{"id":855596,"date":"2025-06-14T19:12:50","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T00:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/14\/pirates-promote-braxton-ashcraft\/"},"modified":"2025-06-14T19:12:50","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T00:12:50","slug":"pirates-promote-braxton-ashcraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/14\/pirates-promote-braxton-ashcraft\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Promote Braxton Ashcraft"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Pirates have called right-handed pitching prospect Braxton Ashcraft<\/a><\/strong> up to the majors and sent right-hander Isaac Mattson<\/a><\/strong> to Triple-A, manager Don Kelly told reporters (including MLB.com\u2019s Alex Stumpf<\/a>).\u00a0 No further transaction was required since Ashcraft has been on the Bucs\u2019 40-man roster since November 2023.\u00a0 Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/a> reported yesterday that Ashcraft would be traveling with the Pirates on their current road trip to Arizona, though it wasn\u2019t clear if Ashcraft would be officially activated or if he would just be part of the team\u2019s taxi squad.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, Ashcraft will indeed get his first taste of Major League action, and he\u2019ll also be operating in a new role.\u00a0 Ashcraft has started 69 of his 71 career games in the minors, but Kelly said that Ashcraft will for now work as a long reliever or bulk pitcher on Pittsburgh\u2019s staff.\u00a0 This would seem to indicate that Mike Burrows<\/a><\/strong> will remain as the Pirates\u2019 fifth starter behind the stable top four of Paul Skenes<\/a><\/strong>, Mitch Keller<\/a><\/strong>, Andrew Heaney<\/a><\/strong>, and Bailey Falter<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 Burrows was only just called up within the last week to replace Carmen Mlodzinski<\/a><\/strong>, who struggled over nine starts.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh fans may continue to raise eyebrows over the fact that Bubba Chandler<\/a><\/strong> has yet to be recalled for his MLB debut, as the Bucs have thus far turned to Burrows (whose lone career big league game came in 2024), plus two other pitchers (Tom Harrington<\/a><\/strong> and now Ashcraft) who hadn\u2019t yet appeared in the Show.\u00a0 While Chandler is one of the sport\u2019s best overall prospects, the pitching-rich Pirates seem more willing for now to give looks to some of their other well-regarded young arms.<\/p>\n

Ashcraft has been waiting a while for the call to the majors, as he was a second-round pick for the Pirates back in the 2018 draft.\u00a0 Multiple injuries (including a Tommy John surgery in 2021) slowed his progress, and Ashcraft has logged only 283 1\/3 innings over parts of six pro seasons.\u00a0 The Bucs still felt confident enough in his potential to add Ashcraft to their 40-man roster in advance of the 2023 Rule 5 Draft, and he went on to post good numbers across two levels in 2024, even with forearm inflammation again limiting his time on the mound.<\/p>\n

Over 48 1\/3 innings at Triple-A this season, Ashcraft has a 5.03 ERA, though a .361 BABIP has contributed to that inflated number.\u00a0 Ashcraft\u2019s 51.1% grounder rate, 25.6% strikeout rate, and 8.7% walk rate paint a better picture of his performance, even if his control has dipped a bit in comparison to his last couple of post-surgery seasons.<\/p>\n

Baseball America ranks the righty as the fourth-best minor leaguer in the Pirates\u2019 farm system, while MLB Pipeline has him seventh on their Bucs top 30 list.\u00a0 Both scouting reports wonder if Ashcraft may be best suited to relief pitching, given both his injury history his lack of a strong or consistent changeup.\u00a0 Ashcraft has a plus fastball in the 95-98mph range, and his slider and curveball are also intriguing enough to make the right-hander a potential three-pitch threat.<\/p>\n

Since Pittsburgh\u2019s rotation is fairly full at the moment and Chandler\u2019s debut is looming, Ashcraft\u2019s bullpen role will allow him to get his foot in the door at the MLB level, and perhaps also hint at his eventual future.\u00a0 Obviously the Pirates will still give Ashcraft some looks as a starter down the road before committing one way or the other to his future deployment, and for now, Ashcraft will get the opportunity to help out the Pirates\u2019 inconsistent pen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Tyisha Schewe
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The Pirates have called right-handed pitching prospect Braxton Ashcraft up to the majors and sent right-hander Isaac Mattson to Triple-A, manager Don Kelly told reporters (including MLB.com\u2019s Alex Stumpf).\u00a0 No further transaction was required since Ashcraft has been on the Bucs\u2019 40-man roster since November 2023.\u00a0 Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported yesterday that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":855597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25537,29742],"tags":[6911,5316],"class_list":{"0":"post-855596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pirates","8":"category-promote","9":"tag-pirates","10":"tag-promote"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=855596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}