Pirates Injured First Baseman Headed to Florida
In this story:
PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Pirates will have one of their injured players leave the club, but head down south as they start working back to full health.
Danny Demilio of Pittsburgh Baseball Now reported that first baseman Spencer Horwitz departed the Pirates clubhousea at PNC Park with a packed bag and that he'll head to Florida and will face live pitching sessions.
Demilio also reported that this is the last step before Horwitz starts his rehab assignment.
Spencer Horwitz just walked out of the Pirates clubhouse with a packed bag. He’s headed to Florida to face live pitching which is expected to be the final step before he begins a rehab assignment.
— Danny Demilio (@Demilio22) April 20, 2025
Pittsburgh added Horwitz in a trade with the Cleveland Guardians, sending right-handed pitcher Luis Ortiz and left-handed pitchers in Josh Hartle and Michael Kennedy in return.
Horwitz came to the Guardians in their trade with the Toronto Blue Jays, where they sent second baseman Andrés Gimenéz plus reliever Nick Sandlin and received Horwitz and outfield prospect Nick Mitchell.
He hasn't played at all this calendar year, dealing with a right wrist injury, that kept him out of spring training and every game so far this season.
Pirates senior director of sports medicine Todd Tomczyk said that Horwitz returned to full baseball activities and is hitting off of the Trajekt Machine, in his latest injury update on April 16, according to Alex Stumpf of MLB.com.
Ben Cherington, general manager of the Pirates, said on 93.7 The Fan that Horwitz will begin his rehab assignment either later in April, or May 1, according to Demilio. He also said on April 18 that this won't serve as a normal rehab assignment, as Horwitz needs more time to get back ready to go.
"Expect he’ll go to Florida sometime soon so that he can get into a, and we’re going to go on the west coast trip obviously, so that he can continue to get really consistent work and also, he’ll have the opportunity to get into game situations in Florida with the extended program and then from there, assuming that goes well, we’ll put out a a rehab calendar," Cherington said.
"He hasn’t played a single game of baseball in 2025, so I would expect that we’re looking at something as close to a full spring training as we can engineer. I mean, not exactly Spring Training, but this is not going to be a five-game rehab assignment or something. It’s going to be longer than that."
Horwitz hails from Timonium, Md. near Baltimore and played primarily catcher or St. Paul's School for Boys in Brooklandville, Md.
Horwitz would then play for Radford in college, where he started playing more at first base, 161 games, and also six games in left field.
His best season came as a freshman in 2017, where he slashed .311/.384/.481 in 206 at-bats, garnering Big South Second Team honors and Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-American honors. he would earn Big South Second Team honors again as a sophomore in 2018 and then a Big South honorable mention in 2019.
The Blue Jays would take Horwitz in the 24th Round of the 2019 MLB Draft and he would sign an $100,000 signing bonus.
He would spend 2019, 2021 and 2022 in the minor leagues, as the MLB cancelled the minor league season in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Blue Jays finally called him up on June 18, 2023, but they would send him back to Triple-A Buffalo on June 21. He then came back up on Sept. 1 and finished the season with a line of .256/.341/.385 and an OPS of .785 in 15 games.
Horwitz started the 2024 season in Buffalo, where he hit .335 and led the International League with 22 doubles. They called him back up on June 7 and he spent the rest of the season at the MLB level.
He played in 97 games, slashed .265/.357/.433, had an OPS of .790, hit 12 home runs and 40 RBIs and had 42 walks to 70 strikeouts last season.
Horwitz worked with new Pirates hitting coach Matt Hague, who coached him at a variety of different levels at Toronto.
Dominic writes for Pittsburgh Pirates On SI, Pittsburgh Panthers Pn SI and also, Pittsburgh Steelers On SI. A Pittsburgh native, Dominic grew up watching Pittsburgh Sports and wrote for The Pitt News as an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh, covering Pitt Athletics. He would write for Pittsburgh Sports Now after college and has years of experience covering sports across Pittsburgh.