After tonight’s game, the Pirates made two roster moves and only one of them was expected. The one that was pretty predictable was Jack Taschner being designated for assignment to make room for Brad Lincoln’s big league debut tomorrow. Ever since the Pirates moved Zach Duke’s start back a day last weekend, it’s been apparently Lincoln would be making his debut on Wednesday night and Taschner makes the most sense to move down at this point.
The second move is optioning Jeff Clement to Triple-A with an as-yet-unannounced corresponding move. Clement’s been struggling at the plate this year (understatement) and the Pirates can’t just keep sitting him on the bench and not playing him, because his swing has obvious flaws that need worked on. Project Prospect did a post analyzing his swing several weeks ago, showing that he’s got plenty of leverage (power), but his swing just isn’t short enough to play on a big league level. At this point, there’s nothing to be lost by sending him down to Triple-A to work on that swing.
But who replaces him? Rocco DeMaro has a credible, but unconfirmed source saying it’s Jose Tabata while Jen Langosch has a source that says Tabata as well. In that first link, DK does the math and sees Tabata as the obvious choice. Pearce can come off the DL but will probably rehab first and Alvarez isn’t likely (he doesn’t say why, but presumably because he will debut at home with an announcement several days ahead of the debut to increase ticket sales — there’s no reason for the Pirates to bury Alvarez’s promotion in the aftermath of Strasburg), and if it’s not one of those two then who does that leave?
Lincoln and Tabata. In Pirate uniforms. Tomorrow. It’s all happening.
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