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Will Craig

KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes Acquire Will Craig

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The Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization have acquired first baseman Will Craig (hat tip to reporters Sung Min Kim and The Yonhap News’ Jeeho Yoo).  Craig will earn $371K for the remainder of the KBO season according to Yoo, while MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports a $425K salary.

Craig was most recently a member of the Pirates, and GM Ben Cherington said over the weekend that Craig had been given permission to look into opportunities with Asian teams.  Pittsburgh has designated Craig for assignment and outrighted him off its 40-man roster twice, with the most recent outright assignment coming last month.

Craig has spent his entire professional career with the Pirates, beginning after the Bucs selected him with the 22nd overall pick of the 2016 draft.  He has a .261/.351/.421 slash line over 2060 career plate appearances in the minor leagues, mostly playing first baseman but also getting some as a third baseman and right fielder.  After being selected for Pittsburgh’s alternate training site in 2020, Craig made his MLB debut with two games last season, and then appeared in 18 games for the Pirates this year.

In 69 PA in the majors, Craig has hit .203/.261/.281 with one home run (in his first game of the 2021 season).  Unfortunately for Craig, his most famous moment as a big leaguer was a uniquely memorable fielding error against the Cubs this season, when he engaged in a rundown with batter Javier Baez between first base and home plate rather than just step on first base to retire Baez on a routine grounder.

As noted by Kim, Craig will replace David Freitas as the foreign-born position player on the Heroes roster.  Freitas was placed on waivers by the Seoul-based team last month.

Pirates Outright Will Craig

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Pirates first baseman Will Craig has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Indianapolis, Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was among those to report. Craig was outrighted in the past, meaning he could have rejected the assignment, but he’ll stick with the organization.

Craig, now 26 years old, has been a member of the Pirates since they drafted him with the 22nd overall pick in 2016. He remained a prospect of note for a few years after, as Baseball America placed him anywhere from ninth to 24th in the Pirates’ system from his draft year through 2020.

Dating back to the beginning of his professional career, Craig has hit .258/.349/.415 with 54 home runs in 1,950 minor league plate appearances. That includes 585 trips to the plate in Triple-A, where Craig has batted .248/.323/.446 with 26 long balls. Conversely, Craig hasn’t racked up much major league action, having collected 69 PA (including 65 this season) and posted an underwhelming .203/.261/.281 with a single home run. The Pirates designated him a week after he made a rather baffling and now-infamous defensive mistake against the Cubs (video here).

Pirates Designate Will Craig For Assignment

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The Pirates announced Friday that they’ve reinstated right-hander JT Brubaker from the Covid-19-related injured list and, in order to clear a spot on the 40-man roster, designated first baseman Will Craig for assignment. Brubaker was placed on the Covid list earlier this week when he went through intake testing after spending a few days on the bereavement list.

It’s been a tough week for Craig, who’ll unfortunately have a tough time living down last week’s defensive gaffe that saw Javier Baez dupe him into a rundown between first base and home plate when Erik Gonzalez sailed a throw from third base. The ensuing play was one of the more bizarre sequences in recent memory, resulting in a run for the Cubs and, somehow, Baez standing on second base after hitting a grounder to third that was both fielded cleanly and at least caught by the first baseman.

Of course, there’s far more to Craig than that one play. The 26-year-old was the 22nd overall pick of the 2016 draft and for several years rated as one of the Buccos’ more promising farmhands. He’s batted just .203/.261/.281 in a small sample of 20 Major League contests, but Craig clocked three homers and a pair of doubles in 29 Triple-A plate appearances before getting the call to the big leagues this year.

Craig has spent parts of two seasons in Triple-A and another in Double-A, producing eerily similar slash lines: .248/.321/.448 in a pitcher-friendly Double-A setting and .248/.323/.446 in a much more hitter-friendly Triple-A environment. It’s not the production the Pirates hoped for after he mashed at a .347/.461/.623 clip while starring for Wake Forest, but scouting reports on Craig as he was making his way through the Pittsburgh system credited him with a potentially average hit tool, above-average power and a plus throwing arm.

