Bad news for two Pittsburgh Pirates prospects with African and European ties. South African infielder Gift Ngoepe and Lithuanian reliever Dovydas Neverauskas together with fellow Detroit Tigers Triple-A player Warwick Saupold were arrested this past weekend following an altercation at a bar in Toledo, Ohio.
Authorities charged Neverauskas with two counts of resisting arrest and failure to obey a lawful order, while Ngoepe and Saupold were both charged with assault.
Neverauskas and Ngoepe both were suspended for the remainder of the 2016 season by the Pittsburgh Pirates organization. Neverauskas made big strides in the past two seasons, reaching Triple-A in 2016 and getting invited to MLB’s Futures Game. Defensive wizard Ngoepe had been added to the Pirates 40-man roster and probably would have been a candidate to getting called up to the big leagues in September.