The A’s saw something in his profile that made him stand out
With the winter meetings earlier this week, there has been plenty of stuff to talk about, from the draft lottery, to the A’s pick in the big-league portion of the Rule 5 Draft, the subsequent trade, and then the signing of veteran relief pitcher Mark Leiter Jr. One addition that has slipped through the cracks for a few days was another addition made in the minor-league portion of the Rule 5.
In the first round of the Triple-A phase, the Athletics ended up selecting Abel Mercedes from the Houston Astros. In the second round of the Triple-A phase, the A’s added a similar pitcher in Darlin Pinales, a 23-year-old right-hander that had been in the Arizona Diamondbacks system.
The 6-foot-4, 240 pound righty was originally signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2019, but was drafted by the Diamondbacks two winters ago in the same Rule 5 draft. He certainly has an intriguing profile, and given that there isn’t a ton of risk involved with making one of these picks, it’s worth taking the chance.
Interesting profile
Since 2022, he has spent time in the California League with the Quakes (Dodgers) and Rawhide (D-Backs), getting two years with each. It’s possible that the A’s will move him up to High-A Lansing to give him a little change of scenery after four years facing the same level of competition in the same league.
In 2024, his first season with the Arizona affiliate, PInales ended up with 19 2/3 innings with Visalia, holding an 8.24 ERA (5.65 FIP) with a 2.08 WHIP. He also held a .364 BABIP and an extremely low 50.5% left-on-base%. He struck out a solid 29.7% of hitters, but ended up walking 23.8% of them (hence the WHIP), leading to a K-BB of 5.9%.
This past season, those numbers trended in the right direction.
He ended up working 39 2/3 innings with a 5.90 ERA (4.78 FIP) and a 1.59 WHIP. His BABIP ended up going down to .337, while his ground ball rate rose to just under 61% and his left-on-base rate sat at 59.5%.
His strikeout rate also went up to 30.6% in a larger sample size, and his walk rate dropped by a little over 6%, down to 17.5%, leaving his K-BB at a much more sustainable 13.1%.
Since his walks decreased by six percent, his strikeout numbers look a bit off compared to last season, with his K/9 rate actually dropping from 13.73 to 12.71. This is while his strikeout rate actually went up nearly one percent. The difference being that he was still striking out a high clip of hitters, but he just wasn’t facing as many batters, leaving him with fewer opportunities and a higher rate.
The hope here is that he can put together his command/control along with his strikeout stuff, as he’s the type of pitcher that the A’s have had success targeting over the last few off-seasons. There is still plenty of distance to cover for Pinales to make it to the big leagues, but the A’s saw something that they liked in him. He’ll get a chance to grow a bit more with them in 2026.
