It may be December 23rd, but the Pirates are apparently not settled in for a long winter’s nap, as they’ve made quite a few minor league moves today.
According to Troy Renck (via MLBTR), the signed Garrett Atkins to a minor league deal. Once upon a time, Atkins was a nice, power hitting corner infielder, but his production has dropped off the face of the planet the last couple years. In 2009, he had just a .650 OPS with the Rockies. He was even worse with the Orioles last year.
They also DFA’d Wil Ledezma so that they could claim the Nationals Aaron Thompson off of waivers. Thompson, a lefty starter thus far in his career, was a first round pick of the Marlins back in 2005, but he hasn’t reached the Majors yet. I’m a little surprised to see them let Ledezma go (if he doesn’t make it through waivers, I suppose), as I thought he had a chance to be a strong LOOGY in 2011. Thompson’s struggled to get past Double-A so far in his career, but it looks like he’s had some injury problems and so maybe the Pirates see something here that’s not immediately apparent to me. It’s pretty much Christmas, I’ll just go ahead and tell myself that.
Finally, they traded for minor league utilityman Corey Wimberly, formerly of the A’s. We know this, because Wimberly announced it on his Twitter account (@Wimboslice3), then celebrated by reciting Wiz Khalifa lyrics. What can I say? I’m excited to have anyone that’s excited to be a Pirate. Wimberly plays all over the diamond and is fast (he’s stolen more than 55 bases in both of his last two full minor league seasons) and he’s got a career .373 minor league OBP, but he doesn’t have much power.
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