Blogs

Pitchers Jeff Karstens and Justin Thomas cleared waivers and were outrighted to Triple-A Indianapolis. Both will be invited to spring training as non-roster players.

The Pirates today signed left-handed pitcher Wilfredo Ledezma as a minor league free agent. He will receive an invitation to spring training.

Brad Lincoln had reconstructive elbow surgery less than a year after the Pirates made him the fourth overall pick of the 2006 draft. Fully recovered, the right-hander has won 13 games over the past two seasons in the minors. Friday, Lincoln took another step up the ladder toward the majors when the Pirates placed him [...]

Thursday, the Arizona Fall League wrapped up its regular season. Four Pirates prospects performed well: … Outfielder Jose Tabata batted .429 over his final 10 games to finish with a .392 average, third-best in the AFL. He was the leader in hits (47), at-bats (120), was third in total bases (62) and fourth in runs [...]

Center fielder Andrew McCutchen finished fourth in voting for the National League Rookie of the Year Award. McCutchen gathered 25 points, including two first-place votes in balloting by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Florida Marlins outfielder Chris Coghlan was the winner with 105 points, including 17 of a possible 32 first-place votes. Pirates first [...]

It won’t be long before Pedro Alvarez takes over at third base, which will force Andy LaRoche to either find a new position — second base remains very much a possibility, even with Akinori Iwamura on the roster — or accept a greatly reduced role. Last month, while they both were at Instructional League in [...]

Next year, the Pirates will wrap up their spring training schedule with two games in Philadelphia. The Pirates will play the Phillies April 1 in Clearwater, Fla., then fly to eastern Pennsylvania for two games against two-time defending NL champs on April 2-3 at Citizens Bank Park. The April 2 game will begin at 7:05 [...]

The Pirates assigned pitchers Virgil Vasquez and Eric Hacker outright to Triple-A Indianapolis and catcher Steve Lerud outright to Double-A Altoona. The 40-man roster now lists 36 players, plus pitchers Jose Ascanio and Evan Meek, who are on the 60-day disabled list.

Seeking to fill a hole in their infield, the Pirates traded reliever Jesse Chavez to the Tampa Bay Rays for second baseman Akinori Iwamura. “He is a good athlete with above-average speed and is a tough out with a solid career on-base percentage,” GM Neal Huntington said. “Additionally, he played Gold Glove caliber third base for [...]