{"id":81814,"date":"2024-07-30T17:53:16","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T21:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=81814"},"modified":"2024-07-30T17:53:16","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T21:53:16","slug":"pirates-trade-de-la-cruz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/30\/pirates-trade-de-la-cruz\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Trade for Marlins Power Hitter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Pirates have acquired power-hitting outfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/delacbr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bryan De La Cruz<\/a> in a trade with the Miami Marlins. Jon Heyman of MLB.com was first with the story of this <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/26\/pirates-scouting-bryan-de-la-cruz\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">long-rumored deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Bryan De La Cruz goes to Pirates<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JonHeyman\/status\/1818394351002603665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 30, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Pirates Trade For Marlins Power Hitter De La Cruz<\/h3>\n<p>Entering Tuesday\u2019s action, De La Cruz is hitting .245\/.289\/.417, 18 HR, 51 RBI, and 93 OPS+. As far as right-handed-hitting outfielders are concerned, these are numbers similar to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/j\/joeco01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connor Joe<\/a>\u2019s, except with more power. The 27-year-old De La Cruz is sure to surpass his career-high 19 homers this season. On MLB Network, analyst <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/reynoha01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Harold Reynolds<\/a> stated his belief that De La Cruz has a higher ceiling. The Pirates\u2019 right-handed hitting outfielders have the second-worst slugging percentage in the majors, so the move is more significant than it might appear on the surface.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9a0C_kT8xaY?si=QUIACD6GntjRGFu1\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>De La Cruz grades as a poor outfielder. The Pirates should be able to hide him in PNC Park\u2019s short right field. Another possibility is to use De La Cruz as a designated hitter and use <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mccutan01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andrew McCutchen<\/a> in the outfield. De La Cruz is controllable through 2027, another factor that likely made him attractive to the Pirates.<\/p>\n<p>After reportedly being <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/26\/marlins-chisholm-pirates-possible-destination\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">in on<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/chishja01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jazz Chisholm Jr.<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/diazya01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Yandy D\u00edaz<\/a>, De La Cruz may have been a backup plan. The Pirates\u2019 switchboard likely isn\u2019t lighting up with World Series ticket orders with this deal. Even so, adding one home-run hitter is better than adding none. De La Cruz may only move the needle a little bit, but in a tight Wild Card race, a little bit can be important.<\/p>\n<p>The rebuilding Marlins will be getting right-handed pitcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=shim--000jun&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jun-Seok Shim<\/a> (the Pirates\u2019 No. 17 prospect) and corner infielder\/catcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=forres004gar\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Garret Forrester<\/a> (No. 18). Shim is currently in the Rookie league, while Forrester is in Single-A. Their projected arrival in the big time is 2026, which is in line with the type of prospect Miami was interested in.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Thomas Shea-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Pirates have acquired power-hitting outfielder Bryan De La Cruz in a trade with the Miami Marlins. Jon Heyman of MLB.com was first with the story of this long-rumored deal. Bryan De La Cruz goes to Pirates \u2014 Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) July 30, 2024 Pirates Trade For Marlins Power Hitter De La Cruz Entering [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5010,"featured_media":81824,"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":[26,1071,35],"tags":[610,5150,4535,5149,71,2496],"class_list":["post-81814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pirates","category-mlb","category-news","tag-andrew-mccutchen","tag-bryan-de-la-cruz","tag-connor-joe","tag-jazz-chisholm-jr","tag-miami-marlins","tag-yandy-diaz"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81814","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=81814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}