Pirates promote Kevin Newman to West Virginia Power

The Pirates have promoted Kevin Newman from Morgantown to the West Virginia Power, Todd Murray of the Morgantown Dominion Post tweets. Righty Edgar Santana is also headed from Morgantown to Charleston.

From a developmental perspective, promoting Newman makes sense -- as a first-round pick from a top college program, Newman should be able to move quickly. He only hit .227/.283/.344 for Morgantown, but that doesn't necessarily mean much. The obvious question might be how he would share time at shortstop with Cole Tucker, but Tucker has been out since late last month for mostly unknown reasons, so that question might be moot right now anyway. Tucker has hit well since May and ought to be able to move up to Bradenton next year, so it will continue to be interesting to see how the Pirates handle minor league assignments for Tucker and Newman.

Santana struck out 32 batters in 30 innings with Morgantown and looked pretty good doing it, so it's not surprising he's moving up. 23-year-olds pitching mostly in short relief in short-season ball are rarely particularly good prospects, however, so he's probably got an uphill battle ahead of him.