Fewer than 12 hours after the trade, Pittsburgh Pirates manager Don Kelly was still toying with the possibilities of how to use newly acquired infielder Jacob Gonzalez and left-handed pitcher Brandon Eisert.<\/p>\n
Late Friday night, the Pirates dealt their Competitive Balance A round pick (No. 34 overall) in Saturday\u2019s MLB Draft and left-handed pitching prospect Jaden Woods to the Chicago White Sox, so Kelly was excited about the attempt to bolster both their bullpen and left side of the infield.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe considered all sorts of scenarios with different teams, with all different shapes of return. Ultimately, just believed that this trade passed the bar in terms of value, what we\u2019re bringing back. We believe in it, relative to what we\u2019re giving up,\u201d Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said. \u201cIt was not an easy thing to tell the draft room the night before the draft that we\u2019re trading a pick but believed in the value of the trade for the Pirates.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kelly said he expects Gonzalez, a 6-foot-2, 205-pound left-handed hitter, to split time between shortstop and third base. That would alleviate the workload for Jared Triolo and Nick Gonzales now that Konnor Griffin is out for two months with a torn tendon on his left ring finger.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always good to have someone who can do everything. It\u2019s a hard thing to do at the major-league level, so to have more guys who can do that is good,\u201d Nick Gonzales said. \u201cThat\u2019s always a good sign, when you know we\u2019re all collectively fighting for the same thing and fighting to get to the playoffs and, ultimately, win.\u201d<\/p>\n
By trading the No. 34 pick, the Pirates reduced their bonus pool by $2,897,400 to $16,233,300 to sign the remainder of their class for the 2026 MLB Draft. <\/p>\n
To make room on the 40-man roster, the Pirates shifted Griffin from the 10-day injured list to the 60-day IL and designated right-handed reliever Cam Sanders for assignment before the first game of their doubleheader against the Milwaukee Brewers. Eisert and Gonzalez arrived at PNC Park in time to be activated for the second game, so the Pirates optioned infielder Jack Brannigan and right-handed pitcher Thomas Harrington to Triple-A Indianapolis.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old Gonzalez is a former first-round pick who showed a surge in power this season at Triple-A Charlotte, where he batted .317\/.419\/.668 with 11 doubles, 19 home runs and 62 RBIs in 52 games. Gonzalez also hit .244 with four doubles, two homers and 17 RBIs in 30 games with the White Sox, where he primarily played first base.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo show the improvement that he\u2019s showed this year and the power that he showed, very intriguing,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cWe\u2019ll see as we go what that looks like. We\u2019ll see Jacob Gonzalez at short and third. We want to see him move around and see how he\u2019s going, how he swings the bat.\u201d <\/p>\n
The 6-2, 210-pound Eisert is 5-9 with a 4.77 ERA and 1.38 WHIP in 1032\u20443 innings over 100 major league appearances, averaging 9.4 strikeouts and 3.3 walks per nine innings.<\/p>\n
Adding another lefty pitcher to the bullpen became a priority for the Pirates when Evan Sisk was placed on the 15-day injured list with left elbow inflammation on July 4. Eisert has a four-pitch mix featuring a four-seam fastball, slider, changeup and sinker, and is holding left-handed hitters to a .174\/.255\/.391 slash line this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe underlying stuff that the office saw is very intriguing, in how he\u2019s been able to attack lefties. He\u2019s been very good against left-handed batters,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cTo add another lefty gives us some more flexibility to do some other things with Sisk being down. When Sisk comes back, if you can have four solid lefties out there, that\u2019s a good thing to have.\u201d <\/p>\n
Kelly envisions the possibility of using Eisert or fellow lefty Mason Montgomery as an opener against teams that stack left-handed hitters at the top of the lineup, given that the Pirates\u2019 starting rotation comprises right-handed pitchers.<\/p>\n
\u201cGives us other options, if we wanted him to open or do other things, either with Eisert or Monty,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cI just feel like it gives us better options. Let\u2019s say we open Eisert, we still have two guys. If we open Monty, we still have two lefties to deploy later in the game, especially against some teams that have a lot of left-handed batters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fewer than 12 hours after the trade, Pittsburgh Pirates manager Don Kelly was still toying with the possibilities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-241535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}