Pirates acquire Phil Coke from Yankees

The Pittsburgh Pirates acquired Phil Coke from the New York Yankees Thursday morning in exchange for cash considerations, according to Jerry Crasnick.

Coke has pitched six innings for the Yankees this season in total, while spending the balance of the 2016 season with their Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre affiliate, the RailRiders.

In 70 innings in Triple-A, Coke managed a WHIP of 1.27, a strikeout rate above 20 percent and a walk rate just above seven percent. The 34-year old left-hander is a veteran of five clubs, and had his most storied success during his tenure with the Tigers where he worked as a swingman at times.

In his six major league innings this year—which all came back in May over three outings from the bullpen—Coke faced 29 batters (11 over the minimum). Coke allowed four earned runs and an additional unearned run on seven hits and four walks while managing just one strikeout.

The Pirates just lost Gerrit Cole for the remainder of the season with arm fatigue. While Coke doesn’t replace Cole by any means, he could provide innings down the stretch for a team suffering from fatigue.

The Pirates bullpen ranks 12th among NL teams in FanGraphs’ WAR and are now missing Mark Melancon who was traded to the Nationals at the trade deadline.

The team now sits just one game over .500 with a 1.4 percent chance of making the postseason according to Depth Charts probabilities.