The Pirates have designated Craig once in the past, and he went unclaimed on waivers at that point. Because he’s already cleared waivers once, he’d have the ability to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency if he wants a fresh start in a new organization. The Bucs will have a week to either trade Craig or attempt to pass him through waivers a second time.

Pirates Select Will Craig, Designate Sean Poppen

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The Pirates announced Thursday that they’ve selected the contract of first baseman/outfielder Will Craig from Triple-A Indianapolis and designated righty Sean Poppen for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Craig will take the active roster spot of infielder/outfielder Phillip Evans, who is going on the 10-day injured list due to a hamstring strain. Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported earlier in the day that Craig would be brought back up to the MLB roster.

Pittsburgh designated Craig, their first-round pick from the 2016 draft, for assignment back in November after claiming righty Ashton Goudeau off waivers. Craig went unclaimed on waivers and remained with the organization and headed to Spring Training as a non-roster player.

Craig has opened the year just 6-for-26 in Triple-A, but he’s fanned only three times and three of those six hits have been round-trippers. With Colin Moran and Evans on the injured list and Todd Frazier having been recently designated for assignment himself, it seems like Craig will have an opportunity to another look at first base — at least in the short term.

Poppen, 27, was claimed off waivers out of the Twins organization over the winter but hasn’t found much success in his short time with the Bucs. He tossed just 4 1/3 innings this season and was tagged for seven runs (four earned) on 11 hits and a couple of walks with four strikeouts. He’s served up a pair of runs in four Triple-A frames as well.

Poppen, a Harvard product, has spent parts of five seasons in the minors since being selected by the Twins in the 19th round of the 2016 draft. He’s compiled a 3.39 ERA in 413 2/3 minor league innings, punching out 23.5 percent of opponents against a 7.6 percent walk rate.

Minor MLB Transactions: 12/3/20

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The latest minor moves from around baseball…

  • The Rays have signed righty David Hess to a minors deal, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets. The Orioles, who chose Hess in the fifth round of the 2014 draft, outrighted him in October. He debuted in the majors in 2018 and has since recorded a 5.86 ERA/6.41 FIP with 6.76 K/9 and 3.26 BB/9 in 190 1/3 innings.

Earlier transactions:

  • The Rockies announced that they have acquired left-hander Yoan Aybar from the Red Sox for infielder Christian Koss. Aybar, now 23, didn’t produce much as an outfielder through 2017, which led the Red Sox to move him to the mound. With a fastball that can reach triple digits, Aybar pitched to a 4.61 ERA with 11.1 K/9 and 6.5 BB/9 in 56 2/3 innings between the Single-A and High-A levels in 2019. Koss, who will turn 23 in January, was a 12th-round pick of the Rockies in 2019 who hasn’t gotten past rookie ball. He did perform very well there during his first pro season, though, as he slashed .332/.447/.605 with 11 home runs in 238 plate appearances.
  • The Brewers tweeted that they’ve signed third baseman Zach Green to a minor league contract with an invitation to big league camp. The 26-year-old was a third-round pick of the Phillies in 2012 who spent the previous two seasons in the Giants organization. Green made his MLB debut in 2020 and totaled 16 plate appearances, though he picked up just two hits. However, Green isn’t far removed from an excellent 2019 showing in Triple-A, where he slashed .282/.380/.659 with 25 home runs in 297 plate appearances.
  • Right-hander Zach Thompson announced on Twitter that he has signed with the Marlins. It’s presumably a minors deal for Thompson, who had been with the White Sox since they selected him in the fifth round of the 2014 draft. The 27-year-old topped out in Triple-A ball in 2019 with 70 1/3 innings of 5.50 ERA ball. While Thompson had difficulty preventing runs then, he did post impressive strikeout and walk numbers (10.0 K/9, 2.9 BB/9).
  • The Pirates outrighted first baseman/outfielder Will Craig to Triple-A Indianapolis on Wednesday, Adam Berry of MLB.com tweets. Craig joined the Pirates as a first-rounder in 2016, but his major league impact has been minimal to this point. He collected four plate appearances in his Pittsburgh debut last season, but he went hitless in that short span and the Pirates designated him for assignment last week. In his most recent minor league action, in 2019, the 26-year-old batted .249/.326/.435 with 23 homers across 556 plate appearances at the Triple-A level.

