Pirates swap Brett Lorin for Robby Rowland

The Pirates let the Diamondbacks keep Rule 5 pick Brett Lorin today in exchange for minor league pitcher Robby Rowland. Rowland’s got pretty ugly minor league stats since being a third round pick in 2010, but he’s a really tall guy, which fits Neal Huntington’s Theory of Giants Being Good Pitchers. It’s hard to say how much upside there really is in Rowland, but he’s very young (20), and the Pirates can probably find innings for him in the very low minors. Lorin, meanwhile, is 25 and hasn’t thrown an inning above Advanced-A due to a slew of injuries. 

Lorin’s shown enough promise that I had hoped the Pirates would either not lose him in the draft or get him back, but it’s not hard to see why the Pirates probably don’t think there’s much upside and since there should be quite a bit of talent breathing down his neck for pitching time this year, depending on how he looks in Altoona and how the young guys at Bradenton look, I think this is an understandable move.

About Pat Lackey

In 2005, I started a WHYGAVS instead of working on organic chemistry homework. Many years later, I've written about baseball and the Pirates for a number of sites all across the internet, but WHYGAVS is still my home. I still haven't finished that O-Chem homework, though.

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