There’s some news out of Detroit that involves an old Bucco and one of the best stories in baseball last season.
The Tigers are expected to bring in veteran Drew Maggi to their farm system. Maggi’s Atlantic League team, the Staten Island FerryHawks, announced earlier today that his contract is set to be purchased by the Tigers organization.
Drew Maggi is a name that probably rings a bell to a lot of fans in Pittsburgh, if not the baseball world at large.
Last season, Maggi made his Major League Baseball debut at the age of 34, after playing well over 1,000 games in the minor leagues within several organizations.
A draft pick by the Pirates in the 15th round in 2010, Maggi had bounced around six different major league organizations before he wound up back with the Pirates via a trade with Philadelphia in 2022. He was assigned to their Triple-A affiliate after the deal, where he spent the rest of the season.
His underwhelming Triple-A numbers wound up getting him demoted to Pittsburgh’s Double-A affiliate in Altoona, but after injuries had started to mount up for the Pirates in the early going of the season, the Pirates decided to give Maggi the call he had been waiting a lifetime for.
His debut in MLB last season made headlines across the country, when he stepped to the plate in the bottom of the eighth inning at PNC Park on April 26th of last year.
Maggi would go on to start in the following day’s game, playing third base for the Bucs. From a defensive standpoint, he was great. Not a lot of balls in play came his way, but he was a perfect 1-for-1 in defensive chances, recording an assist for an out.
After getting three at bats in that game though, he still found himself searching for his first big league hit.
That was, until April 29th. With the Pirates routing the Nationals 13-0 on a Saturday night at Nationals Park, the Pirates had Maggi pinch hit for Ke’Bryan Hayes, taking over the top spot in the batting order and facing Washington’s Hobie Harris and having Pittsburgh’s Jason Delay at third base.
Finally, at long last, that magical moment happened:
His shot into the shallow outfield brought home Delay, making this pinch hit appearance two-fold: Maggi had earned his first big league hit and his first big league RBI.
He stayed in the game, replacing Hayes at third base. Then, in the ninth inning, he smacked another one, this time down the third base line.
On May 5th, he was designated for assignment and eventually outrighted back to the Altoona Curve.
He was unexpectedly released by the Pirates in July of last season on the heels of a bad batting performance in Altoona. Despite being roughly ten years older than the average age in Altoona’s Double-A Eastern League, he was slashing .181/.257/.221 with 10 RBI and no homers in 36 games and 127 at bats.
That poor of a showing in Double-A ball made finding another opportunity hard, andMaggi was forced to resort to leaving the organized world of Major League Baseball and look elsewhere for a gig.
A contract did present itself, coming from the Staten Island FerryHawks of the independent Atlantic League. With the FerryHawks, he slashed .235/.301/.343 with 3 home runs and 15 RBI in 102 at bats (29 games).
It was his first time playing for a team with no major league affiliation since his college days. Now, however, Maggi now takes his baseball journey to his seventh MLB organization.
(Featured photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images)
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