Tigers Trade For Pitcher Dario Agrazal From Pittsburgh Pirates

The Detroit Tigers have made one final move to get their 40-man roster at an even 40 names with the acquisition of Dario Agrazal from the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Tigers sent cash considerations over to the Pirates for Agrazal.

With most teams making the necessary roster moves to round out their 40-man roster, the Tigers have followed suit by making one last acquisition. The Detroit Tigers have traded for a twenty-four-year-old right-hander in the form of Dario Agrazal.

The Panama native has been in the big league for just one year, spending his rookie season with the Pittsburgh Pirates. His rookie season was not the best, but what is to be expected out of a rookie pitcher on a team like the Pirates who were a factory for dysfunction during the 2019 season.

Statistically, Agrazal pitched himself to a 4-5 record over fourteen starts tabulating a total of 73.1 innings pitched for the Pirates. Over those 73.1 innings of work, Agrazal accumulated a 4.91 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, while striking out forty-one hitters.

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He also featured a 5.0 K/9, 2.2 BB/9, 10.1 H/9, and 5.90 FIP. Agrazal is a starting pitcher who tends to throw strikes and maintain control (even with a tab bit high BB/9 rate). His rookie season was nothing special, but the Tigers can only hope he can blossom into either trade bait or a reliable backend starter.

Agrazal features a four-pitch repertoire with a fastball, slider, curveball, and change-up. From what his 2019 statistics show, he relies heavily on the fastball with his slider and change-up, rarely using his curveball. Agrazal is not hard-throwing whatsoever with his average velocity sitting around 91mph for his fastball and sinker (grouped for some stats). He tends to target the bottom third of the zone, predominantly away from right-handed hitters and in on left-handed hitters.

Coining him as a “strike-thrower” is shown since he is just above the league average, throwing 50.1% of his pitches for strikes, which are above the league average. His whiff rate is 16.1%, which is far below the 24.9% league average, which is an indicator that he could work on this.

Coming off his rookie season, there is room for growth and potential to improve, but inducing more swings and misses may be a focal point of his improvements here with the Tigers. Although there are people who are against the launch angle and everything that comes with it, according to the numbers from Baseball Savant, Agrazal is a fly-ball pitcher who has a 7% barrel percentage, which is precisely the league average.

The Tigers acquired Agrazal with hopes that he can join the backend of the rotation and eat up some innings while developing that breaking ball as well as trying to induce more swings and misses.

Agrazal will join an uncertain rotation that the Tigers have strung together and will hopefully allow them to have an extra arm who can eat up innings and may surprise the organization with his performance.