The Pittsburgh Pirates have agreed to a deal with 29-year-old left-handed pitcher Daniel Zamora. The news was announced by Zamora on his Instagram page.
Zamora was originally drafted by the Pirates in the 40th round of the 2015 draft. He was traded to the New York Mets in January of 2018 for lefty pitcher Josh Smoker.
Zamora debuted in the majors with the Mets in August of 2018 and had a 3.00 in 16 appearances that season. That amounted to just nine innings, as he was being used as a lefty specialist. He picked up 16 strikeouts in that brief time. He pitched 17 games for the 2019 Mets, giving up five runs over 8.2 innings, with eight strikeouts. He didn’t play during the 2020 shortened season.
Zamora was selected off waivers by the Seattle Mariners in May of 2021. He made four relief appearances in the majors that season, allowing three earned runs over 4.1 innings. He spent the 2022 season in Triple-A for the Los Angeles Dodgers, where he had a 3.86 ERA, a 1.35 WHIP and 71 strikeouts in 63 innings for Oklahoma City of the Pacific Coast League. That league had an average ERA of 5.40 and a WHIP of 1.51 during the 2022 season.
The Pirates are very light on left-handed pitchers right now, so we could see him get a shot at some point. The big league experience coupled with above average Triple-A numbers should at least make him an option for that role. We still have two full months until Spring Training starts, so the lefty pitching depth could look much different by then as well.
