The Pittsburgh Pirates announced on Wednesday night that they have claimed outfielder Ryan Vilade from the Colorado Rockies. He was a second round pick out of high school in 2017.
Vilade, who will turn 24 in February, has played three big league games for the Rockies. That happened in September of 2021, when he went 0-for-6 with a walk. He spent the 2022 season in the hitter-friendly Triple-A Pacific Coast League playing in Albuquerque, where he had a .245/.349/.358 slash line in 99 games. He has shown decent walk/strikeout rates in the minors, but he hasn’t shown much power, and his best stats have been in hitter-friendly leagues/parks. That was until this year in Albuquerque, where only one of his teammates who saw regular time had a lower OPS.
MLB Pipeline rated him 22nd in the Rockies system in their last update (not recent) and they give him 50 grade tools across the board, except for power (45). He started as an infielder, but he’s now a corner outfielder.
The 40-man roster is currently at 40 spots, though tomorrow is the deadline for teams to get down to 40 spots including players who were on the 60-day injured list. So the Pirates need to open a minimum of five spots.
