The Pittsburgh Pirates have claimed infielder Pedro Florimon from the Washington Nationals, per the Nationals ( via MLBTR). Florimon has spent parts of four seasons in the majors, posting a .565 OPS while playing shortstop. He’s got great fielding numbers, with a 3.8 UZR/150 in his career, and a positive trend. Here are his UZR/150 numbers over the last four years.
2011: -49.4 in 18.2 innings
2012: -8.9 in 367 innings
2013: 4.5 in 1099.2 innings
2014: 23.7 in 224.2 innings
UZR is best when you’ve got multiple years of data to work with, which means his career numbers are the best thing to go by here. However, if these numbers do represent a trend, then Florimon could end up as a better defender than his career numbers indicate.
The Pirates currently need a backup middle infielder who can play shortstop. They had Clint Barmes for that role in the last year and a half, although this off-season they’ve made a lot of waiver claims and smaller moves that look to be trying to fill that position with a cheaper option. Florimon is out of options, which means he’d have to be on the active roster or be placed through waivers. It’s also entirely possible that the Pirates are just adding him in an attempt to try and sneak him through waivers later in the off-season, which is something they’ve done in the past.
Because of the defense, and because the Pirates prioritize defense at shortstop, he looks like a top candidate for their backup middle infield role. However, I don’t expect them to be done adding options.