The Pittsburgh Pirates have selected the contract of Chase De Jong and have optioned Yerry De Los Santos to Indianapolis. The move comes a day after the Pirates used seven relievers in a 4-3 win over the Cardinals. That included two outs from De Los Santos in the fifth inning, right before Ke’Bryan Hayes tied the game.
De Los Santos was called up prior to yesterday’s game, replacing Cody Bolton, who was previously called up this week through the revolving door for that final spot in the bullpen. De Jong will give the Pirates a fresh arm in the event that Rich Hill can’t go deep into the game.
In his previous trip to the majors this year, De Jong had a 10.61 ERA in 9.1 innings. He had a much better season last year, posting a 2.64 ERA in 71.2 innings. Since being sent down last month, he’s made five appearances in Indianapolis, with a 2.84 ERA in 6.1 innings. He’s dealt with control issues all year at each level, regardless of the ERA results. That wasn’t the case last year.
HENRY DAVIS PROMOTED TO INDIANAPOLIS
5:09 PM: As first reported by Jarrod Prugar, the Pirates have promoted catching prospect Henry Davis to Indianapolis.
Altoona Curve catcher Henry Davis has been promoted to Triple-A Indianapolis … much more to come.
— Jarrod Prugar (@jprugar26) June 4, 2023
Davis had ten home runs and a .980 OPS in his time with Altoona. No word yet on whether the Pirates will make a move to bring Endy Rodriguez to Pittsburgh, or if they’ll get a chance to work Davis and Endy together.
The last time the two were on the same team was the start of last season, in Greensboro. Davis got the bulk of the playing time behind the plate. Rodriguez excelled at the position after Davis left, and has moved ahead of Davis in the prospect rankings since. Davis will get more of a challenge at the plate by the advanced pitching at the higher level. At this point, I think it would be better to have Davis playing more in right field. I’ll discuss that in a column this evening.
Pirates Notebook is a daily rundown of the news throughout the Pirates system. Check back throughout the day for updates.
+ postsTim is the owner, producer, editor, and lead writer of PiratesProspects.com. He has been running Pirates Prospects since 2009, becoming the first new media reporter and outlet covering the Pirates at the MLB level in 2011 and 2012. His work can also be found in Baseball America, where he has been a contributor since 2014 and the Pirates' correspondent since 2019.
sources say Hedges being demoted to Altoona to work on his hitting…
Jason Delay has kind of messed up Ben’s plans — in a good way. They were probably banking on Heineman/Delay/Plaweck to be easily disposable by Super 2 and then Hedges would mentor Endy.
In 71 AB’s, Delay is hitting .310 with a .796 OPS. He’s a 0.9 WAR tied with CUTCH for 6th on the team. 👀
They’ve both been terrible at throwing runners out , but Hedges has been far worse than Delay. Delay threw out 31% of minor leaguers stealing on him and caught for our young arms in the system. Don’t forget he is a former 4th rounder out of Vanderbilt.
Maybe it’s just because im down on him, but Hedges has seemed to be pretty bad behind the plate including holding on to foul tip third strikes, not stopping pitches in the dirt, and most of the steal attempts against us are embarrassingly easy. Hedges is earning $5 million, and cannot hit, but I guess he’s there to teach & mentor (Isn’t that what managers and coaches are paid to do?)
What’s Hedges mentoring plan…..show how not to do it?
The Pitchers love him behind the plate, That is what he will mentor them on. How to handle a staff, how to prepare with a pitcher for the next game, etc. That is what he will mentor them on.
You wouldn’t be so high on Delay if you seen the Bucco’s won/lose record when he starts
What a weird way to measure the quality of a backup catcher.
2 – 12 in the last 14
12 – 17 overall.
It’s kinda hard to ignore
So he was 10-5 before that stretch where most of the entire team fell off. Still think it’s absurd to cite him as a primary reason for those losses.
Hedges has been leading the pirates with his bat (.424 OPS) and defense (13% CS rate) for a FWAR of 0.1 (Delay= 0.9) to propel the Bucs to wins every night!!!!
Hedges will go nowhere any time soon. Our pitchers love him behind the plate. The Pirates will want Hedges to show how he works with the pitchers and how he preps for games. Will be interesting to see which catcher the Bucs bring up first. I am guessing Endy.
I would have thought Yerry would have stayed in the majors and Chase stay in the minors until he gets things figured out.
I think yesterdays pen game threw a wrench in the teams plans. Yerry was just the east target as a guy they weren’t ready to throw 2 days in a row. Maybe.
I’ll put my 2 cents in on Davis in RF before tonights article comes out. I’ve posted this before: My goal would be a time share (assuming Endy and Hank are everyday bats and for Bucs sake they have to be). Endy (assuming better D) catches 100 games and Hank 60. With a strong LH for RF (Jack), they make up the other half of that platoon vs. LH. For the other games (RH starter), whoever is not catching is the DH. That likely gets them in about 150 games which seems about right.. However to pull this off, they need to keep Hank getting a lot of reps behind the plate. IMO, as soon as he starts to play mostly elsewhere (RF per the article) we are basically declaring he won’t be catching at the MLB level.
When they both get to Pittsburgh they should pick 2 SP for Davis to catch & the other 3 to Rodriguez
Awesome news to see Davis in AAA. It will be interesting to see if the bat stays hot to put pressure on GMBC to promote him to MLB sooner rather than later.
His bat has actually been cold. .214avg last 15 days. .615ops. Not that I’m worried about him. He has crushed AA
Yea I get that. I’m referring to the .980 ops with 10 home runs.
The Davis promotion leaves a hole at AA so I wonder if Gutierrez is also getting promoted.
Any chance they send catcher Grant Koch down from triple A to double A?
Considering Gutierrez spent all last year with GBO and has handled himself well there, he should be.
Gut’s is deserving, and still in his age 23 season. He needs to be challenged at AA where he will possibly be the lead Catcher with Shockley, 26, the backup.
Hope they don’t have to use chase today.
De Jonge is experienced, but has been terrible at the MLB level this year – that 10.61 ERA just jumps right out there. Why not Cam Alldred?
I saw a move coming, just not someone who was off the 40! Who’s coming off?
They’re now at 38.
They currently have extra spaces.
Didn’t know! Thanks!