Pittsburgh Pirates Trade Target Snagged By San Francisco Giants

Freaking unreal.  Yesterday, we tweeted about Neal Huntington talking on his radio show about the Pittsburgh Pirates making some claims.  It’s always interesting to us who those players might be.

We certainly would think the Bucs were interested in adding a solid bullpen arm.  One like the Giants were just able to nab.  It’s hard to imagine that Jose Mijares would cruise through waivers unclaimed by so many teams, but he did.  The southpaw has an affordable deal, too.  He made it through what, at least fifteen teams?

But the San Francisco Giants claimed him, both the Giants and Kansas City Royals announced it today according to MLBTR.    How could a team, even one playing as badly as Philly, not want to pick up a guy like Mijares?  Maybe they have just given up on the sport all together.   This is baffling.  But anyway, the Giants bullpen just got better.  That sucks.

We touched on Mijares last month:

The names of players that the Pittsburgh Pirates are inquiring on is growing rapidly as the Major League Baseball Trade Deadline approaches. Two more were added to the list today.

John Perrotto has the Pittsburgh Pirates linked to two new names. A left handed specialist who had some fielding follies over the weekend and the 36-year old Carlos Lee of the Miami Marlins.

Jose Mijares is putting up some nice stats, primarily against left handed hitters this season. The Pirates generally avoided such pitchers, but with the need to add another lefty to join Tony Watson, Perrotto has called Mijares the Bucs ‘primary’ relief target for the job. Mijares now leads the American League in appearances this season.

From the Royals website:

"SEATTLE — Royals relief pitcher Jose Mijares is the kind of guy who’ll burst into manager Ned Yost’s office to show off his latest mad scientist invention — a bat with a shoe taped to the end.“He took [Brayan] Pena’s shoe and made it into a pick ax,” Yost said, laughing. “He’s been pitching good all year, really,” Yost said. “He’s pitched well, he’s pitched a lot. I was kind of surprised to see in the stats that he’s got the second-most appearances for a reliever. So he’s pitching a bunch, too.”Mijares depends basically on his fastball, a good slider and, when he’s not pitching, his sense of humor.“The guys in the bullpen love him,” Yost said."

Mijares lowered his ERA to 1.67 with a 2-1 record and 37 strikeouts in 37 2/3 innings. Lefty sticks are hitting just .203 off him this year, but right handers are 17-for-60 for a .283 average.

The lefty earns $925K this year and will be arbitration eligible following the season.