The Pirates today acquired the recently DFA’d Sean Gallagher from the San Diego Padres in exchange for cash, reports Dejan Kovacevic.
Gallagher fits the mold of a low-cost Neal Huntington acquisition very well, as a former highly-regarded pitching prospect that never quite panned out due to control issues. He had a good minor league career in the Cubs system and was ranked the 82nd best prospect in baseball entering 2008.
The Cubs did what they do with highly regarded prospects, calling him up before he was ready for the Majors and giving up on him when he didn’t immediately dominate Major League hitters.
Gallagher shows all the signs of being a guy who was exposed to the Majors too soon and never recovered. However, he’s still a young guy at only 24 years old, he only has 173 innings under his belt, and he has a good four pitch mix. The odds that he’ll live up to his expectations from his prospect days are pretty bad at this point, but there’s enough of a shot that he could be a solid Major Leaguer that he’s worth taking a flier on when the team doesn’t have to give anyone up to acquire him.
