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Pirates Sign Catcher Sebastian Valle

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The Pittsburgh Pirates have signed catcher Sebastian Valle as a minor league free agent. The 24-year-old has spent the last eight seasons in the Philadelphia Phillies system, playing parts of two seasons at AAA. They also announced the signing of catcher Miguel Perez, though he was strictly a coach in 2014 and only played a total of nine games over the 2012-13 seasons, so don’t expect to see him on the field unless they need an emergency catcher at some level next year.

Valle split 2014 between AA and AAA, hitting .238/.262/.346 in 75 games. He was considered a legit prospect at one time. At age 19 in 2010, he hit 16 homers and put up a .728 OPS at Lakewood in the South Atlantic League. Two years later, he hit 17 homers and reached AAA shortly after his 22nd birthday. Over his minor league career, he has thrown out 30% of runners trying to steal. He is athletic behind the plate and has been praised for his pitch framing ability.

Valle is currently playing winter ball in Mexico, where he has a .534 OPS in 20 games.

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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