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Pirates Designate Yu Chang For Assignment

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The Pirates have designated infielder Yu Chang for assignment and reinstated fellow infielder Tucupita Marcano from the Covid-related injured list. Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic first pointed out that Marcano was in the clubhouse and that Chang, who is out of minor league options, was collecting his things and likely to be the corresponding roster casualty.

Chang has spent about a month in the Steel City, having been acquired from the Guardians at the end of May. He appeared in 18 games but managed only a .167/.286/.262 line, striking out in 18 of his 49 trips to the plate. That was enough for the Bucs to move on fairly quickly, as manager Derek Shelton has turned to Hoy Park and Josh VanMeter on the right side of the infield over the past few days. Chang is capable of covering all four spots on the dirt, but the Bucs’ left side is spoken for by Oneil Cruz and Ke’Bryan Hayes.

The 26-year-old Chang was regarded by evaluators as a solid prospect for much of his time climbing the Cleveland farm system. He reached the big leagues in 2019 and has seen sporadic MLB action in each of the past four seasons. He’s posted a meager .204/.268/.359 slash in just more than 400 career plate appearances, striking out at an alarming 29.5% rate in the process. He has rarely had much opportunity for everyday at-bats, however, and he owns a more serviceable .258/.332/.427 mark over parts of four Triple-A seasons.

Within the next week, the Bucs will trade Chang or try to run him through waivers. That Pittsburgh sent cash to Cleveland for him a month ago indicates they believed there was a good chance he’d be claimed off waivers or acquired by another team at the time. Whether that’ll still be the case after another month of struggles remains to be seen, but Chang’s prospect pedigree and affordability could hold some appeal. Any club that acquires him would need to keep him on the active roster or designate him for assignment themselves.

Pirates Designate Anthony Banda For Assignment, Release Heath Hembree

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The Pirates announced a series of roster moves Monday, reinstating utilityman Josh VanMeter from the injured list, recalling righty Miguel Yajure from Triple-A Indianapolis, optioning outfielder Cal Mitchell to Triple-A and designating lefty Anthony Banda for assignment. Pittsburgh also released righty Heath Hembree after he cleared waivers, per Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Twitter link) and assigned righty Jerad Eickhoff to Indianapolis after he cleared outright waivers.

Banda has been in Pittsburgh for a bit shy of a year, having been claimed off waivers from the Mets last August. He made 25 appearances down the stretch, tossing 26 1/3 frames of 3.42 ERA ball. That came with middle-of-the-road strikeout and walk numbers, but Banda was successful enough to hold his roster spot over the winter. He broke camp this season and went on to make 23 more appearances, but the 28-year-old didn’t have nearly as much success keeping runs off the board.

Through 19 2/3 innings, Banda owns a 6.41 ERA. He’s posted slightly below-average marks in both strikeout rate (22.4%) and swinging strike percentage (9.4%), although that’s come with career-best control. Banda has walked only around 5% of opponents, and he’s averaging a personal-high 95.3 MPH on his fastball. Opposing hitters have an unsustainably high .463 batting average on balls in play against him in spite of a general lack of hard contact.

Those better underlying traits could entice another club to roll the dice on Banda over the coming days. The Bucs will have a week to trade him or try to run him through waivers. He’s out of minor league option years, so any team that acquires him would have to keep him on the active roster or DFA him themselves.

Hembree heads to free agency after being designated for assignment himself last week (ironically to accommodate Eickhoff’s selection to the 40-man roster). That’s little surprise, as the veteran reliever is playing this season on a $2.125MM salary and is amidst a down year. He posted a 7.16 ERA with more walks than strikeouts in 20 appearances for the Bucs, but he’s only a season removed from punching out 34.2% of batters faced. That’ll at least generate some minor league interest now that Hembree’s back on the open market; a signing team would only owe him the prorated portion of the $700K minimum salary for any time he spends in the majors, with the Pirates on the hook for the rest of the money owed.

Eickhoff has the right to join Hembree in free agency, having been outrighted on multiple occasions in his career. He made just one MLB appearance, serving up ten runs in 4 1/3 innings against the Cubs. The veteran righty has otherwise spent the season in Indianapolis, tossing 48 1/3 frames of 4.84 ERA ball.

