Jose Urquidy is still on the market.
After an initial report Wednesday suggested the veteran right-hander was headed back to the Pirates on a minor league deal, multiple sources, including Antonio Puesán, later said Urquidy has not signed with Pittsburgh. The MLB.com transaction logs appear to have been wrong. For now, Urquidy remains a free agent.
The confusion came after Urquidy cleared waivers and elected free agency. At first glance, it looked like a quick return to the Pirates, the club he joined last offseason on a $1.5MM major league deal.
He opened this year as Pittsburgh’s long reliever, but that run ended fast. Just three weeks into the season, the Pirates sent him down after he gave up six earned runs in 6 1/3 innings.
From there, Urquidy bounced around the league. Pittsburgh designated him for assignment in late July, then traded him to the White Sox.
He pitched adequately in six outings for Chicago, but the White Sox DFAed him again in mid-September. Philadelphia picked him up for some late-season length, used him in two games, and then DFAed him last week.
Across his major league stops this year, Urquidy put up a 4.95 ERA in 36 1/3 innings. The surface numbers weren’t strong, but the volume mattered.
Injuries had limited him to just 34 1/3 innings between the minors and majors over the previous two seasons. This year, he threw 95 2/3 innings in 20 minor league starts, giving him 132 innings overall.
That was his highest total since he logged a career-best 164 1/3 innings with the Astros in 2022.
His stuff also shifted a bit. Urquidy’s velocity dipped slightly, though it stayed fairly close to his peak Houston days.
The bigger adjustment was his pitch mix. He has usually worked as a four-seam/changeup pitcher with two breaking balls behind them, and while he did sprinkle in a sinker with the Astros in 2023, he barely used it.
This season, he turned to it much more often, throwing the sinker 20.9% of the time and nearly matching his four-seamer usage. That change helped him post a 0.99 HR/9 and a career-best 39.2% groundball rate.
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