Pirates trade for Trevor Williams

The Pirates and Marlins have announced that the Bucs have acquired righty Trevor Williams from Miami for righty Richard Mitchell.

Williams, 23, was the Marlins' second-round pick in 2013 out of Arizona State. He's moved through the minors quickly, as you'd expect of an early-round draftee from a top college program. He pitched last year for Double-A Jacksonville and (briefly) Triple-A New Orleans, posting a rather low strikeout rate (6.9 K/9) but getting plenty of ground balls. In terms of his value and career trajectory, he's somewhat similar to Chad Kuhl, who currently rates as the Bucs' no. 18 prospect. (Williams actually rated as the fifth-best Marlins prospect, although that says more about what a mess the Marlins' system is than about Williams' value.)

Mitchell, meanwhile, is a 20-year-old Colombian pitcher who got a $170,000 bonus several years ago but has struggled to get his career started since then and pitched only 10 relief outings last year in the Gulf Coast League. He was nowhere near the Pirates' top 30 prospects.

This is a minor trade, but a pretty interesting one. The Pirates appear to have gotten a fairly useful depth piece for what appears to be very little. My first thought was that this was compensation for the Bucs losing Jim Benedict to the Fish, but it might also be that Benedict really likes Mitchell's arm and told the Marlins to acquire him. We'll see how Williams and Mitchell perform next year.