The Pittsburgh Pirates signed Fernando Nieve, Andy Marte, and Dusty Brown as minor league free agents with an invitation to Spring Training in Bradenton, Florida.

Fernando Nieve is a 28 year old right-handed pitcher who went 2-4 with a 6.00 ERA in 42 innings for the New York Mets.  He made one start.  Nieve has pitched 185.2 innings in 99 games with 19 starts.  His ERA is 4.61 for his career.

Andy Marte hit .229 with Cleveland in 2010.  He had five homers in 80 games.  The 27-year-old Marte has a .218 career average (183-for-838) with 45 doubles, six triples, 20 home runs and 96 RBI in parts of six seasons in the big leagues with Atlanta (2005) and Cleveland (2006-10.)   Marte had a solid AAA season with Columbus in 2009 when he was named to the AAA All-Star team after belting 24 doubles and 18 homers in 82 games.   Was Atlanta’s No. 1 prospect in 2005 according to Baseball America and the No. 1 prospect in the Red Sox farm system entering the 2006 campaign. (The next Chipper, right?)

Now this is more like it….

This looks nice to see…