Morning Rundown: Pirates sign Jake Lamb to minor league contract, DFA Andre Jackson
Pirates sign eight-year big leaguer Lamb on minor league deal
The Pittsburgh Pirates signed former All-Star Jake Lamb to a minor league contract on Thursday.
Lamb, 33, was originally drafted by the Pirates out of high school as a 38th-round pick in 2009 but didn’t sign. He was drafted three years later by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the sixth round after going to the University of Washington.
He spent last year in the Angels organization, playing 19 games in the majors, posting a .216/.259/.353 line with a wRC+ of just 64, two home runs, and five RBI.
Lamb has a career wRC+ of 97, with 96 home runs in 2650 plate appearances. 30 of those 96 home runs came during his All-Star 2017 season.
Andre Jackson was designated for assignment on Thursday, opening up a roster spot for Andrew McCutchen.
Originally claimed off of waivers from the Dodgers last year, Jackson pitched in 12 games, seven starts, while with the Pirates, posting a 1-3 record and 4.33 ERA while striking out 41 batters in 43.2 innings pitched.
He struck out seven in five perfect innings across his first two appearances for the team.
It appears him getting DFA was also to allow him an opportunity to play in Japan, making Jackson the second player to take this route this off-season (Thomas Hatch).
Quick site update, unless something happens on Sunday, there will be no content on Christmas Day. Enjoy the holidays with your family.
We will pick things back up on Tuesday with the weekly mailbag feature (No morning rundown). Wednesday we will be 100% back on schedule.
Every Monday during the offseason, we will be doing a mailbag article. Please send in your questions to have them answered! Either comment below with ‘mailbag’ entered in the message or email us at bucsondeckqa@gmail.com.
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Diego Castillo got dfa’d.
The whole Castillo/Park/Tucu UT thing sure went badly.
In other news, Dodgers follow up signing Ohtani to biggest FA contract in MLB history, by signing Yamamoto to richest pitching only FA contract in MLB history.
Appears losing to small market Arizona has caused Dodgers ownership to channel their inner Steve Cohen. I personally hope their grand plan to buy a championship ends up in the same dumpster as Mets currently reside in.