The Indianapolis Indians announced that Pedro Florimon has been assigned to the team, and outfielder Antoan Richardson was released. Florimon was designated for assignment by the Pirates on April 3rd and cleared waiversten days later. He was then sent outright to Indianapolis and had 72 hours to accept the assignment.
Once he decided to remain with the team and not become a free agent, the Pirates sent him down to Extended Spring Training to get back into game shape. He was off for 15 days total between the time he last played in Spring Training and when he accepted his outright assignment. Florimon worked last week on getting back up to playing nine innings and getting some at-bats to knock off the rust. He was playing full games by Friday.
With Richardson gone, that leaves Indianapolis with three outfielders, Willy Garcia, Danny Ortiz and Mel Rojas Jr., who has seen very little time. Garcia and Ortiz have been playing almost everyday, while Adam Frazier has split his time between the outfield and infield. Alen Hanson is scheduled to play the outfield once a week, and Florimon could also see time out there, as well as playing second base, third base and shortstop. Cole Figueroa is there as well now, so Indianapolis will have to get creative to find time for everyone, which includes Max Moroff, Gift Ngoepe and Dan Gamache.
Richardson was recovering from an off-season injury when he came to Major League Spring Training camp this year, so he didn’t have much of a chance to impress the team. He went 2-for-15 with a triple during Spring Training. That put him in a tough spot, as he was already down on the outfield depth chart. He played just six games this year with Indianapolis and went 1-for-16 at the plate.
Also today, Austin Meadows joined Altoona as expected. Tim Williams talked to him on Saturday and reported that he was leaving for Altoona on Sunday. He’s playing center field and hitting lead-off today. Justin Maffei was assigned to Morgantown, in what is essentially a paper move to make room on the 25-man roster.
