The Pittsburgh Pirates have acquired infielder Brian Bocock from the Washington Nationals. Bocock is the player to be named later from the Brian Jeroloman trade earlier this year.
Ivan De Jesus has also been placed on the temporary inactive list (bereavement) and Oscar Tejeda has been promoted from Altoona to Indianapolis.
Bocock is an organizational guy. He has had 44 at-bats in Triple-A this year for Washington, with a .495 OPS. He spent time briefly with the Indians in 2011, serving a similar depth role. You have to wonder if there’s another shoe to drop here. Indianapolis is short-handed in the middle infield with Josh Harrison in the majors and Ivan De Jesus on the inactive list. However, they could have filled that short-term problem by just calling up Tejeda. Harrison will be back in a week or two once Neil Walker returns from the disabled list, and De Jesus could be back earlier.
Adding a guy from the outside speaks more to a long-term solution. The only way I see the Pirates needing a long-term solution would be if they released Brandon Inge, at which point Harrison’s stay in the majors would be longer than a week or two. I don’t know if that is what they are planning on doing, but it wouldn’t surprise me with Inge’s recent performance. And the process of actually adding a guy from the outside suggests more of a long-term solution for Triple-A, rather than a short-term solution. I could be wrong though. They could be thinking way ahead to September when they will probably call up guys like Harrison and d’Arnaud, leaving Indianapolis depleted for the playoffs. I think a lot of Pirates fans would hope that my speculation is correct.
