year of big league service time and has one minor league option remaining. The Pirates will trade him or put him on waivers within the next five days.
Smack smack sugar smack!
Spin, spin Shugart
Astros claim him!
I would love the Red Sox to claim him.Some were mad he left the first time.Most teams want velocity and swing and miss.Why guys like Hicks still has a job.
Claim him and dfa him. Not someone you want on 40 man.
seriously!? come on man, Shugart is legit. why in the absolute hell is Jack Suwinski still alive!? Shugart will be claimed in no time
are you kidding me? I don’t know how Yohan Ramírez is still in.
Strikeout numbers. And he pitched long relief when the staff was struggling.
I can’t remember one appearance of Yohan when he didn’t give up at least one run
Yohan gave up zero runs in 14 out of 24 appearances…
which questions why his era was 5.40
doesn’t sound like a pitcher that doesn’t give up runs
Shugart has done nothing. Ramirez has stuff. Suwinski hit 20 some hrs as a platoon one season. You keep high ceiling potential or high floor over nothing.
Looking at Shugart’s stats, did he get lucky last season with a BAbip of .214?
He wasn’t good or even average last season so I wouldn’t call him lucky. But his era was lucky to be what it was and babip is one of the factors.
All-Yamamoto was lucky last year too as his batting average of balls in play was 244.
I doubt that it had anything to do with his being a fine pitcher.
There’s a humongus difference between a reliever with a .214 BABIP and a starter with a .244 BABIP, especially when one has the numbers to back it up vs one who doesn’t. Yamamoto has a low BABIP because he struck out nearly 30% of batters, with 5.7% barrel rate. Less batted balls and less quality contact means less non-homer batted balls turning into hits. Shugart struck out less than 20% of batters with a 9.1% barrel rate.
Shugart had a low Babip because he pitched very well for the Pirates.
Keep him until he doesn’t pitch well.
You can analyze it all you want,but he had success at the highest level,while others on that roster did not even have it over several years at much lower levels.
He may not turn out to be a good ML reliever,but unfortunately for the Pirates if he does pitch well he will not be pitching for the Pirates.
Shugart had a low BABIP because he got lucky in a relatively small sample size. It happens. A 3.40 ERA for a low leverage reliever is not ‘pitched very well.’
Shugart had an okay 45 innings where he didn’t strikeout many batters, had a below-average walk rate, and HR/9, nor was he elite at limiting hard contact. He also was usually used in low-leverage situations. That’s a pretty low bar that one of Chris Devinski, Ryan Harbin, or Brandan Bidois to meet or surpass.
Do you really think that Ryan Harbin is a viable big league pitcher?
This is just another in a long line of stupid moves by Cherington.
The same things were said about Hunter Stratton and he went to the Braves who know something about pitching and again pitched very well.
Guys like this may not have the ceiling of others but their floor is much higher.There are three or four pitchers who should or could have gone before Shugart.
And who is to say that a position player could not have been put on waivers.
They are losing good depth just like Cherington has continually done recently.
I was hoping that he had changed but he evidently has not.
Do I think he can be just as viable as Chase Shugart? Yes, I do. Chase Shugart had the second lowest pitching leverage of any Pirates pitcher with at least 30 IP in 2025, and he still only had a 3.40 ERA, so even while regularly pitching in low-leverage, he was only decent, not great, and it’s not like there’s much to suggest there’s nothing more than an okay middle relief arm at best. 17.1% K%, 9.4% walk rate, 9.1% barrel rate, 102 Stuff+ (average Stuff+ for a reliever in 2025 is 103).
Also, let’s not act like Hunter Stratton became some star with the Braves after they let him go. Sure, he pitched well for them, but in less than 20 IP. He only tossed 16.1 innings for Atlanta in MLB this year, which is way too small of a sample size to come to any sort of definitive conclusion. The Braves even optioned him back to Triple-A on September 2nd, when they were well out of any chance of making the playoffs, and ranked 20th in reliever ERA and FIP at the time of optioning him.
