Pirates Acquire Phil Gosselin From The Diamondbacks

On Friday afternoon the Pittsburgh Pirates acquired super utility man Phil Gosselin from the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The Pirates have a new super utility player. This player is 28-year old Phil Gosselin. The Pirates acquired Gosselin in a trade with the Arizona Diamondback on Friday afternoon.

In order to acquire Gosselin, the Pirates sent the Diamondbacks Minor League pitcher Frank Duncan. Duncan started the 2016 season with Double-A Altoona and finished the season with Triple-A Indianapolis. He made a combined 27 appearances, with 22 starts, between the two levels.

Phil Gosselin will fill the super utility role that Sean Rodriguez had played the past two seasons. In his career Gosselin has played every position except catcher and center field. Additionally, Gosselin fills the Pirates’ hole at backup shortstop.

In his career Phil Gosselin owns a .281/.331/.385/.726 slash line. His career wOBA is .314, wRC+ is 93, and his career WAR is 1.7. He also owns a 6.0 career walk percentage, 18.2 strikeout percentage, and an ISO of .102.

While Gosselin has never been a great defender at any one position, he is pretty solid and consist across the board. For his career he owns a +1 DRS at first base, -1 at second base, -1 at third base, +2 at shortstop, and 0 in the outfield. The most encouraging sign is that he is a good defensive shortstop. Because the Pirates do not have a backup shortstop.

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By acquiring Phil Gosselin Neal Huntington has made the Pirate bench stronger. This is due to Gosselin being a better bench option than players like Chris Bostick and Gift Ngoepe. Gosselin is a nice super utility player for a team to have on their bench.

As for Frank Duncan, he was projected to begin the season in the rotation at Triple-A Indianapolis. He would have began the year 10th or 11th on the Pirates’ depth chart at starting pitcher. Due to this, trading him is no loss to the Bucs.