{"id":69513,"date":"2024-03-29T18:24:30","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T22:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=69513"},"modified":"2024-03-29T18:24:30","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T22:24:30","slug":"pirates-trade-brubaker-yankees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/03\/29\/pirates-trade-brubaker-yankees\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Trade Back-End Starter to Yankees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Pirates have traded starting pitcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/brubajt01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-03-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">JT Brubaker<\/a> to the New York Yankees for a player to be named later. The right-handed Brubaker is on the 60-day injured list due to last year\u2019s Tommy John surgery. He sat out all of 2023. Brubaker, 30, is targeting a return to the mound around the All-Star break.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">We have traded RHP JT Brubaker and international bonus pool money to the Yankees in exchange for a player to be named later.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Pirates\/status\/1773817638914797799?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 29, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Pirates Trade Brubaker to Yankees<\/h2>\n<p>In three seasons with the Pirates from 2020-22, Brubaker is 9-28 with a 4.99 ERA and a 1.384 WHIP. He has struck out 23.3 percent and walked 7.9 percent of batters faced, a bit better than the major league average in both categories. Hits against him have averaged an 88.5 mph exit velocity and a hard-hit rate of 39.2 percent, both figures right around the major league average. However, the slash line against him is .263\/.331\/.450, indicating a below-average pitcher.<\/p>\n<p>Brubaker relies heavily on a sinking fastball that he threw 41.8 percent of the time in 2022. His three primary pitches show good separation. The sinker comes in at around 93 mph while he features an 87-mph slider and an 80-mph curve. The <a href=\"https:\/\/gozips.com\/sports\/baseball\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">University of Akron<\/a> product also throws a little-used four-seamer and change-up that opponents have hit for high averages.<\/p>\n<h3>What the Yankees are Getting<\/h3>\n<p>The Yankees are getting a back-of-the-rotation type starter who battles hard and still may reach his potential. In 2018, Brubaker was 10-6 with a 2.81 ERA in 28 starts across Double-A and Triple-A. He followed that up with a 2.28 ERA in the minors in 2019, albeit in only six starts before another injury. \u00a0The Yankees will hope to unlock what made him successful in the minor leagues. Improving the four-seamer and the change-up, or ditching them altogether, may be part of that program.<\/p>\n<p>Although the timing is surprising, it\u2019s no shock that the Pirates have decided to move on from Brubaker. Most of their <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/01\/10\/pirates-pitching-prospects-rotation\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">top prospects are pitchers<\/a>, and they have several expecting to make their major league debuts in 2024. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=jones-013jar,jones-008jar&amp;search=Jared+Jones&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-03-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jared Jones<\/a> is already with the big club. Last year\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/06\/03\/paul-skenes-2023-mlb-draft-profile\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">number-one overall pick<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=skenes000pau&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-03-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paul Skenes<\/a>, is a once-in-a-lifetime talent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indystar.com\/story\/sports\/2024\/03\/27\/paul-skenes-opens-season-in-indy-but-he-might-not-be-here-long\/73109717007\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">expected no later than June<\/a>. We may also see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=solome000ant&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-03-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anthony Solometo<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=chandl002roy&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-03-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bubba Chandler<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=harrin000tho&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-03-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tom Harrington<\/a> before 2024 is over.<\/p>\n<p>Despite their well-documented need for starters, the Yankees were a surprising trade partner as well. With the Pirates having traded Brubaker, it will be interesting to see how the Yankees employ him once he\u2019s healthy.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Pirates have traded starting pitcher JT Brubaker to the New York Yankees for a player to be named later. The right-handed Brubaker is on the 60-day injured list due to last year\u2019s Tommy John surgery. He sat out all of 2023. Brubaker, 30, is targeting a return to the mound around the All-Star [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5010,"featured_media":69518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,5,35,26],"tags":[4993,4906,6223,6371],"class_list":["post-69513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-yankees","category-news","category-pirates","tag-anthony-solometo","tag-bubba-chandler","tag-jt-brubaker","tag-paul-skenes"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5010"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}