Pirates Designate Jerad Eickhoff For Assignment

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The Pirates announced they’ve selected reliever Austin Brice onto the MLB roster. Righty Jerad Eickhoff has been designated for assignment to open active and 40-man roster space.

Eickhoff, 31, appeared in just one game for the Pirates and was torched for 10 runs in 4 1/3 innings against the Cubs this week. Remarkably, that’s the second consecutive big league appearance in which Eickhoff has been tagged for 10 earned runs; he also yielded 10 runs (in 3 1/3 frames) to the Braves in his final outing of the year with the Mets last season.

Those two outings have combined to help balloon Eickhoff’s career ERA to 4.50 and mark the continuation of a recent decline in Eickhoff’s overall performance. While he was a solid rotation option with the Phillies from 2015-17, pitching to a 3.87 ERA over 376 1/3 innings during that time, Eickhoff has totaled just 87 2/3 Major League innings from 2018-22 and pitched to a collective 7.19 ERA along the way. The Pirates will have a week to trade Eickhoff, release him or attempt to pass him through outright waivers. He has enough service time to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency if he chooses.

Brice, meanwhile, will join the big league bullpen on the heels of a sharp 3.04 ERA through 26 2/3 innings in Triple-A Indianapolis. He’s posted strong strikeout and ground-ball rates in Indy (27.2% and 50.7%, respectively), but has also issued a walk to 11 of the 114 batters he’s faced (9.6%) and plunked another three. Brice is a veteran of parts of six Major League seasons — the best of which came with the 2019 Marlins (44 2/3 innings, 3.43 ERA). Overall, he carries a lifetime 5.17 ERA in 162 big league innings.

Pirates Designate Heath Hembree For Assignment

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The Pirates have designated right-hander Heath Hembree for assignment, per a team announcement. The move clears a spot on the 40-man and active rosters for veteran righty Jerad Eickhoff, whose contract has been formally selected from Triple-A Indianapolis (as was originally reported yesterday).

Signed to a one-year, $2.125MM contract as a free agent back in mid-March, Hembree came to the Bucs as a potential late-inning arm with ample experience as a big league setup man. From 2015-19, Hembree racked up 238 innings of 3.59 ERA ball and notched 44 holds (plus two saves) as a stalwart option in the Red Sox’ late-inning relief corps. He became increasingly homer-prone in 2020-21, however, leading to an unsightly 6.43 ERA over those two seasons combined.

That number didn’t deter the Pirates from taking a low-cost look at a pitcher whose strikeout rate soared to a career-high 34.4% during the 2021 season. The uptick in strikeouts was accompanied by a 95.5 mph average fastball — a significant jump from his 2019-20 levels and the highest mark he’d posted since a career-best 95.7 mph average back in 2017. Hembree also boasted high-end spin rate on his fastball and above-average spin on his breaking ball, all of which surely combined to pique Pittsburgh’s interest.

Things simply haven’t panned out with the Bucs, however, as the 33-year-old has logged an ugly 7.16 ERA with more walks (14) than strikeouts (12) over the life of 16 1/3 innings. Hembree’s average fastball velocity has dipped back down to 94.2 mph, and he’s allowed runs in eight of his 20 appearances with the team. Along the way, he missed two weeks with a calf strain, and since returning, he’s walked five batters in three innings.

The Pirates will have a week to trade Hembree, pass him through outright waivers or release him. It’s unlikely that a team claims him, however, given the $1.23MM that’s still remaining on his contract. Even if Hembree clears outright waivers, he has enough service time to reject an outright assignment while still retaining the remainder of that salary owed to him. At that point, he could become a free agent and sign with any team. A new team would only be responsible for paying him the prorated portion of the league minimum, with the rest of his salary still coming out of the Pirates’ pockets.

Pirates To Select Jerad Eickhoff

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The Pirates will select the contract of right-hander Jerad Eickhoff, as first reported by Jarrod Prugar of DK Sports Pittsburgh (Twitter link). Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette hears the same and takes a look at Eickhoff’s road back to the Majors after beginning the year in minor league camp during Spring Training. Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster is currently full, so they’ll need to make a corresponding move.

Eickhoff, 31, is a veteran of six big league seasons, most of which have come with the cross-state Phillies. He spent the 2021 season in the Mets organization and made a handful of spot starts for an injury-depleted rotation, serving up 19 runs in 19 2/3 innings. The majority of the damage against Eickhoff came in his final outing, though, when the Mets left him on the hill to take a 10-run shellacking in 3 1/3 innings versus Atlanta.

