Pirates End of the Year Awards: Newcomer of the Year Sam Howard
Every year, under the radar moves are made in the off-season as guys flop from one team to another. One of those trades produced the Pittsburgh Pirates newcomer of the year. When the Pittsburgh Pirates fired General Manager Neil Huntington on October 28th, 2019, assistant Kevan Graves stepped in as interim. He was running the baseball operations department before Ben Cherrington was hired, and ended up making the first move of the 2019 - 2020 off-season. It came two days after he was appointed interim GM, when he claimed left-handed reliever Sam Howard from the Colorado Rockies. It was a move that didn't receive much press as Howard had pitched just 24 games before coming to Pittsburgh. He was expected to be sent down to the Minor Leagues and be used as bullpen relief later in the season. However, he turned out to be one of the better reliever in the bullpen, and found ways to get outs on a consistent basis. Once he was taken out of the bam box that is Coors Field, he g...