The Pirates announced they’ve designated southpaw Steven Brault for assignment. The move clears space on the 40-man roster for José Quintana, whose previously-reported one-year deal has been made official.
Brault had been eligible for arbitration, so today’s DFA will function as an early non-tender. He’d been projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a $2.2MM salary. That’s not an exorbitant sum, but Brault’s coming off a tough season — one in which he missed a few months on account of a forearm strain. The 29-year-old ended up making just seven starts, working 27 2/3 innings of 5.86 ERA ball with a below-average 15% strikeout percentage.
That tough 2021 showing looks as if it’ll bring an end to Brault’s six-season tenure in Pittsburgh, but he’s only a year removed from being a capable member of the Bucs’ rotation. He started ten of his eleven appearances in the shortened 2020 season, pitching to a 3.38 ERA across 42 2/3 frames. That strong run prevention mark wasn’t entirely supported by ERA estimators, which pegged Brault as more of a back-of-the-rotation type. The sinkerballer induced grounders on nearly half the balls in play against him that year, though, and he’s typically done a solid job keeping the ball on the ground over the past few seasons.
Pittsburgh will now have to trade or waive Brault in the coming days. If another team were to acquire him via one of those avenues, he’d remain under control via arbitration for the next two seasons. If he passes through waivers unclaimed, Brault would have the right to refuse an outright assignment in favor of minor league free agency.
Mets please pick him up. I think hes gonna have a 2021 Musgrove year for whoever picks him up
k
Based on what?
Always thought he’d look good on Phils
Musgrove in 2020 made changes and the results were a high SO rate. Brault improved as well with the new regime but doesn’t have the same talent as Musgrove. Coming off injury he may not be the same player. Certainly didn’t look to be.
The “dreaded forearm strain is a precursor to TJ surgery. That’s a hard pass for me.
Angels should put in a claim, Brault can hit!
Credit to the author for digging up a sample size where Brault was mildly effective.
Let’s bring him home to San Diego!
No shot he doesn’t get claimed
I dunno…..He is Arb eligible still. Has had injury issues. May not be there the arb figure he gets.
This has Cubs rebuild all over it
Why – he’s horrible. Well 2/10 Cubs
Welcome to the Rays
It’s funny. I think going forward Brault would be far more valuable than Quintana
Major League Baseball set a new record for pitchers used in 2021, with most teams utilizing at least 30 pitchers. The number of pitchers used goes up every year. That virtually guarantees that Brault will be picked up by someone.
I would’ve cut Banda or manhole instead.
Ain’t autocorrect something? Manhold.
LOL! Think you mean Hanhold……. Pitches about the same quality of a manhole anyway…. 🙂
The blackmail has been sent, now your wife will know you talk about manhole with strangers on the internet.
Sure sounds like a Farhan project. Especially since he has stayed true to his strategy in not signing any of the high-priced (long-term) FA pitchers who have come signed in the last few days.
Doubt he makes it that far in the claim priority. Cubbies may like him though
And in swoops Farhan to begin the great dumpster dive since he doesn’t seem to like signing free agents who have track records of success.
Depending on medicals he could be a solid backend starter. Is he just slow to return from injury or was injury career ending?
DFA’d by Pittsburgh? Sounds like Arte Moreno’s type of pitcher. Look for the Angels to swoop in and grab him. Who needs Stroman anyway?
Time to bring another Foothiller home to SD. Join Musgrove.
He won’t get claimed, he made over 2 mil last, and with arbitration he will get a raise. Teams will wait til he clears and sign him for less than 2 mil, maybe 1 with incentives
My prayers have been answered. Even the Pirates can do better than Brault.
Rockies should pick him up. Reunite him with Diaz as his catcher, and would be a good fit in Colorado as his problem isn’t so much the long ball.
It’s too bad he wasn’t able to develop another pitch. Basically, he’s a two pitch pitcher, heavily FB dominant, which is tough when your fastball sits at 91 mph. Tough to have a career when you’re .270 .363 .440 v RH. Not fooling many hitters with that combo.
I think the Giants can make a guy like him work. Gausman was essentially a two pitch pitcher with an occasional slider/changeup outside his fastball split combo. They also helped Drew Smyly do well while only using a Fastball/Curveball combo during his time in SF.
Isn’t this that guy who sings?
He must be seriously hurt. I can’t see the Bucs running with Quintanna., whose essentially toast, instead of Brault. And I can’t see his arb-number being that much of a deterrent.
We’ll see with the waiver activity.
Interesting move considering that the Pirates need pitching. Brault gets a lot of flak from fans but he’s a decent 5th starter. The problem was that for his whole tenure in Pittsburgh he was a de facto mid-rotation arm and as should have been expected he performed as a back end arm. I wouldn’t be surprised if he never makes it to waivers and some team works out a minor trade for him. Personally I think he’d be the type of pitcher who would benefit by moving to a relief role since command is his biggest issue.
Would love to see the Cardinals pick him up as the 6th/7th starter from outside the organization that they’re apparently eying. Would not look forward to Dan McLaughlin referring to his fish tattoos over and over again, though.
Lots of pain as a bucs fan. He’s gotta be seriously injured and we aren’t being told, if not this makes no sense. I guess just trade Reynolds and put the sword through our chest at this point please. #raisetheflag
He had a start here and there in which you thought he was coming along nicely and then would have the next two or three where he would get lit up. And he’s fragile. Just never seemed to put it together here
The human element to this has to suck. I can’t imagine being in DFA limbo for a week is a fun time but he’s basically in DFA limbo indefinitely until the labor issues get resolved.
He became too expensive for Nutting, just like Moran and Stallings.
Not surprising
He never really got it going for the Pirates
Wouldn’t be surprised if he goes somewhere and plays decent though
Hmm
Doesn’t anyone understand the concept of a rebuild? If you have players like Moran @ $4 mil/year & Brault @ $3 mil/year, & they’re not going to be part of the future young team; even that $7 mil is more money than needed to spend on stopgap players. It’s not rocket science.
Pretty much the only thing Pirate fans understand is a rebuild, certainly not sustained success. The thing is Moran was replaced on the roster by Yoshi Tsutsugo at an identical 4 million that Moran was projected to make in arbitration and Brault by Jose Quintana for 200k less than Brault’s projection. The team didn’t save 7 million, they saved 200 thousand and considering Brault and Moran had an extra year of control through arbitration than the one year free agent deals Quintana and Tsutsugo received the team literally just spent 6 million on stopgap players. Also Scherzer alone is making about 5 million more than the entire Pirates roster just as a reference point.
In Morans case, tsutugo can get flipped more easily if he has a hot start. He has shown more power and better reverse splits in his short sample.
Brault and Quintana is a different situation. I think pirates have just given up on the former. Quintana could be decent and flipped with a better defense and a better pitchers park. Even though the money lines up, I don’t see that so much as Quintana replacing brault. They are just trying to get lucky for 4 months on quintana so he can be traded.
I always thought brault should have been a reliever. I think he goes somewhere else it will be in that capacity.