Now personally, I would have DFA’d Enmanuel Valdez instead. Overall, Valdez really doesn’t have a chance of making the roster next year, especially with his injury. But acting like DFA’ing Chase Shugart was some huge miss-step is hyperbole.
Not really.
Players can actually perform well without having gaudy personal numbers.
The pitchers with higher ceilings on the Pirates also have much lower floors.
When has someone named Ryan Harbin actually performed well?
The proof is in the pudding- how well have pitchers actually done?
Shugart is no Mariano,never will be,but he is good solid depth until he proves otherwise,just like Stratton.
The Pirates bullpen needs to get better for them to not need good depth.
They have other young pitchers who have not performed well in the minor leagues that no other team would want.
And,yes,Valdez should have been gone because he has no place on the team with O’hearn there.
Why do we know that and Cherington does not?
The ceiling on Shugart isn’t just low, it’s extremely low. Sure, pitchers can overperform their underlying numbers, but that is the exception, not the norm, especially with relievers, and pitchers who don’t have any particular strength, like Shugart. He doesn’t have good control, he isn’t good at limiting hard contact, he doesn’t get strikeouts, he doesn’t get many K’s, and he doesn’t have good stuff.
But the other point is that a mid-3’s ERA from a low-leverage middle inning reliever is not very valuable. He may be okay depth, but again, this is not hard to find. Shugart himself is proof it’s not hard to find. Aside from Harbin, what about Bidois, who does have good stuff, got a lot of K’s in the minor leagues, and ended the year scorching hot?
Stratton also hasn’t ‘proved otherwise’ after 16.1 innings where he was optioned to Triple-A on a sub-.500 team before the end of the year.
Ultimatley, if we’re arguing about Valdez vs Shugart, it comes down to the last man on the bench vs the last man in the bullpen. Prior to the Pirates DFA’ing Shugart, he was likely behind Santana, Mlodzinski, Soto, Montgomery, Mattson, Sisk, Lawrence, and Nicolas on the bullpen depth chart.
Sure, while I’d rather have seen Valdez cut over Shugart, either going is no big deal. To me, it’s not a ‘we know more than Ben Cherington’ it’s a ‘Ben Cherington cut a mediocer reliever over the mediocer bench bat.’
The ceiling is so extremely low that a 214 Babip has to be very lucky.But it is what it is.Recent short term MLB results are still MLB results.
Bidois is an awful comparison as he was lights out last year on several levels.You can do better than that example.
ERA for a mid level middle innings relief pitcher is not extremely valuable unless he has a fairly extended record in MLB.
Extended records over time are much more valuable.
That goes for minor league results also.
Shugart was not likely behind those pitchers that you mentioned,he was without a doubt behind them.But he still has options.
I get that Shugart is a mediocre reliever on a team with good pitchers.But my point is that,like Stratton,he is good depth.Stratton,by the way,has a 3.00 ERA over three years if you throw out the 2025 results for the Pirates when he came back from a very serious injury fairly quickly.
Do you think that the Braves were getting extended looks at some of their young pitchers when they sent Stratton down during a lost season?Could that have been the reas9n for his demotion?
I think that it is a big deal because of the likely extended loss of any pitcher due to arm problems.
It is a good sign that they can cut ties with such pitchers.It is a bad sign when you have a GM who cannot always well evaluate his players based solely on statistics rather than results.
But still, good depth is not hard to find, especially for back of the bullpen relievers. Shugart is a testament of how easy it is to find solid innings from depth relievers. I, nor probably all 30 teams, really don’t care about ERA and results for middle relievers who are almost exclusively used in low leverage and threw less than 50 innings. To me, Shugart could have had a 5.40 ERA instead of a 3.40 ERA and my opinion of him would hvae remained the same. He is an easily interchangable reliever, and if push comes to shove, the difference between him and someone like Valdez is pretty much negligible.
If good depth was relatively easy to find every team would have at least a decent bullpen.
I meant to say good depth has been easy for the Pirates to find, which it has been.
Right,that is why they have had a good team for the last six years.
Josh Van Meter was depth.
Osvaldo Bido was depth.
Justin Bruihl was depth.
