Pirates To Select Chris Owings

The Pirates are set to select the contract of veteran utilityman Chris Owings, reports Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He’s not on the 40-man roster, although the Pirates have an open spot after outrighting Drew Maggi over the weekend. They’ll still need to clear a spot on the 26-man roster.

Owings, 31, is out to a strong start with the Pirates’ Triple-A affiliate in Indianapolis, batting .273/.360/.523 (121 wRC+) with a pair of homers, five doubles and a 10% walk rate (against a 26% strikeout rate) in his first 50 trips to the plate. The Pirates will be the seventh Major League team for which he’s played, and this will be the 11th season in which he’s logged at least some time on a big league roster. He’s played every position other than catcher and first base over the first decade of his big league career.

Owings hasn’t topped 68 plate appearances in a big league season since 2019 and hasn’t appeared in 100 games since the 2018 campaign. His versatility and strong Triple-A production — career .306/.347/.482 in eight seasons — regularly make him a popular depth piece on minor league contracts like the one he signed with the Pirates. Substantial playing time in the Majors has been tough to come by in recent years, however, in part due to injury but also due to substandard performance at the plate.

Though Owings was generally productive with the Rockies in 2020-21, thumb and hamstring injuries limited him to just 94 plate appearances in that time. His .298/.372/.536 batting line with Colorado was obviously quite strong, but it’s a small sample that looks like an outlier when compared to Owings’ broader track record. In nearly 2500 career trips to the plate, Owings is a .239/.287/.366 hitter — including just a .107/.254/.143 output in 68 plate appearances with the Orioles in 2022.

Presumably, Owings will take on a bench role with the Pirates, who already have a pair of righty-swinging infield/outfield pieces on the bench in Miguel Andujar and Mark Mathias. Andujar is out of minor league options, so he can’t be sent down without first clearing waivers — and even then, he’d have the right to reject the assignment in lieu of free agency due to the fact that he’s already been outrighted once in his career (earlier this year by Pittsburgh). Mathias does have one minor league option remaining, though he’s also sporting a solid .275/.370/.325 batting line in 46 plate appearances.