Priates get Snider from Jays for Lincoln
The Pittsburgh Pirates have been looking to add a power bat to their lineup, and they did so with a trade early Tuesday morning. However, the player the Pirates traded for had never been mentioned in the multitude of rumors surrounding the club in recent weeks.
The Pirates acquired outfielder Travis Snider from Toronto for right-handed reliever Brad Lincoln. Snider is expected to play regularly in right field.
Snider, 24, has spent most of the season at Class AAA Las Vegas and hit .250 with three home runs and eight RBI in 10 games with the Blue Jays. At Las Vegas, he batted .335 with 13 homers and 57 RBI in 61 games.
The left-handed hitting Snider made his major league debut late in the 2008 season as a 20-year-old, barely more than two years after being Toronto's first-round draft following his senior year at H.M. Jackson High School in Mill Creek, Wash.
Snider, though, has had a hard time gaining traction in the major leagues. He hit .247 with 31 home runs and 112 RBI for the Blue Jays in 241 games in five seasons.
Snider cannot become a free agent until after the 2016 season, meaning he will be under the Pirates' control for four more years.
The Pirates had been linked to a number of more established outfielders in trade rumors, including Cleveland's Shin-Soo Choo, Philadelphia's Hunter Pence and Shane Victorino and Arizona's Justin Upton.