I look at results.Whip of 0.96 his last 15 games.
It was 1.15 for the year.
You look at statistics that may or may not mean anything and say that he was lucky based on them and that it was a small sample.45 innings for a middle relief pitcher is not that small of a sample.If he actually had only three bad games out of 35 the results are much more than luck.
Long time Pirates fans are tired of the stupid decisions that Cherington makes.
So bring back Bido or Bruihl when Ramirez and Sisk flop and see how that depth,of lack thereof,works when they actually have a decent team.
But go to your special stats and tell me again that he is the lowest level pitcher that can be easily replaced.
And tell me that all of the minor leaguers that they brought up to protect them from the Rule 5 draft are better than him and that they would last on a ML roster for the whole year.
Go ahead and do it and I will refute that with actual facts and not statistics.
I figured Suwinski or Enmanuel Valdez..
One used to hit one hit last year. Not guys you dfa over a very common pitcher. Dozens of better pitchers have been and will be dfa this season.
Someone will pick him up but even though his bottom line results were fine, they seem more interested in guys with better k/bb ratios as they can show more about true talent.
Shugart is an okay low-leverage option, but nothing more than that.
Only result that was fine was his fake era
I doubt he’ll even get to the waiver wire. They’ll probably work a trade, no?
The Pirates decided to go, “Shugart” free…
Would take a really stupid gm to trade for him imo. Could be claimed.
lol why would it take a really stupid GM? If an interested team is low in waiver priority, it makes sense. He is solid shuttle depth to add for the middle innings.
You don’t trade for shuttle depth
You 100% do if it’s better than what you have
No because someone else will be dfa eventually or trade for someone better. Only a stupid gm would give up value for Shugart.
And only a stupid GM would not pick him up on waivers for nothing.
Cherington has made it very easy to lose at worst a decent reliever with options while keeping at least three minor league pitchers who no one would have picked up in the Rule 5 draft because they never would have lasted a full year on any ML roster.
Keep him for at least another year to have at least a longer track record.
Cherington shoots himself in the foot all too often and the Pirates pay for his mistakes.
Probably gets dfa again. Still free agents. Still trade opportunities. Better relievers will get dfa before season starts. If he is a improvement you have a weak roster.
Well, you’re gonna hate what the Phillies just did … haha
Shughart and Gordon again request permission to secure until convoy arrives
Jack lives another day.
which Jack doesn’t deserve
Kind of encouraging that the Bucs are DFAing reasonably useful players that other teams will surely claim. Shugart looked decent in long relief / low leverage situations, and there were a few times when he came in and slammed the door to keep them in the game. He has the kind of fearless demeanor on the mound that you like to see and enough stuff and command to stand behind it. Sorry to lose him.
They have others who easily could have been dfa’ed.
Just another stupid move.
OBF-I understand your point but there are three or four other relief pitchers who should have been put on waivers before him.
And yet, Jack Stinkski remains…
Shugart had 3 bad outings all year… Two coming after the injury. Outside of those 3 games, his ERA was below 1.25. BAD MOVE!
It was a terrible move by a GM who has made many of them.
Pitchers with whips of 1.111 do not grow on trees.
And relief pitchers with three bad outings out of 35 seem to me to be pretty good relief pitchers.
Cherington had done very well this off season.
Surprise Surprise!
Until now.
I think that Suwinski deserves one more chance at recovering the batting stroke that he had the first two years when he was a fairly impressive hitter.
They certainly can use more good hitters.
At $1.25 M per year it is well worth the gamble.
My feeling is that Suwinski is ticketed for an end-of-spring cut or trade, when someone more useful hits the wire. Probably gets claimed now, might slip through late in the spring and accept an outright.
Billy Cook should be next in line if necessary unless he has a terrific ST.
I think if they made it this far with Jack he is here to stay. I heard an intelligent Pirates analyst say that he can be exposed to waivers and sent back down to the minors if need be because teams won’t want to take on his salary.
I think as a bench bat he is fine as he can draw a walk for you and by some chance he hit himself into the lineup, see how it goes.