Pittsburgh Pirates Swing a Minor Trade With NL Central Foe

On Friday afternoon the Pittsburgh Pirates made a trade with their NL Central foes the Milwaukee Brewers to acquire a young catcher for their farm system

The Pittsburgh Pirates have traded away righty Jandel Gustave and former waiver claim Troy Stokes Jr. in exchange for the 17-year-old right-handed catching prospect Samuel Escudero. Escudero was signed by Milwaukee this past off-season as part of the international signing period out of Venezuela.

The players that the Pittsburgh Pirates gave up in this trade haven’t been anything special this season and were not looked at as part of the future, so this was a great trade as it helps to give the Pirates a little bit of extra help in one of the areas of the farm that has very little depth down the line.

Troy Stokes Jr. was DFA’d earlier this season by the Pirates after a brief stint in the Majors, where he batted a poor .111 batting average. Even worse than this was his wRC+. This was all the way down to a 10, which shows that while in the Majors, Stokes Jr. was 90% worse than the average MLB player.

Jandel Gustave had 15 outings with Triple-A Indianapolis this season where he was slightly better than his career averages, but still just about an average player. Gustave was five for five in his save opportunities and carried a 1-0 record. His ERA and WHIP were 3.60 and 1.13. These numbers were lower than his career average, which is pretty bad.

His career ERA is 4.60, whereas his career WHIP is 1.55. That career WHIP number is very concerning for a reliever, especially a closer, as their job is to get out of sticky situations and keep runners off of the bases to win a game.

Escudero will be assigned to the Gulf Coast League Pirates, where he will look to improve upon his quick right-handed swing and be a bright spot in the Pirates catching farm depth that has not been too spectacular as of late.