Pirates Designate Will Craig For Assignment

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The Pirates have designated first baseman/outfielder Will Craig for assignment, per a club announcement. He was the team’s first-round pick back in 2016. Craig’s roster spot will go to right-hander Ashton Goudeau, whose previously reported waiver claim out of the Rockies organization has now been formally announced by Pittsburgh.

Craig, 26, made his MLB debut this past season but didn’t get a real look, as he appeared in just two games and was hitless in four plate appearances. The former Wake Forest slugger ripped through A-ball and had an above-average showing at Double-A in 2018, but his 2019 campaign in Triple-A left plenty to be desired: .249/.326/.435 with 23 home runs and a 26.3 percent strikeout rate.

Scouting reports on Craig throughout his career have praised his above-average raw power, a potentially average hit tool and a strong throwing arm, but he’s limited to the outfield corners or first base on the defensive spectrum. Pittsburgh gave him 400 innings at third base at Class-A in 2016, but he’s been exclusively a first baseman/right fielder since. A player with that limited defensive profile needs to hit more than Craig has shown in the upper minors, but it’s at least a bit surprising that the club felt him to be the most expendable player on the 40-man roster. The Pirates will have a week to put him through outright waivers, trade him or release him. Craig has multiple minor league options remaining, which could potentially be of appeal to another organization.

Pirates Designate Four Players For Assignment, Set 40-Man Roster

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The Pirates set their roster in advance of the 2019 Rule 5 Draft tonight, selecting the contracts of right-handers Blake Cederlind and Cody Ponce as well as infielders Ke’Bryan Hayes, Will Craig and Oneil Cruz. In a corresponding series of moves, the Pirates have designated lefty Williams Jerez and right-handers Dario Agrazal, Montana DuRapau and Luis Escobar for assignment.

Of the four players designated for assignment, Agrazal had the largest workload with the Pirates in 2019, pitching 73 1/3 innings but struggling to a 4.91 ERA, 5.0 K/9, 2.2 BB/9 and a 39.9 percent grounder rate. Each of the other three posted an ERA north of 7.00, though Escobar and Jerez each threw fewer than six innings. The 27-year-old DuRapau, meanwhile, enjoyed an outstanding season in Triple-A but allowed 18 runs in 17 1/3 innings at the MLB level.

Hayes, 23 in January, is fresh off a .265/.336/.415 season and against much older competition in Triple-A. Regarded as one of baseball’s premier defensive prospects, Hayes is considered to be among the top farmhands not just in the Pirates’ system but in the entire game.

Cruz, too, has generated some top 100 fanfare and just put the finishing touches on a huge but shortened season, hitting a combined .298/.356/.475 in 73 games. The towering 6’7″ Cruz, acquired in the 2017 trade that sent Tony Watson to the Dodgers, received 80 grades in arm strength and raw power from Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel of FanGraphs on their midseason rankings, where he checked in at No. 34 in MLB.

Ponce, acquired from the Brewers in this summer’s Jordan Lyles swap, averaged nearly 10 strikeouts per inning out of the bullpen. Cederlind, also 23, had a solid year out of the ’pen and reached the Triple-A level for the first time. Craig had a down season in Triple-A but has long been considered to be among the top 15 prospects in the Pittsburgh farm and will give them some near-term corner infield depth.

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