Prior to last year’s rough stint in Queens, Eickhoff had been a generally solid contributor in Philly. His numbers dipped in his final year with the club, but Eickhoff nonetheless notched a 4.15 ERA over the course of 459 2/3 innings as a member of the Phils, striking out 21.4% of his opponents against a strong 6.8% walk rate.

Those big league numbers with the Phillies fall closely in line with Eickhoff’s career marks at the Triple-A level (4.29 ERA, 22% strikeout rate, 7.2% walk rate). That includes a 2022 season in which he’s logged 48 1/3 innings foe the Pirates’ Triple-A affiliate in Indianapolis. In that time, Eickhoff has posted a 4.84 ERA with strikeout and walk rates close to his career norms. He’s made seven relief appearances and six starts so far in Triple-A, though he hasn’t topped 81 pitched or completed six innings in any single outing this year.

There’s no obvious 60-day IL candidate for the Pirates, who have a a full 40-man roster after acquiring Eric Stout from the Cubs earlier today. Pittsburgh also has infielder Tucupita Marcano and righty Duane Underwood Jr. on the Covid-related IL, and they’ll need a pair of spots once that duo is cleared for reinstatement. Based on Eickhoff’s forthcoming promotion and that pair of IL usages, it would seem there’s a decent bit of roster maneuvering on the horizon for the Bucs.

Cubs Trade Eric Stout To Pirates

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The Cubs have traded lefty Eric Stout to the Pirates in exchange for cash, per a pair of team announcements. Stout was designated for assignment by Chicago last week. The Pirates have optioned him to Triple-A, and their 40-man roster is now full.

Stout, 29, made his first big league appearance since 2018 last week and wound up working a total of 3 2/3 innings over two games for the Cubs. He surrendered a total of two runs on three hits and a walk with six strikeouts before being jettisoned from the 40-man roster.

Signed to a minor league deal over the winter, Stout has spent the bulk of the season in Triple-A Iowa, where he’s notched a 3.94 ERA with a massive 36.6% strikeout rate but a bloated 16.8% walk rate in 29 2/3 innings. In addition to his 22 walks, Stout also hit a pair of batters and tossed three wild pitches.

During his original call to the big leagues with the 2018 Royals, Stout averaged 91.3 mph on his fastball in a tiny sample of work. That number jumped to 93.1 mph in last week’s big league return, and the improved velocity could help to explain some of the uptick in strikeouts he’s experienced this year. Command was never a huge issue for Stout in the lower levels of the minor leagues, but he’s posted walk rates of 13.2%, 19.6% and 16.8% in his past three Triple-A stints (Reds, Marlins, Cubs). It’s clear that he can miss bats at a high level, and Stout can still be optioned both this year and next, so the Bucs will hope they can help him hone his ability to locate the ball with a change of scenery in Triple-A.

Pirates To Recall Oneil Cruz, Select Bligh Madris

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The Pirates are going to call Oneil Cruz up to join the big league team, reports Kody Duncan of Rum Bunter. Pirates manager Derek Shelton confirmed the Cruz promotion to reporters, including Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and added that outfielder Bligh Madris will be joining the team as well. Corresponding moves are not known at this time. Cruz is on the 40-man roster but Madris is not.

As of tomorrow, June 20, MLB teams will be required to adhere to a 13-pitcher limit on their 26-man active rosters, after previously being allowed to carry 14. With many teams pushing their pitching staffs to the limit, there is likely to be a slew of forthcoming transactions where a pitcher is subtracted from the roster to make room for a position player. However, it’s possible that this will go down as the most significant of those transactions, given Cruz’s prospect status and unusual profile.

Originally signed by the Dodgers out of the Dominican Republic, he was traded to the Pirates in 2017 as part of a deadline deal that sent Tony Watson the other way. Since then, Cruz has attracted attention both for his incredible skills with the bat and because, at 6’7″, he’s unusually tall for a shortstop.

Last year, Cruz utterly dominated the minor leagues. In 68 games between Double-A and Triple-A, he hit 17 home runs, stole 19 bases and slashed .310/.375/.594, for a wRC+ of 158. Based on that tremendous showing, he was promoted to the big leagues in October of last year, getting a two-game cameo as the season wound down. Cruz hit his first major league home run in one of his nine plate appearances last year.

