The Pirates have made a couple of waiver claims today, per Justice delos Santos of MLB.com. They’ve grabbed catcher Zack Collins from the Blue Jays and reliever Junior Fernández from the Cardinals. Both players have been optioned to Triple-A Indianapolis. The Bucs already opened up one 40-man roster spot earlier today by designating infielder Josh VanMeter for assignment, but have opened another by designating left-hander Cam Vieaux.
Collins, 27, was traded to the Blue Jays in early April, with fellow catcher Reese McGuire going to the White Sox. Part of the appeal of that trade for the Jays was the fact that Collins was still optionable, whereas McGuire wasn’t. As such, Collins has been bounced between the majors and the minors a few times, with Danny Jansen and Alejandro Kirk getting the bulk of the playing time in the bigs. While in the majors, Collins has added a bit of pop but also his share of strikeouts. He’s hit four home runs in 26 games, slashing .194/.266/.417 for a wRC+ of 93 while going down on strikes in 39.2% of his plate appearances. In 36 Triple-A games, he’s struck out 25.8% of the time but walked at an incredible 20.6% rate, producing a batting line of .195/.361/.398, wRC+ of 107.
For the Pirates, he can be optioned for the remainder of this year but will be out of options next season. The catching job in Pittsburgh is fairly wide open, as Roberto Perez was supposed to be the everyday guy this year until he required season-ending hamstring surgery. There’s apparently mutual interest in a reunion, though he will be a free agent at season’s end. For the time being, rookie Jason Delay and journeyman Tyler Heineman are on the active roster. Collins won’t reach arbitration this winter and can be kept around cheaply as long as he continues to hold his roster spot.
Fernández, 25, joins a new organization for the first time, as he has spent his entire career in the Cardinals’ system until now. He’s logged 50 2/3 innings of MLB action over the past four seasons, producing a 5.51 ERA in that time. Perhaps his best attribute is his ability to get batters to hit the ball into the ground. He has a 49.4% ground ball rate in his time in the majors, including a 60.4% rate this season. For context, the MLB league average is 42.8% this year. Like Collins, he can be optioned for the rest of this season but will be out of options next year. He will also come up short of arbitration this winter and can be kept around for years if the Pirates deem him worthy of a roster spot.
As for Vieaux, 28, this is the second time he has been designated for assignment by the Pirates this season. The first time, he cleared waivers and was outrighted. Since the trade deadline has passed, the Pirates will put him on waivers again in the coming days. If he clears again, he will be eligible to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency, as is the right of any player who has previously been outrighted in their career. He’s only been able to throw 8 2/3 innings in the majors this year, with one especially ugly outing bumping his ERA up to 10.38. In 45 Triple-A innings for the season, he has a 2.80 ERA, 23.7% strikeout rate, 8.3% walk rate and 43.1% ground ball rate.
Wish Junior the best. Passed by him after a Cardinals game this year and didn’t realize it until he was a ways away
He didn’t deserve it. But he has a better chance to be on a big league roster with the Pirates.
I agree with @alwaysgo4two. He didn’t deserve to pass you @cardsfan94. Did he acknowledge you?
The Pirates aren’t claiming these guys to option them, especially when they can’t be optioned next year. Collins should be the starter vs righties or DH vs righties the rest of the way. And Fernandez will be on the ML roster also.
Except that the article said both are being optioned to AAA
Please reread the article… “can be optioned” does not equate to ‘will be optioned’.
Bucs-Mine says “were”.One would think that that was temporary,as I agree with you that they should be brought up,but see my other post.
Bucs-What you said makes sense but management does not always do what makes sense.We shall see.And quite frankly I am not confident that Collins is any better than Heineman.
They did it. THEY DESIGNATED VAN METER. Pirates fans are elated rn
Didn’t realized that was posted earlier but Collins seems like a decent pickup. Collins has an alright bat and he seems like a man with a 3 WAR ceiling
Underwood should be the next to go and take Shelton with him
I agree
Collins 40% strikeout rate fits right in with what the Pirates are doing this year!
As does his below .200 batting average
Best of luck Junior Fernandez. It seemed like he was starting to figure it out this season. Pirates might have acquired a valuable reliever on the cheap.
Wow, what a wasted pick Collins turned out to be for the Sox.
I don’t think it’s realistic to expect every draft pick to work…. Not sure what amount of potential Collins still holds at 27, but catcher is a scarce position worth taking a chance on… I don’t see a bunch of Allstars or even replacement level players that were passed up for Collins
Will smith would’ve been nice.
But that’s life.
Yeah that’s why teams settling for compensation picks are such a crap shoot. Better off trading imminent free agents for players whove already advanced through a system.
and the Mets are picking up where they left off in game 1 of the DH
4th inning Mets 7 the lowly Bucs 0
Did you really think that they were going to beat DeGrom?
The Mets lost 1 of 3 to the Pirates; they should hang their head in shame.
Dcahen-That would be 54 wins for the Pirates but 108 for the Mets.
Do you really think that the Mets are good enough,even with the most money now in baseball,to win 108 games,even against the worst teams?
Pirates getting a pitch to contact pitcher isn’t the best thing. SS and 1b are pretty weak defensively. though Chavis’s stretches are pretty amazing. Maybe it’ll be better next year especially if they move Cruz to the OF. Gun of an arm and with his experience at a the prime SS position IMO would make him a great OF Pirates need to make room up the middle for other decent prospects as well.
Calling up Martin at first might make Cruz better though, Martin has spent a good amount of time with him. Even with Martin not being the best defender. Martin at the plate seems to have bounced back after a dreadful first half.
Chavez problem is that he is short.Otherwise I think that he plays well at first base.Josh Bell actually developed a fine stretch too.
I think that Cruz has fielded better than I thought he would.A poster a few months ago siaid that his errors in AAA were on throws and it seems to be the case here too.I did not think that he could pass the muster fielding SS but he has done a lot better that what I thought he would.He would be the best arm in RF since Clemente though.
the big thing i see with cruz is that he is often slow to throw the ball so when he does it has to be a bullet and when you are rushing, often it doesn’t go where you want it.
He gets on base more he could be a MVP candidate if in the OF. Clemente level.. that is a high bar but he is pretty tall.. he is a beast if any pirate could do it, it would be him.
THe problem that I see with him and Hayes is that they take way too many called third strikes.They May be camping on breaking pitches because I think one needs to learn how to hit them at the ML level,but they are walking to the dugout before the ump calls the fastball right down the middle of the plate strike three.I would rather have him camp on the fastball and take the breaking pitches as they are usually balls.
He May not be taking this seriously enough because he gets so much hype but he does not seem to be learning and fouling off those pitches gives him another chance.
He does have power though and if he becomes a home run hitter he is going to strike out one in four at bats and that is the price of doing business.