When you’re a hot young Latin American prospect, and you wind up getting your release from the freaking Pittsburgh Pirates, you must have screwed up pretty badly.

Taking a swing at one of your teammates with a bat? Yeah, I’d say that qualifies.

Pitching prospect Olivo Astacio was on the rise in the Pirates’ organization until he was suddenly released earlier this week. The team called it “significant violation of organizational policy.” As Dejan Kovacevic of the PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE learned, that policy includes not hitting your teammates with a bat.

Astacio and the other player were having an argument, the sources said, and Astacio struck the player’s leg with a swing of his bat. He swung again and missed before the incident was broken up.

The other player — who was not identified — is not seriously injured, and no charges have been filed. But Pirates management, already wary of Astacio’s troubled past throughout his professional career, promptly released him Thursday.

Astacio, 23, was an expensive Latin American signing for Boston in 2002, but the Red Sox suspended him for disciplinary reasons in 2005, and he sat out the entire season.

If Olivo had been in an American League organization, he would have been okay, because the DH would have hit his teammate for him. I can’t wait to hear a take on this matter from Gary Sheffield.