Not the Churrasco you’d hope for, but good enough.
- 2024 rating: 3.21
- 2024 stats: 11 G, 15.2 IP, 2.87 ERA, 4.76 FIP, 1.28 WHIP, 1.56 SO/BB, 149 ERA+
- Date of birth: January 7, 1993 (31 years old)
- 2024 earnings: $242,446 (Pre-Arb, via Spotrac)
- 2025 status: Designated for assignment by Diamondbacks on July 27. Placed on restricted list on August 9 by Reno Aces. Out of minor league options.
Introduction
The Venezuelan Summer League is probably not a league that will ring a bell to many of the Diamondback fans. It was a summer league, affiliated with the MLB, that ran from 1997 to 2015, when political instability caused the last MLB teams to draw away their support for a rookie team and the league. Its aim was to provide a playing ground for young talent, just like the Dominican Summer League, but for players in South America, especially Venezuela, and a couple of Caribbean islands nearby, such as Curação. The Diamondbacks never had a team in the VSL, but the Seattle Mariners did and that is where 18-year old Thyago Vieira from Brazil made his first pitches as a professional baseball player, in 2011.
In a league where there is no age restriction, Vieira is not the oldest nor the youngest, but nor does he blow people away with what already should have been quite the fastball. Coming from a country where soccer is religion, playing baseball is probably for the freaks, and playing now day after day against kids who breathe the sport in the VSL, Vieira had severe problems getting batters out.
After two years of struggling in Venezuela, the Mariners haul him into the USA but despite an encouraging first season, the righty is stuck in A ball for 3 seasons. In his fourth season at Class A, when the Mariners have seemingly given up hope, new pitching coach Eric Katz hits the right buttons and Vieira becomes a credible closer for Bakersfield at A+ with “better control, and a wicked slider to complement his big fastball”, as FanGraphs writes down in 2017. “I always say, God puts the best people in your way at the best moment”, is Vieira’s comment about meeting Katz. The linked FanGraphs article is a great resource for those who are interested in getting some background information on playing baseball in Brazil.
FanGraphs also adds Vieira to their 2017 Top 16 Seattle Mariners prospects, mentioning him to be probably a middle-relief kind of guy, but with potential to end up at the back-end, if they can carve out a good second pitch for him. While he certainly is not lights out in 2017 at AA and AAA, he eventually makes his debut in the MLB, becoming just the second Brazilian-born pitcher to make it to the big leagues: he pitches a scoreless inning against the Orioles on August 14, 2017. At the end of the season he is traded to the Chicago White Sox for some international bonus pool money.
On a rebuilding 2018 White Sox team it takes a lot of time for Vieira to get a chance, but he isn’t doing himself any favours with the volatile pitching for Charlotte in the IL. He might have a string of scoreless performances and then have an outing where he gives up multiple runs. It leads to a 5.05 ERA at AAA, but the White Sox decide to give him a shot anyhow. On a losing team he is given late-inning duties, but all at low-leverage, and the player isn’t able to impress, ending the season with a 7.13 ERA. A year later, in 2019, more of the same, although with less major league opportunities. Vieira is released by the White Sox at the end of the season, granted to pursue an opportunity overseas with the Yomiuri Giants.
The Giants are a giant in the NPB and Vieira joins a team that has former Diamondbacks Gerardo Parra and Rubby de la Rosa in the ranks. He does okay in a COVID-affected 2020 season, but impresses more in 2021, with 19 saves and a 10.4 K/9. There is reportedly some mild interest from the MLB, but Vieira sticks with the Giants for another season. That 2022 season doesn’t go as planned: the player gets injured and pitches just a handful of games for the team, but spends most of his time in the minors.
After an ill-fated season, Vieira returns to the United States and signs a minor league contract with the Milwaukee Brewers for the 2023 season. He is terribly wild from time to time in Nashville at AAA, but a good run in August is rewarded with a promotion in September where he pitches 3 innings before the regular season is over.
In 2024 Vieira makes the opening day roster of the Brewers, but he has a hellish time in the bullpen. Command problems lead to 13 walks and 6 homeruns in just 22.1 innings of work. On May 19 the Brewers give up hope, designate him for assignment but are able to find a trade partner in the Baltimore Orioles and make a minor player swap. For Baltimore he pitches one game, against the Red Sox, but fails to get a batter out and gives up 3 runs on a hit and 4 walks, throwing just 9 of 26 pitches for a strike.
