Morning Roundup: More Draft Signings, Prospect Debuts, Travis Swaggerty DFA

The Pirates sign a few more draft picks, new prospects make their major league debut, and Travis Swaggerty becomes roster casualty.

It was a busy day for the Pittsburgh Pirates as a whole, with a lot of roster moves to pave way for a slew of prospects to make their way up to Pittsburgh for the first time.

Quinn Priester and Endy Rodriguez made their major league debuts on Monday, neither of which went overly great. Priester got off to an amazing start, going one time through the order perfectly, before coming off the rails the second time around.

Endy went 0-4 with three strikeouts while facing four different pitchers, so he was never really given a chance to adjust except the fact it was a major league pitcher each time.

It wasn’t his major league debut, but it was the first time Liover Peguero played in the majors this year, going 0-3 with two strikeouts.

Not the storybook starts to their careers you want, but still just one game into their journey.

Travis Swaggerty DFA

Unfortunately when you call prospects up, especially ones who need to be added to the 40-man roster, someone has to be removed to make space.

On paper this was probably the right move to make, as Swaggerty hasn’t exactly been able to live up to his first round status - although the story is far deeper than just what the box scores didn’t say.

The outfielder not only has had to deal with injuries, but also a lot of personal stuff on the side. There’s no way it hasn’t been hard to focus on the baseball field with everything going on, but Swaggerty was able to put together a really strong Spring that gave him a strong case to break camp with the team.

He didn’t and has played in just 22 games this season since.

It’s an unfortunate turn to a player that realistically was probably never going to life up where he was drafted, but did have some interesting tools that a team could jump out, depending on the personal side of things.

More Draft Signings

The Pirates signed four more of their draft picks - INF Garret Forrester (3rd), RHP Austin Strickland (8th), INF Charles McAdoo (13th), and RHP Garrett McMillan (14th)

Of the three signed, Forrester is more of the high profile player, getting an under slot deal as a third round pick.

On the tweet announcing the signing, Jim Callis of MLB Pipeline said of Forrester “Good swing decisions. Untapped power potential. Strong arm and will get a shot at playing third base.”

I’m not one to read too much into a highlight reel, but at the moment it’s really we all have on him. The swing seems solid, with Forrester showing some power potential taking pitches the other way.

Also impressive was him dipping down to connect on a breaking pitch and sending it over the fence towards the end of the highlight reel.