The Pittsburgh Pirates have promoted 1B/OF Jose Osuna to Indianapolis according to Cory Giger of the Altoona Mirror. This is an interesting move because there doesn’t seem to be an opening for Osuna unless someone else from Indianapolis moves up or out. He could be replacing Adam Frazier, who was playing a lot of left field, but Indianapolis seems to have more solid players than playing time already, something they have dealt with all season.
He has been playing first base most of the season until Edwin Espinal started tearing the cover off the ball in June. Osuna moved to left field, then played some right field as well, while also going back to first base occasionally. His defense is best at first base, but he isn’t lost in the outfield and has a very strong arm.
Osuna is hitting .271/.329/.438 this season in 69 games. Last year in 85 games with Altoona he put up a very similar .288/.327/.437 slash line. He reaches minor league free agency at the end of this season, so the Pirates might want to see what he can do at the higher level. If you followed all of the winter league articles this year, you know that Osuna was basically one of the best hitters in Venezuela throughout the entire season, so he has faced Triple-A quality pitching recently and succeeded.
Pirates promoting 1B/OF Jose Osuna to AAA Indy from @AltoonaCurve. Osuna a nice prospect (.269-6-38) with power potential. Really good at 1B
— Cory Giger (@CoryGiger) June 30, 2016
