The Pittsburgh Pirates activated right-handed relief pitcher George Kontos off of the disabled list prior to Thursday’s game against the Chicago Cubs. He was placed on the DL on August 22nd, retroactive to the 20th, with a right groin strain. He has been eligible to be activated for over a week, but wasn’t ready to return until today. Kontos had recently thrown sim games and bullpens to prepare for his return.
Kontos was claimed off waivers from the San Francisco Giants on August 5th. He still has two full years before reaching free agency after this season. Since being acquired, he has allowed one run on two hits and one walk, with seven strikeouts, in five innings over five appearances.
John 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.
Acquire a promising reliever with multiple years of control for free, and nobody bats an eye.
Lose a good reliever with one month left of control, and *everybody loses their minds*
Jared Hughes (‘14-’16): 190 IP 2.41 ERA / 4.14 FIP / 4.21 xFIP
George Kontos (‘14-’16): 159 IP 2.49 ERA / 3.72 FIP / 4.21 xFIP
Both acquired in 2017 “for free”.
Is your point that we should expect Kontos to suck? I’m open to believe that if you have some insights that I’ve missed.
Is it that if I’m glad they got kontos then I should be equally mad they got rid of Hughes? I don’t think I’d agree with that since Hughes seemed broken.
Yes sir, you nailed it. You have quite a few wannabe GM’s on this site. The Nicasio situation does not move the needle one way or another. Kontos should be a decent reliever for a few years.
people here are tame. i’m more talking about the whole city of Pittsburgh.
Yeah, if you want to see the Lion’s Den, go to pirates.com. Site is a mess with personal attacks, vulgarity.
i’ve been around that site for over 10 years now. the mood there when the pirates were winning was the same as when they were a perennial loser. it was amazing, actually
Silly people. Need to pass out the chill pills.
Dang…you beat me to it! 🙂
As I was reading I thought he only had another year of arbitration remaining because he has had 2 Arb years already – was he a Super 2?
Not a shutdown guy like Nicasio could be at times, but he will throw 50-70 innings a year with decent numbers. BABIP is running a lot higher this year compared to last and his ERA is a run higher this year, but his fip and xfip are better in 2017 than in 2016. Possibly having a better year than his basic ERA would indicate?