Coming into this season, many expected that Cruz would be on Pittsburgh’s Opening Day roster, but they optioned him at the end of March, seemingly motivated by service time considerations. By keeping him down on the farm for a few weeks, they could prevent Cruz from reaching a full year of MLB service by the end of the 2022 season, thus delaying his free agency by a year. Cruz then was slow to get into a groove at the beginning of the season, hitting .176/.282/.284 in April. Based on that sluggish performance, Cruz stayed on the farm when Pirates placed regular shortstop Kevin Newman on the injured list at the end of April. Since that time, most of the playing time at short has gone to Diego Castillo, who is hitting .195/.238/.308 on the year. Meanwhile, Cruz’s bat was woken up from that sleepy start, as he hit .256/.368/.500 in May, followed by a .283/.364/.500 showing in June. The club has dabbled with playing Cruz in left field, giving him nine starts there this year, but he’s made 42 starts at shortstop. It seems likely that the 23-year-old will be given a chance to stay on the infield, at least while the team isn’t in a competitive window.

Of course, when the team enters a competitive window will largely come down to the exciting youngsters. The Pirates have never been a high-payroll team and will be dependant on Cruz, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Roansy Contreras and others to deliver on their potential while they are in their younger and cheaper years in order to build a competitive ballclub.

As for Madris, 26, he doesn’t come with nearly as much as hype as Cruz, but there are still reasons for Pittsburgh fans to be excited, based on his excellent performance this year. A ninth round pick in the 2017 draft, the outfielder has never appeared on one of Baseball America’s lists of top prospects in the system, though he did get an honorable mention on the FanGraphs list coming into this season. In 45 Triple-A games this year, the lefty swinger has walked in 11.3% of his trips to the plate and kept his strikeouts down to a 20.3% rate. Overall, his batting line is .308/.390/.526 for a wRC+ of 144. His .374 BABIP might be rubbing some good luck on those numbers, but it’s still an impressive showing for the corner outfielder. Madris will likely be battling Jack Suwinski and Cal Mitchell for corner outfield playing time. Suwinski may have earned himself a longer look in one corner after today’s three-homer performance, but Mitchell has hit just .205/.244/.356 in his first few weeks at the big league level.

Pirates To Select Cam Vieaux

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The Pirates are planning to select left-hander Cam Vieaux onto the major league roster, reports Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Twitter link). Outfielder Canaan Smith-Njigba is headed to the 60-day injured list after suffering a fracture in his right wrist.

Vieaux was the Bucs’ sixth-round pick back in 2016. The Michigan State product has spent six-plus seasons climbing the minor league ladder and is now in line for his major league debut. The 6’3″ southpaw worked exclusively as a starting pitcher up through 2020, but he split his time a bit more evenly between the rotation and the bullpen last year. Vieaux has pitched in relief this season, tossing 27 2/3 innings over 18 outings with Triple-A Indianapolis. He has an excellent 2.28 ERA, although he’s posted fairly pedestrian strikeout, walk and ground-ball numbers.

Smith-Njigba was just called to make his own big league debut on Monday. He appeared in three games and collected his first hit, a double. Unfortunately, he’ll be shelved for at least the next two months while he recovers from the wrist issue. He’ll collect major league pay and service time for any time spent on the IL.

Pirates Select Jason Delay, Recall Canaan Smith-Njigba

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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.

Pirates Had Offseason Interest In Martin Perez

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  • Martin Perez has been one of the surprises of the 2022 season, as the veteran lefty has an AL-best 1.56 ERA over 69 1/3 innings, plus a 54.7% grounder rate and just a single home run allowed.  With encouragement from Rangers coaches, Perez has re-established his sinker as a big part of his arsenal, Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News writes, and Perez also took a tip from the legendary Pedro Martinez about throwing more pitches outside the strike zone, to induce more chases from batters.  The results speak for themselves, as Perez is having a career year at age 31, and setting himself up for a much more lucrative trip to free agent this winter.  After the Red Sox declined their club option on Perez last fall, he told Grant that the Pirates and Nationals each had interest prior to the lockout, but Perez instead chose to return to a familiar environment and signed with Texas for a one-year, $4MM pact in March.
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