After being hit by a pitch on Thursday, Pirates catcher Luke Maile suffered a fractured right index finger that required surgical repair, according to team press release. Maile underwent the procedure yesterday and will be kept out of baseball activities for the next 10-12 weeks, effectively ending his 2020 season.
Maile signed a one-year split contract with the Pirates last December, and the unfortunate injury news will now keep the 29-year-old backstop from participating in what would have been his sixth big league season. Maile has a .198/.252/.304 career slash line over 657 plate appearances with the Rays and Blue Jays, and was non-tendered by Toronto over the offseason. Despite his lack of offense, Maile has been a pretty solid defensive catcher, and he had been tabbed as the top backup choice behind Jacob Stallings in Pittsburgh.
Stallings and John Ryan Murphy were the only other catchers with the Bucs’ initial Summer Camp player pool, so Murphy is now the favorite for backup duty. Like Murphy, Andrew Susac is also in the organization on a minor league deal, and Rule 5 pick Christian Kelley is on hand for further depth. With Maile now out of the picture, it seems likely the Pirates will be on the lookout for any veteran catchers who become available as teams make roster cuts in the coming days.
It really seems like there are more injuries during this Summer Camp than during normal Spring Training. I think players are being asked to ramp up quickly after not being involved with playing baseball for a longer period than usual. This would be a recipe for more injuries, but it’s more anecdotal at this point than based on any hard data. I do wonder though.
I think it was a broken finger, not a pulled muscle or tjs injury
That’s funny, it seems to me like there are surprisingly less injuries than what we see during a normal spring training. We usually see a bunch of pitchers with ‘dead arm’, tendinitis, lat strains, etc. While there have been a few this summer, it seems considerably less even with a 60 man roster. You can’t blame broken fingers, broken wrists, concussions, etc.. on the quick ramp up; those are just freak injuries that can happen anytime in the season and have nothing to do with conditioning or rushing these guys back.
I’m kind of making a more subtle point than the usual pulled muscles. Thinking more of the ability to stay out of harm’s way, like reaction time. Like I said, only anecdotal evidence, no hard numbers.
Chris Herrmann just opted out of his Tampa contract and would make sense as a backup catcher for Pitt. I just don’t understand why Mark P. decided to close the comment section on the MLBTR Herrmann opt out article. I’m guessing that was just a mistake? I can’t see the comments getting out of hand for that subject matter.
Christian Kelley is a rule 5 pick? No. He is not.
Christian Kelley was drafted by and has played his whole career with the Pirates in the minors. He is not a rule 5 pick.
And no need for Chris Herrmann with John Ryan Murphy and Andrew Susac already on board.
Why did they draft a guy in the rule 5 draft who hit .179 in AAA last year. I get that he’s a C so maybe he’s good defensively but man .179 (and not much better in prior seasons) seems like one heck of a long shot on a rule-5 pick. But hey I guess with this injury who knows maybe he’ll wind up getting a shot. Though if (as the article states) only Murphy, Malie and the starter were on the 60-man roster… does that mean the rule-5 pick isn’t? And if not wouldn’t that mean he’d had to be offered back to his original team? Not sure how those rules are working as I guess the ’60-man’ roster isn’t technically a roster… But a player can’t be on the active roster without being on the 60 either so clearly the rule-5 pick would have to be returned.
Yes, and it’s even dumber of the Pirates to draft a rule 5 catcher who hit .179 in the minors off of their own team. And since the Pirates are his original team, how does that work when he doesn’t make the team and they have to give him back to themselves?
Maybe they’ll decide to bring back Russell Martin? Here’s hoping.
Who cares, he sucks anyways