The Pirates traded for left-handed starter Dana Eveland, sending minor-league reliever Ronald Uviedo to the Toronto Blue Jays.
Eveland, 26, has a 16-21 career record with a 5.66 ERA, and has spent parts of six seasons with Milwaukee, Arizona, Oakland and Toronto.
For the year, he is 3-4 with a 6.45 ERA, with 21 strikeouts and 27 walks. He started the season off well, putting together an eleven inning plus scoreless stretch, but was bombed in his last three outings and DFA'ed by Toronto.
Eveland went 9-9 with a 4.34 ERA in 168 innings and 29 starts with Oakland in 2008, his best season.
In a release, Neal Huntington said "Dana Eveland is a 26-year-old lefthander who has shown the ability to be an effective major league starting pitcher. He has an interesting four-pitch mix and we feel this acquisition is a potential upgrade for our current rotation with the upside of years of control."
Dunno about those years of control; the guy is out of options, and will be arbitration-eligible in 2011 if he sticks. At any rate, Eveland will join the Pirates' rotation, replacing Brian Burres, we assume.
Uviedo, 23, started his career as a closer, but has been used mostly as a set-up man the past two seasons. He was 0-2 with a 3.22 ERA at Altoona, with 28 K's in 22 innings, but was considered a Top Twenty prospect going into 2009 by Baseball America and was on the current 40-man roster.
We'll withhold judgment on this one for awhile. Uviedo, even if a borderline prospect, seems like a high price for a DFA pick-up, but the scouts may think Eveland's stuff will work better in the NL. We'll find out soon enough.
3 comments:
This trade today is a slap in the face to Pirate fans. It is outrageus, unexceptable a joke. I have supported the FO since day one. I am sick to my stomach. The Pirates have made themselves the laughing stock of baseball again. THIS ONE REALLY...REALLY HURT. I have cancelled my trip to Pittsburgh in July and won't spend another penny on the Pirates untill things change.
Not many Pittsburgh fans of this deal...
Eveland to me is probably equivalent to Burres: basically a four-A guy who in most seasons is essentially your "26th or 27th man", ie, the first one who steps up from triple-A if one of your starters gets injured. In a good season, such as he had for the A's in 2008, Eveland can help you. Unfortunately he's shown very little besides that one good year in his career to this point. Most years he's not going to give you much.
On the 2010 Pirates, he's either a place-holder until Lincoln gets called up, or else a rest-of-the-season patch once Duke or Maholm is dealt, or both. My guess is both. You could do worse than him, but that's not the point. The point is that the current front office is banking everything on the kids coming to the rescue, and they're not here yet, and there aren't yet enough of them; that's why you have to go out and acquire a fringe major leaguer like Eveland in the first place. Whether there will be enough of the kids arriving soon enough to save Huntington's job is beginning to look like a doubtful proposition.
And of course, trading a guy who's on your 40 man roster, even a so-so prospect like Uviedo, is curious, to put it mildly.
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