The Pittsburgh Pirates have traded minor league third baseman/first baseman Stefan Welch to the Boston Red Sox. There was no word on the return, although last week the two teams made a similar deal with the Pirates acquiring right-handed pitcher Graham Godfrey, who is now pitching at Indianapolis.
Welch was hitting .149 with Altoona this season in 29 games this year, with a .466 OPS. The 24-year-old from Australia split last season between Bradenton and Altoona, hitting 13 homers and driving in 64 runs in 440 AB’s. He wasn’t on the Altoona active roster prior to the deal, recently being assigned to the Jamestown Jammers of the New York-Penn League.
Welch is in the lineup tonight for the Salem Red Sox of the Carolina League.
+ postsJohn 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.
This sounds like there was a non-baseball issue with Welch – why would a guy who played, and performed reasonably well, in high A and AA last year, be assigned to a rookie team??
Was he hurt or was there a disciplinary issue?
He was really struggling this year and they had a logjam at Altoona all year. More players than roster spots. When everyone was healthy, he was the odd man out. The roster assignment to Jamestown was just because he had to be somewhere. It was a paper move. Usually those guys either stay with the team and don’t dress for the game, or they go back to Extended Spring Training. In this case, he was traded.
One less aussie in the system.