The Pittsburgh Pirates have acquired RHP Chris Archer from the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for RHP Tyler Glasnow, outfielder Austin Meadows and a player to be named. The announcement was made by Executive Vice President, General Manager Neal Huntington.
The 29-year-old Archer was named to the American League All-Star team twice (2015 and 2017) in his career. He also pitched for Team USA in the 2017 World Baseball Classic and started Team USA's opening game on March 20 vs. Colombia and retired all 12 batters he faced.
Over the last five years (2014-2018), Archer ranks 10th among all Major League pitchers with 905.0 innings pitched, having logged over 200 innings each of the last three seasons. In that same time, only Max Scherzer (153) has made more starts than Archer (150) among all pitchers in Major League Baseball and his 1009 strikeouts rank fourth behind Scherzer (1280), Chris Sale (1230) and Corey Kluber (1145).
"Chris Archer has been, and projects to be, an upper echelon Major League starting pitcher who we are thrilled to add to our organization to help us win games for the next three-plus years," said Huntington. "Chris is also an outstanding person and we look forward to his introduction to our fan base and the Pittsburgh community."
Archer shared the Major League lead in starts (34) last season and ranked fourth among all pitchers with 249 strikeouts. He struck out a career-high 252 batters in 2015 while also pitching a career-high 212.0 innings. For his efforts in 2015, Archer finished fifth in the voting for the A.L. Cy Young Award.
Archer made his Major League debut with Tampa Bay in 2012 and his 54 wins with the Rays rank fourth in team history. He also ranks second in Rays history in strikeouts (1146), trailing only James Shields (1250). Archer's 28 double-digit strikeout performances are the most in Rays history.
In 17 starts with the Rays this season, Archer has gone 3-5 with a 4.31 ERA (96.0ip/46er) and 102 strikeouts while pitching at least 6.0 innings 10 times. He struck out a season-high 13 batters on July 22 vs. Miami and made his most recent start Friday night in Baltimore.