The Pittsburgh Pirates have cut eight more players today. The players are as follows.
Casey Sadler
Collin Balester
Gift Ngoepe
Jeremy Bleich
Willy Garcia
Alen Hanson
Mel Rojas Jr.
Jameson Taillon
Taillon, Hanson and Sadler have all been optioned to Indianapolis, while Garcia has been optioned to Altoona. The other four players have been reassigned to minor league camp. There are now 49 players in major league camp.
No real surprises here, which is going to be the theme this Spring. From the prospect side, Taillon, Garcia, Hanson, and Rojas all have zero days of service time, and all have a future with the big league club. Tomorrow is the deadline to send down guys with zero service time and avoid placing them on the MLB disabled list if they have an injury in big league camp. So it makes sense that these guys went down today.
Taillon will continue his rehab progression, throwing his next live batting practice tomorrow at Pirate City. At this point he won’t make it into games until the end of Spring Training, and will open the season in extended Spring Training.
The writing was on the wall for Sadler last night. He threw one inning in relief, and after the game I asked Clint Hurdle if he was still in consideration for a starting role. Hurdle said they still wanted him as a starter, but that they were running out of innings. He was cut today so that he could go to minor league camp and get stretched out.
I’ll have more on Garcia, Hanson, Rojas, and comments from Neal Huntington in a later article.
Tim started Pirates Prospects in 2009 from his home in Virginia, which was 40 minutes from where Pedro Alvarez made his pro debut in Lynchburg. That year, the Lynchburg Hillcats won the Carolina League championship, and Pirates Prospects was born from Tim's reporting along the way. The site has grown over the years to include many more writers, and Tim has gone on to become a credentialed MLB reporter, producing Pirates Prospects each year, and will publish his 11th Prospect Guide this offseason. He has also served as the Pittsburgh Pirates correspondent for Baseball America since 2019. Behind the scenes, Tim is an avid music lover, and most of the money he gets paid to run this site goes to vinyl records.
So long for now Willy. Thanks for the 3-run bomb yesterday. We’ll look forward to seeing you in September.
Interesting that E Diaz and Kingham have 0 days of service time and they didn’t get optioned.
Diaz was scheduled to start behind the plate today and Kingham scheduled to pitch, so expect them gone by tomorrow
At least Garcia went out in style!
Through adversity comes growth, all these guys have bright futures let’s just hope they stay the course and become the big league players of the future.
Sadler, Hanson and Garcia looked good this spring. The future is bright for the Bucs.