Trade Deadline Outlook: Pittsburgh Pirates
MLBTR is kicking off a new series for Front Office subscribers! Over the next few weeks, we'll go team-by-team and examine every club's deadline outlook as trade season approaches. There are some teams that'll be easy to categorize as buyers or sellers, but many still find themselves right on the bubble where their play over the next four to six weeks takes on extra importance.
There's nuance even for teams that are clearly into buy or sell mode. Where are those organizations from a payroll perspective? Are the buyers all-in for 2025 or just opening a long-term competitive window? Are the sellers committed to a multi-year rebuild, or are they likely to focus only on moving rentals while hanging onto players who are controllable beyond this season? Might the baseball operations leader be on the hot seat, and if so, how could that impact their deadline decisions?
We'll start the series with a focus on teams that have moved to the far end of the standings, giving a bit more time for the fringe contenders to clarify their plans. We'll get underway with the Pirates, who are headed to their seventh consecutive losing season.
Record: 29-45 (0.2% playoff probability)
Sell Mode
Impending Free Agents: Andrew Heaney, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Caleb Ferguson, Tim Mayza, Tommy Pham, Adam Frazier, Andrew McCutchen
The Pirates aren't likely to trade McCutchen. He has played on a series of one-year deals and has made clear he hopes to retire in Pittsburgh. Unless he has a change of heart and wants to compete for a championship, he'll stick around. They'd listen on any of the other impending free agents, but they'll probably have a tough time generating much in the way of returns for Pham, Frazier or Mayza. The former two haven't hit well in 2025 (Pham, in particular), and Mayza is on the 60-day IL due to a lat strain. He hasn't pitched since late April and isn't particularly close to a return.
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Pirates Outright Brett Sullivan
June 18: Sullivan cleared waivers and was outrighted back to Indianapolis, according to the MLB.com transaction log. It’s not clear if he’ll elect free agency or accept the assignment.
June 16: The Pirates announced that right-hander Dauri Moreta has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list and optioned to Triple-A Indianapolis. To open a 40-man roster spot, catcher Brett Sullivan has been designated for assignment. Sullivan was on the active roster, so the Bucs now have an open spot there. That perhaps suggests that catcher Joey Bart will be reinstated from the IL. The club is off today so that may not be official until tomorrow.
Pittsburgh called Sullivan up last week to add depth behind the plate after losing Endy Rodríguez to injury. Bart has been out since late May, so the Bucs needed a backup catcher behind Henry Davis. Sullivan picked up three starts behind the dish. He went 1-6 with a walk and three strikeouts. It marked his third straight season logging limited MLB action. Sullivan appeared in 40 games with the Padres as a depth catcher in 2023-24. He’s a .204/.250/.291 hitter through 112 plate appearances at the highest level.
This is the second DFA of the season for the 31-year-old Sullivan. San Diego outrighted him off the 40-man roster during Spring Training. They traded him to the Bucs for outfielder Bryce Johnson a couple weeks later in a swap of non-roster players. Sullivan has spent the majority of the year in Triple-A, where he’s hitting .218/.254/.318 in 30 games. He’ll be traded or placed on waivers this week. If he goes unclaimed on waivers, he could elect free agency in lieu of an outright assignment back to Indianapolis.
Moreta last appeared in the majors in 2023. The 29-year-old reliever has been on the injured list since undergoing UCL surgery in Spring Training 2024. He’s been on a rehab assignment since late April. Pitchers typically can spend 30 days on a rehab stint but that is sometimes extended for those coming back from elbow surgery. Moreta is evidently healthy but struggled to command the ball on his rehab stint, walking nearly 17% of batters faced. The Pirates will keep him in Triple-A for now as he tries to find more consistency.
Pirates Claim Michael Darrell-Hicks
TODAY: After a consultation with Dr. Neal ElAttrache, Rodriguez will get a PRP injection next week and then be shut down for the next four weeks, Pirates manager Don Kelly told reporters (including MLB.com’s Alex Stumpf).
JUNE 13: The Pirates announced that they have claimed right-hander Michael Darrell-Hicks off waivers from the Angels and optioned him to Triple-A Indianapolis. He had been designated for assignment by the Halos a few days ago. To open a spot on the 40-man roster, catcher Endy Rodríguez has been transferred to the 60-day injured list.
Darrell-Hicks, 27, was an undrafted free agent signing from 2022. The Angels moved him from a starting role to the bullpen going into the 2024 season. He logged 62 1/3 innings combined between Double-A and Triple-A last year, allowing 2.60 earned runs per nine. He struck out 26.4% of batters faced, limited walks to a 5% clip and got grounders on 48.8% of balls in play. FanGraphs ranked him as the #21 prospect in the system going into this year.
The Angels added him to their roster in early April and he has been shuttled between Triple-A and the majors since then. In his 7 2/3 big league innings, he has allowed eight earned runs while striking out six and giving out four walks. In his 22 1/3 Triple-A innings, he has an 8.87 ERA but a lot of that is likely luck, as his .386 batting average on balls in play and 59.5% strand rate are both on the unfortunate side. His 21.3% strikeout rate, 7.4% walk rate and 46.7% ground ball rate are all decent numbers.
He still has a full slate of options and just a handful of service days, so he can potentially be a long-term depth arm for the Pirates if he continues to hang onto his 40-man roster spot. For now, he’ll head to Indianapolis and await his next big league opportunity.
