The Pittsburgh Pirates have signed 30-year-old left-handed pitcher Kent Emanuel to a minor league deal. He was originally a 19th round draft pick of the Pirates out of high school in 2010, but decided to attend college, where he moved up to a third round pick in 2013. He debuted in the majors with the 2021 Houston Astros.
Emanuel has minimal big league experience, posting a 2.55 ERA and an 0.91 WHIP in 17.2 innings with the Astros. He was selected off of waivers by the Philadelphia Phillies during the 2021-22 off-season, but he spent the entire year in the minors and on the injured list. An elbow injury caused his season to begin late, while a shoulder strain caused his season to end early.
Emanuel pitched well when healthy for Lehigh Valley of the Triple-A International League in 2022. He had a 2.37 ERA in ten starts, with a 1.07 WHIP and a 6:44 BB/SO ratio in 49.1 innings. He struggled for the most part while coming up the minor league system, owning a 4.56 career ERA in the minors over 590 innings, but he’s also played in some high offense parks/leagues.
The two injuries in the last season, along with him being an older player with minimal big league time, takes away a bit from the solid Triple-A stats in 2022, and nice numbers in his brief big league time. However, it’s a minor league deal, so there’s no risk to see if he can replicate that success when healthy.
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.
He dominated last year in 13 AAA starts. Worth of a flier
MOAR LEFTIES
As noted, Enmanuel is low cost, hence low risk. The more important issue is he’s left handed. He joins other similar lefties. Yeas cheap, but an attempt to fill what’s been a gapping hole.
Not a bad minor league deal. If healthy, nice depth. If they kick the tires in Florida and one of the tires falls off, no loss in at least taking a look.
Huntington-esque move
Anthony is gonna have to rewrite his LHP article from this morn. 😃😃
Did he get an invite to major league camp?
Don’t think so. They didn’t list it as an NRI, but that’s not always 100% accurate
Official site says he was assigned to Altoona. Still not sure whether that’s definitive.
No, everyone needs to be assigned somewhere due to roster limits. Caleb Smith was assigned to Indianapolis today
i remember being bummed the Astros got him all those years ago. Can’t believe it was a decade ago.
Seems like he could come up and potentially toss some non-embarrassing innings
pirates are having the coming full circle offseason it seems!
Now, If we could only get Stargell back…
Maybe if they build a field in the middle of a cornfield to play their home games in…….Get Willie, Roberto, Dock Ellis, and a couple of others for home games 🙂
Better yet, keep PNC and just get the Golden Tablet of Pharaoh Ahkmenrah and you can sign Dave Parker, Maz, Manny Sanguillen and any number other living stars and play all night games 🙂