The Pirates designated José Urquidy for assignment on the day they selected catcher Shawn Ross’s contract, opening a 40-man roster spot in a move that immediately changed the right-hander’s status with the club. Rafael Flores was placed on the seven-day concussion-related injured list to clear the way.
For Urquidy, the timing stings because he had been pitching well at Triple-A Indianapolis. He posted a 1.74 ERA over his past six Triple-A starts, a run that came after he had already worked back into a groove in the minors this year.
The move also pushes him into the part of roster life that can be hard to read from the outside. A player designated for assignment can be kept in limbo for as long as a week, and the waiver process itself takes 48 hours, which gives the Pirates up to five days to see whether any trade interest develops before the clock runs out. That is the business side of the move, and it arrives even though Urquidy had done enough on the field to make himself relevant again.
His numbers in Triple-A were solid across a longer sample, not just in the recent hot stretch. Urquidy made 17 starts with a 3.66 earned run average this year, along with a 22% strikeout rate, a 5.4% walk rate and a 42.4% ground ball rate. He had also made five relief appearances for Pittsburgh early in the season before he consented to an optional assignment.
That is what makes the decision feel less like a performance call than a roster squeeze. The Pirates signed Urquidy in February to a one-year, $1.5 million deal, but they no longer had a place for him once they needed room for Ross. The club could have pointed to the numbers in Triple-A and kept the door open, yet the roster math still won.
The broader picture around the move is crowded. The Pirates have Paul Skenes, Braxton Ashcraft, Mitch Keller, Bubba Chandler and Jared Jones in their rotation, with Wilber Dotel and Carmen Mlodzinski in long relief roles. Hunter Barco, Antwone Kelly and Khristian Curtis were also on optional assignment in Triple-A, which leaves Urquidy competing for attention in a system that already has arms in motion.
What happens next is now the real question. The Pirates can work trade interest for as long as five days, and if nothing materializes before the waiver window closes, Urquidy’s fate shifts to whatever comes after the DFA process. For a pitcher who had just put together one of the best stretches of his season, the next step may depend less on how he pitched than on whether another club still sees room for him.
