The Pittsburgh Pirates have sent right-handed pitcher Drew Hutchison outright to Indianapolis after he cleared waivers. Due to his minor league service time, that means that he will become a minor league free agent after the World Series is over, although the Pirates could re-sign him prior to him becoming a free agent.
The 27-year-old Hutchison had a 3.56 ERA, a 1.29 WHIP and 124 strikeouts in 159.1 innings for Indianapolis this season. He made one start and five relief appearances for the Pirates last year after coming over from the Toronto Blue Jays in the Francisco Liriano deal.
The Pirates and Hutchison agreed to a $2.3 M figure to avoid arbitration this year, but he spent the entire season in Triple-A and wasn’t recalled last week when Indianapolis was eliminated from the playoffs.
+ 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.
any chance we could trade Hutchinson for Liriano straight up?
Confirming that the “trade” to Toronto was a pure giveaway and salary dump. A last place finish is looming, so explain exactly why extensions for hurdle and NH are justified.
The Good news: Finally getting your back pack from the Pirates charities auction, which includes a bunch of neat stuff including the Charlie Brown bobble head.
The Bad News: My two autographed balls were Grant Jackson (love him, one of my favorite Bucs, but got his ball last year) and Drew Hutchison
Given the Bucs history this is likely to be a situation where Hutchison moves on to make a rotation somewhere else and has a productive MLB career.
Guess I have to be the one to say it, Kuhl gives up 4 solo HRs in a game. He must be taking lessons from Cole. Horrible pitching line.
Hutchinson was depth we didn’t end up needing due to the overall health of our starters and performance of Kuhl and Williams. A team should go into a season at least 8 deep, but this year we only really needed 6.
Hope Hutchinson finds a good opportunity somewhere. I think he can be a serviceable back-of-the-rotation pitcher.
So how much money did he actually make this season pitching in Indy?
$2.3 million
If you work for $60K/yr and for forty years…yeah, about that much.
Kinda saw the writing on the wall when he didn’t receive a September Call up. Kind of surprise with his price tag and/or pressure from fans on the trade that he didn’t receive any chances this season. Granted the rotation was healthy for the most part and others( Glasnow, Brault) were ahead of him but surprised they didn’t squeeze him in somewhere on roster.
Same could be said about Kingham.
I agree. If Kingham is really out of options, I’d think he’s as good as gone based on the decision to leave him down. I’m hoping he has another year. Time will tell
John, saw you got credit on an mlbtr post. I haven’t seen to many of them since the site went subscription.
Yes, it’s good to see us get credit, even if it’s for a relatively minor move. That just comes along with being a subscription site.
I hope MLBTR subscribes to PP. I love MLBTR, but if they’re not willing to pay for sites that actually have inside information, I question their commitment to really ‘hear every whisper’.
The “key to the Liriano trade”….the end of that debacle, only to be exceeded in stupidity by the Nicasio debacle 2 weeks ago….and they extended NH for 4 more years….amazing….
This would close the books on one of the best trades of the NH era, just like releasing Bastardo did for the Neil Walker trade. BTW what was he doing wearing AJ’s number? That was a disgrace to AJ’s legacy.
okay, but they probably wouldve lost more games this season if they’d kept liriano
Higher Draft Pick, Jay. 🙂
i hope they find a way to keep him around next year in AAA as depth. It’s good to have a few guys like him around. guys who you can call up and down and not worry too much about screwing with their development, but can give you a good effort.
unless they have plans to trade for a few decent prospects this offseason, then i’m not sure i understand not wanting to spend 1 to 3 million on a decent depth arm.
They have some pitchers coming up from AA for depth. They might try to resign Sadler or Cumpton for veteran depth.
Wow…you mentioned 2 names that feel like they’ve been around 10 years…lol
cumpton should definitely be a priority. he put up 1.7 WAR in 100 innings! people forget how promising he was a few years ago before the injury.
This is reasonable. Never was crazy for Sadler, but Cumpton was more than serviceable for a spot starter when he still had health. Half his starts in 2014 were QS. Of course not sure 2018 Cumpton is that guy. Either will likely be scooped up by somebody if released.
They will have Holmes, Eppler, and the entire AA starting rotation
Because he stinks and makes way too much
Now they have nothing for Lariano.
The Pirates still have him so how do they have nothing?
Well, they had nothing for Liriano immediately after the trade, so nothing has changed.
$18 mil?
Liriano was not missed, and Altoona obviously did not miss Ramirez and McGuire? It was time for both teams to move on.
Don’t worry, neither does Houston.
But Toronto does…
Yes they do.
Get ready for a comment explosion.
bucs paid him 2.3 mill
.boom goes the dynamite