Pirates Sign Jose Urquidy To Minor League Deal

Veteran righty Jose Urquidy cleared waivers and elected free agency on Wednesday. He didn’t have to wait long to find a new gig. Urquidy is headed back to the Pirates on a minor league deal, per his MLB.com transactions tracker.

The 31-year-old Urquidy first joined Pittsburgh last offseason. He reached a $1.5MM major league agreement with the club and opened the year as the Pirates’ long reliever. Urquidy was sent down just three weeks into the season. He was knocked around for six earned runs in 6 1/3 innings.

Pittsburgh designated Urquidy for assignment in late July. He was soon traded to the White Sox. The righty pitched decently in six games with Chicago, but was DFAed again in mid-September. The Phillies scooped him up to provide some length over the final two weeks of the season. After two appearances, Philadelphia DFAed Urquidy last week.

Urquidy posted a 4.95 ERA across 36 1/3 innings in the big leagues. While the results weren’t great, the workload is significant. Injuries limited Urquidy to just 34 1/3 innings between the minors and majors over the previous two years. He tossed 95 2/3 frames in 20 minor league starts this season, giving him 132 innings for the year. It’s the most he’s thrown since tossing a career-high 164 1/3 innings with the Astros in 2022.

Urquidy’s velocity was down slightly this season, though it wasn’t far off from his peak Astros days. The main change was the addition of a sinker. Urquidy has typically been a four-seamer/changeup guy, with two breaking balls to round out the repertoire. He mixed in a sinker in 2023 with the Astros, but he used it less than 10% of the time. Urquidy leaned on the pitch at a 20.9% clip this season. He threw it almost as often as his four-seamer. The pitch mix tweak spurred a 0.99 HR/9 and a career-best 39.2% groundball rate.

The Bucs project to have a strong rotation next year, with Paul Skenes, Jared Jones, Bubba Chandler, Mitch Keller and Braxton Ashcraft in the top five spots of the depth chart. But almost every team needs depth starters over a long season, so Urquidy could factor in at some point.