Pittsburgh Pirates: Five More Surprising Ex-Players Still Active

Drew Hutchison

The Pirates made a questionable trade at the 2016 trade deadline. To shed the remaining amount left on Francisco Liriano’s contract, the Pirates traded Liriano, along with former first-round pick Reese McGuire and then outfield prospect Harold Ramirez to the Toronto Blue Jays. In return, the Pirates received back right-hander Drew Hutchison.

Hutchison arguably has one of the strangest seasons in MLB history under his belt. In 2015, the right-hander won 13 games and only had 5 losses. The thing is, he had a 5.27 ERA, 4.42 FIP, and 1.483 WHIP. So how did he get credited with 13 wins despite having the highest ERA in 2015 in at least 150 innings? The Blue Jays averaged nearly 8 runs per game (7.9 to be exact) when Hutchison took the mound. Among pitchers with at least 150 innings in a single season since 2010, it’s the most run support a pitcher has received. It’s also the highest winning percentage for a pitcher with a 5.00+ ERA in the sport’s history.

Before being acquired by the Pirates, Hutchison spent most of 2016 with the Jays’ Triple-A team. He pitched just 12.2 innings in the majors with Toronto giving up 7 earned runs on 4 home runs. Post-trade, Hutchison would only go on to throw 11.1 innings, surrendering 7 more ER. This would be the only innings Hutchison would throw in the majors for the Pirates. The right-hander didn’t appear in the major leagues in 2017, logging 159.1 innings with Triple-A Indianapolis. He was released at the season’s end.

Hutchison would then latch on with the Philadelphia Phillies, as well as the Los Angeles Dodgers for the 2018 season, but only threw 42.2 innings in the majors for both teams combined. In 2019 he would bounce around with the New York Yankees, Minnesota Twins, and LA Angels. 2020 marked his foray into Independent League ball, tossing 22 innings with the Milwaukee Milk Men. Finally, Hutchison made his return to the bigs this year with the Detroit Tigers. He would pitch just 21.1 innings while surrendering only 5 earned runs. However, he also gave up 11 walks with 10 K’s.

Hutchison has pitched sporadically throughout the last 10 seasons, but the oddity of his 2015 season has made his name more popular in the baseball community, mainly because of popular baseball YouTuber Foolish Baseball’s video analyzing the season. He may never be a massively popular pitcher, but his ‘15 season will remain an interesting footnote in the sport’s history.