Pirates signal September roster cleaning by placing veteran on waivers

Pirates fans knew that Ben Cherington's uneventful trade deadline was going to come back to haunt them, and it sort of already has. Just this week, they DFA'ed Andrew Heaney after he gave up five runs in 2/3 innings, which allowed him to reach a 120 innings pitched benchmark worth an extra $50,000.

Heaney looked like he had a market at the trade deadline, but the Pirates decided to hang onto him and paid the price accordingly.

On Friday, Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that another Pirate the team definitely could've traded at the deadline was getting unceremoniously dumped instead.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa was placed on outright waivers. He's been batting .364 with an .864 OPS over his last seven games, and he's likely done it just in time to head elsewhere for the stretch run.

Kiner-Falefa has been far from exceptional this season, apart from a flash-in-the-pan May when he hit .344 with an .877 OPS, but he's plateaued at a decent level this month. The Giants and Yankees were reportedly interested in him at the trade deadline, and the Mariners were loosely connected. Instead, he represents another instance in which Pittsburgh's front office just entirely missed the boat.

Pirates place Isiah Kiner-Falefa on outright waivers after declining opportunity to trade him at the deadline

Rosters expand in just a few days and the Pirates have nothing to lose by calling up a few prospects to get an early tryout for next year's team, so that could be what's happening with IKF. Nos. 8 and 11 prospects Rafael Flores, recently acquired in the David Bednar trade with the Yankees and making some waves at Triple-A Indianapolis, and Nick Yorke could come up if the Pirates do a little infield shuffling.

IKF will probably find a team willing to pick him up off of waivers — maybe even the Giants and Yankees, now that they can get him at basically no cost — but for the Pirates' front office, this is another example of Cherington quietly having to admit that he made the wrong choices at the trade deadline.

There was no world in which the Pirates were going to be able to come back and make a postseason push in the second half, so what was the point of keeping so many middling-to-bad players when they could've milked every possible ounce of value out of them when they had the chance?

Hiles noted that Kiner-Falefa can still play in games for the Pirates until he's claimed, which could be interesting for no other reason than that it would be pretty awkward for everyone involved.