The Orioles designate Vieira for assignment after that and the Diamondbacks jump in to claim the Brazilian of waivers.
2024 review
It was a long road for the Brazilian to get to the desert, but he got there, on June 6. He was claimed after the Montgomery bashing of June 5, which also motivated the call-up of Joe Jacques, that left Lovullo with a heavily taxed bullpen. In that sense, Vieira was probably lucky to be out there and instead of him, Hazen could have pulled any bunny out of the waiver hat, although the 97-98 mph fastball and some moderate success in Japan surely was appealing.
Vieira made his debut on June 7 for the Diamondbacks, when he entered the game in the 8th inning for Humberto Castellanos. The Diamondbacks were down 5-0 after 5.1 innings, a Brandon Pfaadt start against the Padres, and clawed back to 5.3 until the wheels fell off for Castellanos in his third inning of relief. San Diego took a 10-3 lead in the 8th inning and it was up to Vieira to finally stop the bleeding. That worked, as he got David Peralta to ground it and end the inning. The following day he would pitch in long relief in yet another blow-out loss to the Padres, a game San Diego would win 13-1. It was a Ryne Nelson start, when Nelson was still that scary little ducky, and soon the Padres would walk away, tagging Nelson for 6 runs, 2 by courtesy of our Logan Allen. Vieira was summoned to get two outs in inning number 5, where Allen had loaded the bases. Solano would hit a deep sacrifice fly, scoring two, before Peralta, after a wild pitch and a double, would bring home the other two inherited runners. An inning later Vieira would allow a homerun to Higashioka. Though Vieira was credited with just 1 run, he actually let 4 score.
Those multi-innings mop-up duties were where we saw Vieira most. The reliever would play 11 games for the Diamondbacks where 5 of them was multiple inning work. He closed a game 3 times, amongst them the 4th of July win over the Dodgers, when the opponent was 6 or more runs down. All that work was worth 280 pitches, which surely has to mean something. In the end, Vieira probably hung around with the team longer than we could have initially expected, but not long after he gave this nice and quick interview to Jack Sommers, he was designated for assignment on July 27, although his last appearance for the Snakes had been two weeks before, on July 13, right before the All Star break.
2025 outlook
Thyago Vieira got outrighted for the first time in his career when he was a Diamondback. With also less than 3 years of service time, he didn’t meet the requirements to elect free agency, so Vieira had to stay with the team and was summoned to go to Reno. He never appeared for the Reno Aces in 2024 and there is a good chance that he never took the trip to Nevada, because a week after getting outrighted he would be placed on the restricted list.
There was no reason given, but maybe Vieira just asked the Diamondbacks to visit his family in Brazil for personal reasons and was given permission to do so with few months left in the regular season. Maybe Vieira wanted to reload psychologically after having been tossed around between 3 different teams in 2024 and getting DFA’d three times. Perhaps he wasn’t looking forward to the thin air in Reno either and had his eyes set on pitching in Winter Ball before returning to the US and Spring Training. That is all speculation, of course, and fuelled by the announcement of his signing by the Águilas Cibaeñas for LIDOM Winter Ball on October 31.
Thyago Vieira was pitching to a very good 2.87 ERA when he was designated for assignment, so in an alternate world he was done great injustice. But even the basic pitching stats tell you all you need to know: he inherited 6 runners of whom 4 scored, he issued 9 walks and allowed 2 homeruns in 15.2 innings of work. That’s…wild.
Vieira, despite the velocity, isn’t fooling many batters with his sinker-fastball and slider combo. If the “Statcast zone chart” page could catch fire, there is a good chance that Vieira’s is the one that just needs a spark to light it up, as everything that gets in the zone is hit hard, while he hardly gets any chases out of the zone.
If Vieira is still a player of the Diamondbacks in 2025, and at the moment nothing has indicated that he will not, he will probably battle for a spot in the 2025 bullpen during Spring Training.
And why not? He has a decent chance of making the Opening Day roster if he has a good Spring Training. On the 2024 Diamondbacks squad, although he doesn’t qualify, his ERA is third on the team behind A.J. Puk and Justin Martinez. His FIP is obviously much worse, but better than Matt Bowman, Luis Frías, Kyle Nelson, Miguel Castro, Scott McGough, Dylan Floro and Brandon Hughes, who combined for 104 innings of dog turd pitching. I can see him mopping up quite some innings in 2025 and that is what brings in the money.