As he does every Sunday home game, Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Neal Huntington met with the media discussing a variety of topics both at the major and minor league level.
On Vance Worley accepting assignment: “We are still awaiting word. Obviously our hope is that he will [accept the assignment]. As a guy with more than three years of service and a prior outright he does have the ability to refuse the assignment and go somewhere else. We made it clear that we would love for him to stay and our plan is to send him to Triple-A Indianapolis and get him stretched out so that he is a viable option in the rotation. We may need him but at the same time he has the ability to refuse the assignment. We’re getting near the end of it [the window].”
A.J. Burnett throwing days after PRP injection: “We’re testing out where he is and how quickly that inflammation and discomfort will be knocked out of there. A.J. would like to be back in less than four weeks and we want to put in a position to make him successful. He’s felt good so far and we’ll see how the build up process go from there.”
Cole Tucker: “He’s had some shoulder discomfort for a little bit now. We brought him into Pittsburgh to see our doctors here and we are in the process of sending him for a second opinion. As we always do once we get the information from the second opinion, we’ll make public what is going on.”
Kevin Newman taking Tucker’s place: “We felt like he was an advanced college player and his numbers didn’t reflect what he was doing. After a tough start, he’s had a solid run here and we felt like he was ready to step in if Cole was going to miss some extended time. We felt like it was a natural transition for him to step in at this level and we look forward to him going up there and playing well.”
On the waiver wire this season: “Teams are getting more aggressive on waiver claims and it’s getting even more challenging to even get access to players. We’re the 14th team that gets access to a National League player and the 29th that gets access to a major league player. The number of guys that get down to us is much lower than in the class. We still absolutely place claims and in the rare instance we’re given a claim we work to add the player into our system. Obviously we have not been able to so far this year.”
On Tyler Glasnow’s two starts with Triple-A Indianapolis: “We’ve seen the dominant fastball and the command comes and goes. He’s getting hit a little more than in the past and we can reinforce the importance of the consistency of the breaking ball. It’s just a great learning experience for him and why we are firm believers that there is something to learn at each level. He’s so smart and he’s a great kid obviously he’s a great prospect we’re excited about.”
Photo credit: CBS Sports
