Pittsburgh Pirates Rumors: Pirates Acquire Keon Broxton From Diamondbacks
By Matt Shetler
Photo Credit: MLB.com
With the 2014 regular season just days away from starting for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Bucs’ general manager Neal Huntington has made his second trade this week.
And once again, no, it wasn’t for a first baseman.
Instead Huntington made a minor deal to bolster outfield depth in the organization by acquiring young outfielder Keon Broxton from the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The Pirates announced Thursday that they have acquired Broxton from the Diamondbacks in exchange for a player to be named later.
Broxton was selected 95th overall in the 2009 draft, and recently was outrighted off of the Arizona 40-man roster back in October.
He has struggled to translate his athleticism into consistent production on the diamond.
Broxton was the D’Backs most athletic prospect last year, per Baseball America. Playing at Double-A last year, Broxton was unable to follow up on a strong 2012 campaign in his repeat of the High-A level, and hit just .231/.296/.359 with eight home runs and five steals in 372 plate appearances.
However, the year before Broxton started to make some serious progress at the Class-A level.
He cut his strikeouts down in a big way and started to show some nice power production. He finished with 19 homers, 62 RBI and 21 stolen bases after struggling mightily for the first two months of that season. But he wasn’t able to build off that season last year.
Broxton’s path to the majors will be blocked by the Pirates’ slew of young and talented outfielders, but it likely can’t hurt to add another body to the mix.