This morning, Dejan Kovacevic reported that the Pirates had claimed Blue Jays’ pitcher Dana Eveland off of waivers pending a 40-man roster move. I was all set to post pointing out that Eveland isn’t great, but that he would make decent enough rotation-filler while the team waits for Brad Lincoln to do whatever it is they want him to do and for Charlie Morton to straighten himself out. He’s nothing special, but he’s not a worse option than Jeff Karstens and he’s probably a better one than Brian Burres.
But then the official announcement came that the deal would be Eveland for Ronald Uviedo. Uviedo, if you’re unfamiliar, is a 23-year old minor league pitcher currently in Altoona. He probably profiles out as a reliever, but he throws hard and has very good stuff (his minor league K-rate is about one an inning) and was pitching well for Altoona out of the pen after a semi-down year in Lynchburg’s rotation last year. He’s not a great prospect by any means and this trade is probably inconsequential in the long run but I just can’t figure out why the Pirates would trade even a fringe prospect for Eveland.
Eveland will apparently go right into the rotation (my guess would be for Burres, to prevent four lefties from being in the rotation at once). You can check out his minor league stats here and his big league stats here.
