Players You Probably Didn’t Know the Pittsburgh Pirates Drafted

facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 6
Next
PITTSBURGH, PA – MAY 03: Jose Bautista #19 of the Toronto Blue Jays on deck against the Pittsburgh Pirates during the game at PNC Park May 3, 2014 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)
PITTSBURGH, PA – MAY 03: Jose Bautista #19 of the Toronto Blue Jays on deck against the Pittsburgh Pirates during the game at PNC Park May 3, 2014 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images) /

INF/OF/DH Jose Bautista

Long time Toronto Blue Jays slugger and MVP candidate, Jose Bautista, was once a middling corner infielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates. That you likely remember. What you may not remember is the Bucs drafting Bautista.

Bautista was taken in the 20th round of the 2000 draft. Bautista had one, very convoluted rookie season. Bautista made the Majors in 2004 at the age of 23, but not with the Pirates. He made it to the MLB level with the Baltimore Orioles who had selected him from the Pirates in the Rule 5 Draft the previous off season.

Bautista didn’t last long in Baltimore, playing just 16 games with the O’s, and was selected off waivers by the Tampa Bay Rays on June 3rd. Bautista lasted only 12 games and 28 days in Florida when the Kansas City Royals purchased his contract off of the Rays.

In Kansas, Bautista didn’t make it much longer than he did with the Devil Rays. On July 30th, he was shipped to the New York Mets for Justin Huber. Bautista never even got a chance to suit up for the Mets, as only hours later he was traded back to the Pittsburgh Pirates with Matt Peterson and Ty Wiggington for Kris Benson and Jeff Keppinger.

In the span of one week, Bautista was part of four different Major League Baseball organizations, and played at least one game for three of them. He is also the only player to play with five different organizations in one season.

Joey Bats finally got regular playing time in 2006 and 2007, but the numbers he put up weren’t pretty, especially in the field. He batted just .246/.337/.416, which resulted in a 96 OPS+. Defensively, he was a mess, being responsible for -10 defensive runs saved and a -13.8 UZR in the outfield in 2006 and -18 DRS and a -8.9 UZR at third base in 2007. Overall, he had a -3.5 defensive WAR.

After putting up similar numbers half way through the 2008 season, he was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays for Robinzon Diaz, and we all know how well that turned out. Bautista broke out in 2010, cranking 54 home runs, the most in baseball by a fair margin, and posted a strong line consisting of a .260 batting average, .378 OBP and .617 slugging percentage. He finished the year with a 164 OPS+. Bautista would continue his reign over pitchers through 2016. From 2010-2016, Bautista hit .264/.387/.524 with a 151 OPS+. No other player had more home runs than him in this time stretch with 249, and his 16% walk rate was the 2nd best in baseball. Among outfielders, his 152 wRC+ is only eclipsed by arguably the best player baseball has ever seen, Mike Trout.