Neal Huntington released a statement Thursday afternoon to explain why the Pirates placed Juan Nicasio on irrevocable outright waivers, a move that will yield no return for one of the club's top relief pitchers this season.
"We took the unusual step of placing a quality person and pitcher in Juan Nicasio on outright waivers for a variety of reasons," Huntington said in a statement. "Given our recent record and regression in the standings, we intend to give the higher leverage innings to other pitchers that may or will impact our 2018 club. We acknowledge the minimal amount of money saved by making this move, however, as a result of our decision and Juan’s pending free agency at the end of the season, we felt it appropriate to attempt to move Juan to a better situation for him."
With the Pirates eight games back in the Central on Tuesday, the club made the move to make Nicasio and left-handed reliever Wade LeBlanc available to the other 29 teams in Major League Baseball.
Nicasio will surely be lost, though. The 30-year-old right-hander has a 2.81 ERA and a 1.12 WHIP in a league-leading 65 appearances this year. He's owed less than $700,000 for the rest of the season — the final year of a contract that paid him $3,65 million annually.
LeBlanc has a 4.99 ERA and 1.27 WHIP, and is owed a little over $200,000 the rest of the way.
With the major league roster expanding to 40 players Friday, the Pirates chose to use that time to take a closer look at young pitchers such as Dovydas Neverauskas, Edgar Santana and Steven Brault.
"We recently requested trade waivers on Juan and he was claimed by a playoff caliber club that indicated to us their primary motivation was to block us from being able to trade Juan elsewhere and that they were not willing to give us more than very marginal value in return if we chose to trade Juan to them," Huntington said. "Rather than help a direct competitor and recognizing the difference in claiming order between trade and outright waivers, we chose to take the chance to see if by placing Juan on outright waivers he would end up with a different playoff contender, preferably one in the American League."
The waiver system works like a draft, in the reverse order of the standings. In the case of (revocable) trade waivers, National League teams get the first opportunity to pluck either Nicasio or LeBlanc (or both) before American League teams have their shot. To clarify Huntington's comment on "the difference in claiming order," outright waivers award opportunities in reverse order of the standings regardless of league.
Because these are outright waivers, the player will be demoted to the minor leagues and removed from the Pirates’ 40-man roster should no team claim him.
UPDATE 3:55 p.m.: Nicasio was just claimed by the Phillies, the worst team in Major League Baseball:
#Phillies have claimed RHP Juan Nicasio from the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Brock Stassi has been designated for assignment. pic.twitter.com/eS20s3ZobN
— Phillies (@Phillies) August 31, 2017
