{"id":365589,"date":"2025-12-23T00:21:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T00:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/365589\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T00:21:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T00:21:07","slug":"pirates-to-sign-dominic-fletcher-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/365589\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates To Sign Dominic Fletcher To Minor League Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pirates and outfielder Dominic Fletcher<\/a> have agreed to a minor league deal, as first reported by Bucco Bantr<\/a>. The Ballengee Group client also receives an invite to big league camp in spring training.<\/p>\n

Fletcher, 28, has appeared in 112 big league games over the past three big league seasons. Suiting up for the Diamondbacks and the White Sox, he has stepped to the plate 377 times but with just four home runs and a 5.3% walk rate. That\u2019s led to a .233\/.280\/.325 batting line and 67 wRC+, indicating he\u2019s been 33% below league average at the plate. He\u2019s been better in the minors but not by much. Dating back to the start of 2024, he has a .256\/.317\/.432 line and 88 wRC+ on the farm.<\/p>\n

The White Sox outrighted him off their roster in October and he was later able to elect free agency. Despite the lack of offense, Fletcher could have a path to being a glove-first fourth outfielder. He has 872 2\/3 big league innings in the outfield, having spent time in all three slots on the grass. In that time, he\u2019s been credited with five Outs Above Average and 13 Defensive Runs Saved.<\/p>\n

The Bucs project to have Oneil Cruz<\/a> and Bryan Reynolds<\/a> in two outfield spots. That leaves one job open for guys like Jake Mangum<\/a>, Jhostynxon Garc\u00eda<\/a>, Jack Suwinski<\/a> and Billy Cook<\/a>. They recently designated Marco Luciano<\/a> for assignment, so he could be in the mix as non-roster depth if he clears waivers. Ronny Sim\u00f3n<\/a> is already aboard as a non-roster option as the Bucs signed him to a minor league deal.<\/p>\n

Fletcher now jumps into that competition for outfield playing time. If he eventually earns a roster spot, he has one option season remaining. He also has a bit more than one year of service time, so he\u2019s still years away from qualifying for arbitration and could therefore be affordably retained for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Lon Horwedel, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pirates and outfielder Dominic Fletcher have agreed to a minor league deal, as first reported by Bucco…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,198559,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-365589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-dominic-fletcher","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}