Joel Sherman tweets that one of the players headed from the Pirates to the Yankees in the impending A.J. Burnett deal is minor-league reliever Diego Moreno.
That makes plenty of sense — the Yankees probably look at Moreno and see a young pitcher with a great arm and some very interesting minor-league stat lines, while the Pirates look at Moreno and see … well, actually, it’s not entirely clear what they see, but they definitely see something. The Bucs suspended him for some sort of bad behavior in 2010, then sent him back to Class A+ Bradenton in 2011 even after he’d laid waste to that level in 2010. He ended up pitching not nearly as well in 2011 as he did in 2010. The Pirates left him unprotected in the Rule 5 Draft last year, and he didn’t get selected, which suggests that there may be something people around baseball know about him that we the fans don’t. In any case, it’s unsurprising that the Pirates are willing to give him up, and it makes sense that the Yankees would want him.
For more on the Pirates, check out Bucs Dugout. For more on the Yankees, there’s Pinstripe Alley.