The Pirates and Diamondbacks announced a deal sending Utilityman Josh VanMeter to Pittsburgh for minor league pitchers Lister Sosa. To make room on the 40-man roster, Pittsburgh was named an outfielder Jared Oliva for assignment.
Arizona had designated VanMeter for use over the weekend. The 27-year-old has run out of minor-league option years, meaning the D-Backs have had to keep him on the active roster all season or knock him off the 40-man. The Arizona front office has evidently determined that they are not ready to carry him into the majors.
The Bucs need to keep VanMeter even in the bigs. That they parted ways with a minor league player instead of waiting to release him from waivers suggests he’s at least likely to break camp with the MLB team. Pittsburgh would have been third in the waiver priority based on their finish near the bottom of last year’s standings. (The Pirates had the fourth-worst record in the league, but the D-Backs were one of the teams below them). Rather than risk another team trading for VanMeter or the Orioles/Rangers packing him for a waiver, the Bucs decided to give up a young pitcher to add him.
VanMeter adds a multi-position, left-handed racquet to the mix for skipper Derek Shelton. He has appeared with the Reds and the D-Backs in each of the last three seasons and has 649 plate appearances. The former fifth-round pick has a career .212/.300/.364 slash, an offense that’s 25 percentage points below average as measured by wRC+. It was a similar story last season as VanMeter hit .212/.297/.354 in a personal high of 310 trips to the dish with Arizona.
These results aren’t great, but VanMeter has shown some promising characteristics that have caught the attention of Bucs’ front office. He has completed an above-average 10.6% of his recording appearances. Last season, he chased just 21.1% of pitches outside the strike zone, the 10th-lowest mark among 262 hitters with more than 300 trips. That’s partly down to his overall patience on the plate — he also has one of the lower swing rates on pitches in the zone — but that selectivity has allowed VanMeter to make plenty of deep counts. He also has slightly above average career grades in terms of hard contact rate and average exit speed, which pairs his measured approach with some raw power.
VanMeter isn’t considered a great defender anywhere, but he has plenty of experience at both first, second, third base, and left field. Ke’Bryan Hayes and Yoshi Tsutsugo will play in their respective corners of infield most days, but the Bucs have no obvious answers at the capstone or left. VanMeter will likely start out as a bencher, but there should be a chance to earn more at-bats on a rebuilding Pittsburgh team if his performance warrants it.
Oliva was one of the candidates for some time in left field but his future with the organization is now in question. Ranked in the back half of the Bucs’ top-30 prospects by Baseball America for the past three seasons, the University of Arizona product looked like he could develop into a fourth or fifth fielder. Up until Double-A in 2019, he’d posted strong offensive numbers with banging stolen-base totals, but he’s in for a tough season.
The right-hander played in 64 games last season and made 249 plate appearances at Triple-A Indianapolis. He posted a .249/.321/.364 line in a fairly hitter-friendly environment, and he didn’t produce in a 20-game big league look in July. The Bucs now have a week to trade Oliva or put him on outright waivers. Given he’s only 26 and still has a few option years left, it’s not out of the question that another club might take a flier.
Sosa, on the other hand, is a 20-year-old right-hander who spent last season in the Florida Complex League. The Bucs signed him from the Dominican Republic for $150,000 during the 2018-19 international contract term. The 6’4″ hurler posted a 4.31 ERA in 31 1/3 innings last season and beat 25% of opponents at a tiny 3.8% walk rate.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.