The Pirates have designated Matt Kata for assignment and claimed outfielder Kevin Thompson from the A's. If you remember Thompson, it's probably because he had a couple cups of coffee with the Yankees. I'm not really sure what he brings you that Adam Boeve doesn't, so I don't know why the Bucs just added Thompson to their 40-man roster. He's 28, so there's no upside there, and he hasn't even been especially impressive in the minors since 2005. Kata's worthless at this point in the year, so this move doesn't hurt the Bucs, but it's a waste of time. The new management needs to clean up the mess of the 40-man roster that Dave Littlefield left, but that alone won't help if they don't replace Littlefield's bad players with decent ones.
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