Unexpected trade between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Yankees

Pittsburgh was home to JT Brubaker for four big league seasons.

Day one of the MLB season saw an odd deal by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The New York Yankees received starting pitcher JT Brubaker from the Bucs on Friday along with international bonus money. The player to be identified later will be acquired by the Pirates in exchange for Brubaker.

Brubaker made his MLB debut during the truncated 2020 season and spent his first four seasons (three of which he was able to play) in the black and gold. He started the year on the 60-day IL recovering from Tommy John surgery.

accessible for play) in the gold and black.

Despite having a 4.99 lifetime ERA in 63 games (61 starts), his most productive season was his most recent one. Brubaker set career highs in innings (144), strikeouts (147), and ERA (4.69) in 2022. That season, the now-30-year-old righty finished with a 2.63 May ERA after giving up eight runs in 27.1 innings pitched with 29 strikeouts.

Pitcher of five pitches, he threw 42% of his pitches with his sinker in 2022. His ground ball percentage was almost league average, and he showed glimpses of being a reliable pitcher in Pittsburgh. In order to avoid huge innings and go from a guy at the bottom of the rotation to one in the middle of it, Brubaker was unable to put it all together.

It’s unexpected to see the Pirates give up on Brubaker and need to part with bonus pool funds in order to close the deal. His two years of club control are coming to an end, and he won’t be back until about midway through the summer.

Why would the Pirates trade out of a sensitive point of vulnerability? The lone lock in the rotation is Mitch Keller. Both Marco Gonzales and Martin Perez have contracts that end soon, and Gonzales had a difficult season for Seattle the previous year. The rookie is Jared Jones. Bailey Falter is self-explanatory.

It demonstrates that the Pirates have a stronger sense of organizational depth than many people may realize from the outside. Both starters Luis Ortiz and Roansy Contreras are trying to find their footing in the bullpen. Quinn Priester is still in Triple-A, working to get ready for a potential promotion to the majors. Additional pieces to the Pirates puzzle come from Domingo Herman, Eric Lauer, and ultimately Mike Burrows (who is recovering from Tommy John). Paul Skenes will be arriving shortly.

But the remarkable thing is that none of Anthony Solometo, Bubba Chandler, Braxton Ashcraft, or Thomas Harrington have pitched for Indianapolis, despite the fact that MLB Pipeline’s top 30 organizational list features a pitcher-heavy lineup. The Pirates sent Brubaker and his $2.275 million contract off the club, believing in their organizational depth. It should help the Pirates pitching that they must have learned something from the time they could have non-tendered Brubaker until this point.