Connor Joe’s long, winding baseball road took another turn Tuesday, when the Seattle Mariners designated the former Pittsburgh Pirates first-round pick for assignment.
Seattle needed 40-man roster space for September, promoting top outfield prospect Lazaro Montes and selecting left-hander Hoby Milner.
Joe and right-hander Nolan Kingham were the corresponding casualties. The 34-year-old first baseman/outfielder now hits waivers. Because he has already been outrighted once in his career, he can elect free agency if he goes unclaimed.
For Pirates fans, the move is less about Seattle’s roster math than about a familiar name still grinding it out more than a decade after Pittsburgh called his name.
The Pirates selected Joe 39th overall in 2014 out of the University of San Diego, a competitive-balance first-rounder with a patient swing and a reputation as a professional hitter.
He never became a star in the organization the first time around. Pittsburgh traded him to Atlanta in 2017 for utility man Sean Rodriguez. After stops with the Dodgers, a Rule 5 detour, a brief Giants debut in 2019, and a 2020 opt-out while he recovered from testicular cancer, Joe finally stuck in the majors with Colorado.
Then came the full-circle chapter. In December 2022, the Rockies sent him back to Pittsburgh for minor-league pitcher Nick Garcia. Joe responded with the most useful stretch of his career.
In 2023, he played 133 games, hit .247/.339/.421 with 11 home runs and a team-high 31 doubles, and bounced between first base and the outfield corners. The next year the numbers slipped to .228/.320/.368 with nine homers in 123 games. Pittsburgh non-tendered him that winter.
He has been a journeyman ever since: a brief 2025 tour with the Padres and Reds, then a minor-league deal with Seattle last February. The Mariners called him up in April after an injury to Víctor Robles.
Joe appeared in 21 games and hit .179 with one homer in 45 plate appearances. He was better at Triple-A Tacoma, slashing .264/.365/.420, but that was not enough to survive September roster expansion.
Joe’s story has never been about prospect hype. It has been about durability, plate discipline, and surviving the parts of the sport that do not show up in highlight packages.
Pirates fans who watched him in 2023 and 2024 remember a dependable veteran who took walks, sprayed doubles, and treated PNC Park like a second home after a long absence.
Whether another club claims him this week or he hits the open market again, Joe remains what he was when Pittsburgh drafted him: a professional who keeps finding a way onto a roster.
The Pirates did not get a franchise cornerstone from that 2014 pick. They did get a player who eventually came back, produced, and left a quiet, respectable mark. That chapter is closed. The next one, as usual for Joe, is still being written somewhere else.
