JUNE 13: Pittsburgh announced that Difo has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Indianapolis. Having previously been outrighted in his career, the 29-year-old had the right to elect free agency. He’s apparently accepted a minor league assignment, though, as he’s listed on the Triple-A club’s active roster.
JUNE 8: The Pirates have designated infielder/outfielder Wilmer Difo for assignment, per a team announcement. In other moves, Pittsburgh reinstated two players – right-hander Mitch Keller and outfielder/infielder Phillip Evans – from the injured list and optioned lefty Austin Davis to Triple-A Indianapolis.
Formerly a member of the Nationals, Difo joined the Pirates on a minor league contract over the winter. The 29-year-old earned a major league spot at the beginning of April and has since hit .244//.287/.366 with a home run in 87 plate appearances, while receiving playing time at second base, third base and multiple outfield positions.
Defensive flexibility is nothing new for Difo, who debuted in the bigs in 2015, though the switch-hitter has not had a great deal of success offensively. His lifetime .247/.308/.349 line over 1,147 PA doesn’t look much different than his output this season.
Hard to imagine that PIT has so many 26th men who will do better…
Dito!
It’s Difo, not Dito. Lol
There have been six players with the first name Wilmer in Major League history. Of the six, four have played for the Mets. The two who haven’t are the late Wilmer “Billy” Shantz and Wilmer Difo. It’s time for Mets to step it up and complete their Wilmer collection as best they can.
MLB Wilmers:
Wilmer Flores
Wilmer Font
Wilmer “Dean” Chance
Wilmer “Billy” Shantz
Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell
Wilmer Difo
The Pirates can lay claim to half of the Wilmers: Shantz, Mizell and Difo.
Including the first two. All things considered, they should have invested more heavily in Vladimirs.
Mizell actually got a World Series ring with the Pirates… and Shantz was not only on the opposing Yankees in that 1960 WS, but ended up joining Mizell on the Pirates the following season.
Bobby Shantz was on those Yankees, not brother Billy. The last pitch Bobby threw for the Yankees was the one that led to Kubek getting hit in the Adam’s Apple.
Btw, I live in Bobby Shantz’s hometown of Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He is the ninth-oldest former MLB player at 95 years, 255 days. And he’ll always be the smallest Cy Young Award winner.
Nunez or Balentien?
Bobby Shantz was also a decent hitter.
The Pirates got him in a trade with the newly-formed Washington Senators who had drafted him from the Yankees and he pitched pretty well for them also..
Thanks for the correction and the info, I just saw the last name Shantz but forgot that there was more than one of them. I did know that Bobby Shantz is from Pottstown; I live only about 2 hours away from there myself.
where you get this data from?
Baseball-Reference, search Wilmer.
This should be the article.
And…Negro league Allstar Wilmer Fields
Willie S, Good catch. He belongs in the Hall of Wilmers, too.
Difo’s been serviceable and versatile for the Pirates, but with everyone coming back I guess that he’s a bit superfluous. I’d love for them to be DFA’ing Gamel instead but I suppose he’s the lefty bench bat. I have a feeling that Difo does not make it through waivers with all of the injuries around the league.
Cubs with their current IF injuries might make sense, though I believe Hoerner is back soon. Phillies with Kingery off the roster. Miami with Anderson out so they can not play Isan Diaz. Other teams, too.
Difo is better than Gamel but Gamel can evidently play centerfield.
Difo has been a decent pinch hitter but a very,very,very bad relief pitcher.
Difo needs to pitch more. Offenses could use the boost.
I’m a pirate fan of over 50 years. I’ve stood up for them in their rebuild process.
Now I’m perplexed. Why in the hell are they ey playing Gonzalez, Evans, Gamble and a few other players who won’t be with them next year. There are other players in the team who don’t fit in their plans. Moran is injury prone. Neumann is so so. Older players with no future do not belong on a rebuilding team. They should call up all hi level minor Leaguers to play even every day. I’d rather see a young hustling team lose, than a team with so so major Leaguers who don’t belong. Only players who should play everyday is Reynolds and Hayes and Frazier untill he’s traded.
Also Shelton should be fired. He manages like hurdle did.
Newman is a wizard with the glove. And Evans provides depth at many positions with a decent replacement level bat. Maybe as a fan for over 50 years, you should familiarize yourself with prospects in the pipeline. They have none that are MLB ready, which is why you see the outfield you do.
Of course he was DFA’d. Have you seen his ERA?
PIRATES FAN: No one will ever top Will Craig’s egregious fielding blunder.
KE’BRYAN HAYES: Someone wanna hold my beer? It’s my turn to bat.
If you didn’t hear about it yet (you will), Hayes homered off Walker Buehler in the first inning but was called out for missing first base.
Pirates gonna Pirate, I guess.
Missing 1st base after hitting a home run has happened before. Failure to touch 1st for the 3rd out not
He now officially enters the “mercenary” portion of his career!
The Rob Refsnyder of the infield moving forward…
I know nothing about this guy. Nothing. But reading that a guy like this plays multiple positions makes me wonder if this is a trend or a fad. Is it really better for the game to have these AAAA type players constantly cycling through the league because of their versatility? I think maybe the Zobrist thing has been taken too far. As a Cardinals fan, Tommy Edman is a legitimate multi-positional player. Daniel Descalso was a fraud. Yes, he was willing to wear whatever glove you handed him. Yes, he was willing to stand in the left handed batters box when “hitting”. I was shocked to hear he was still in the game until very recently. He was bad at every facet of the game and somehow turned that into a long career.
With versatility being MLB’s flavor of the day, this winter’s Chris Taylor market might be something else. Since last September 1, he’s the Dodgers’ leader in RBI, runs scored, and OPS. Great timing to be doing that. The man’s gonna get paid, maybe even overpaid due to his perceived multi-position value.
Cry hey you are nothing but an obnoxious troll
Wah! Get over your disappointment.
I’m a pirate fan of over 50 years. I’ve stood up for them in their rebuild process.
Now I’m perplexed. Why in the hell are they ey playing Gonzalez, Evans, Gamble and a few other players who won’t be with them next year. There are other players in the team who don’t fit in their plans. Moran is injury prone. Neumann is so so. Older players with no future do not belong on a rebuilding team. They should call up all hi level minor Leaguers to play even every day. I’d rather see a young hustling team lose, than a team with so so major Leaguers who don’t belong. Only players who should play everyday is Reynolds and Hayes and Frazier untill he’s traded.
Also Shelton should be fired. He manages like hurdle did.
Cause you don’t skip steps. The have 1 guy in AAA that’s Tucker the rest of the future in AA or lower. They missed an entire year of development so will not be up til September next year. Shelton is tank commander
For a fan of 50 years, you don’t have much of an understanding of how a team is built. No veteran players. Rush guys from the minors. Fire the manager. A big fan who can’t spell the names of the players. Time for you to hang ’em up.
He has a cousin named Defriend