Prior to Saturday’s game against the St Louis Cardinals, the Pittsburgh Pirates will hand out season awards to two of their best minor league players from this season. Steven Brault has been named their minor league Pitcher of the Year, while outfielder Jordan Luplow has been named as their Player of the Year.
We named Brault as our Pitcher of the Year on Wednesday, while Luplow was named our Player of the Year on Monday.
Brault led all of Triple-A with a 1.94 ERA this season. In 120.1 innings, he had 109 strikeouts, a 1.07 WHIP and a .199 BAA. While MLB figures don’t factor into the minor league award, Brault has made three starts and six relief appearances for the Pirates this season, posting a 4.25 ERA in 29.2 innings.
Luplow split the minor league season between Altoona and Indianapolis this year. He posted a .903 OPS and hit 16 homers in 73 games for the Curve, then had a .914 OPS in 44 games in Triple-A, adding another seven homers to his total. He spent a brief amount of time in July with the Pirates, making his Major League debut. He has been up for second stint in Pittsburgh since August 28th.
The Pirates will also honor their top community service player from each of their affiliates before the game. That group includes current big leaguer Christopher Bostick (Indianapolis winner), as well as Morgantown pitcher Shane Kemp (won last year for Bristol), pitchers Bret Helton and Daniel Zamora were co-winners for Bradenton, Vince Deyzel was named the best for the GCL Pirates and pitcher Evan Piechota is the Bristol rep. Ivan Rosario is the DSL rep, which is interesting because he wasn’t an invite to the Fall Instructional League, so he went straight from the Dominican to Pittsburgh. Jonathan Schwind (Altoona) and Eduardo Vera (West Virginia) are also being honored for their community service.
Courtesy of Adam Marco, the wonderfully talented voice of the West Virginia Power, here are the fine gentlemen who served their community well (Bostick is missing because he was in the dugout):
(left to right: Deyzel, Kemp, Rosario, Schwind, Helton, Zamora, Vera and Piechota)
Click on picture to embiggen