As for Rodríguez, his status isn’t clear but the transfer to the 60-day IL is a bit ominous. He was only placed on the 10-day IL a few days ago due to right elbow inflammation. Based on today’s move, the Bucs don’t expect him back until August at the earliest. He missed the entire 2024 season due to UCL surgery on that elbow.
More information should be forthcoming on his status in the coming days or weeks. For the time being, he won’t factor into the club’s catching mix. Henry Davis and Brett Sullivan are the active backstops. Joey Bart is on the concussion-related IL but should be back in the mix soon since he has already begun a rehab assignment.
Photo courtesy of Raymond Carlin III, Imagn Images
Twins Claim Joey Wentz
The Twins announced that they have claimed left-hander Joey Wentz off waivers from the Pirates. The latter club designated him for assignment a few days ago. Wentz is out of options, so the Twins will need to make a corresponding active roster move when he reports to the team. To open a 40-man spot for Wentz, the Twins have transferred righty Pablo López to the 60-day injured list. It was reported last week that López is expected to miss eight to twelve weeks due to a teres major strain.
Wentz, 27, is in his fourth major league season. He was primarily a starting pitcher in 2022 and 2023 but didn’t quite establish himself as a bonafide big league rotation member. At the end of the 2023 season, he had a 5.99 earned run average and had exhausted his final option season.
That pushed him to the bullpen, a role in which he has shown some potential. He tossed 55 1/3 innings out of Detroit’s bullpen last year. The 5.37 ERA wasn’t great, nor was his 10.6% walk rate, but his 23.6% strikeout rate and 42% ground ball rate were pretty close to average. That got him bumped off the roster at the end of August last year.
The Pirates put in a claim and got some encouraging results from Wentz to end the season. He posted a 1.50 ERA in 12 frames after that claim. His walk rate ticked up to 12% but he also struck out 26% of batters faced.
He stuck on Pittsburgh’s roster through the winter and into 2025 with some mixed results so far. His 9.6% walk rate is still a bit high but an improvement for him. He’s also tamped down his home runs, with only 6.5% of fly balls leaving the yard compared to 11.3% last year. His 41.8% ground ball rate is still close to league par but his strikeout rate has dipped to 19.1%.
That got him bumped off Pittsburgh’s roster but the Twins will take a shot on him. Minnesota currently has Danny Coulombe as its only lefty reliever on the active roster, with Kody Funderburk on optional assignment. Wentz will give manager Rocco Baldelli a second southpaw in the relief corps alongside Coulombe, at least for the time being. Given his out-of-options status, Wentz will likely have a tenuous hold on a roster spot unless he takes a step forward.
Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images
Pirates Re-Sign Tanner Rainey To Minor League Deal
Right-hander Tanner Rainey has reunited with the Pirates on a minor league deal and will report to Triple-A Indianapolis, as relayed by Alex Stumpf of MLB.com. He was designated for assignment by the Bucs just over a week ago but had cleared waivers and elected free agency, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com.
Rainey, 32, signed a minor league deal with the Pirates in the offseason. He was selected to their roster in early May and spent almost a month on the roster. In that time, he struggled mightily through 11 appearances where he surrendered nine runs on seven hits and six walks while striking out six across 7 2/3 innings of work. A look under the hood reveals that eight of those appearances were actually scoreless, as he allowed all nine runs across the other three outings while combining to record just two outs in those appearances.
Meltdowns like that are sure to balloon a pitcher’s ERA, but Rainey retained the peripherals of a perfectly decent middle reliever. He struck out 24.3% of his opponents, and while his 16.2% walk rate was definitely alarming his ability to keep the ball on the ground and miss barrels was enough to allow him to maintain a solid 3.46 FIP and a decent 4.32 SIERA. Those numbers would be a marked improvement over last year, when he pitched to a 4.76 ERA and 5.42 FIP in 51 frames for the Nationals while walking 12.6% of his opponents and striking out just 19.0%.
Of course, the Pirates were surely hoping to help Rainey discover the form he flashed earlier in his Nationals career when they initially signed him. From 2019 to 2023, Rainey posted a 4.39 ERA with a 4.54 FIP in his 140 appearances for the club. That includes one major outlier season, however, as 2021 saw him torched to the tune of a 7.39 ERA in 31 2/3 innings of work. Rainey’s ERA was under 4.00 in the other four years of that stretch, and he even got some high-leverage work in during the 2022 campaign when he collected 12 saves.
If Rainey can get right, it wouldn’t be a shock to see him get another opportunity for a beleaguered Pirates team that could certainly use some help in the bullpen. Their 4.22 ERA ranks 20th in baseball, and key pieces like Tim Mayza and Justin Lawrence are currently on the shelf. Dennis Santana, David Bednar, and Caleb Ferguson are a decent late-inning trio, but Pittsburgh could use more solid middle relief options than Ryan Borucki and Kyle Nicolas. Of course, Rainey will need to compete with other non-roster veterans like Yohan Ramirez and Ryder Ryan to capitalize on those opportunities.
Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images
Pirates Reportedly Receiving Interest In Isiah Kiner-Falefa
The Pirates are expected to make much of their roster available on the trade market this summer after stumbling to a 26-40 start this season that has left them more or less buried in the NL playoff picture. According to a report from USA Today’s Bob Nightengale this morning, at least one player is already drawing interest on the trade market: infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa. It should be noted that Nightengale does not connect the infielder to any specific clubs, and there’s no indication that a deal is anywhere near close at this time.
It’s not exactly a shocking revelation. After all, Kiner-Falefa is enjoying quite a strong season in Pittsburgh; in 53 games this year, he’s slashed an impressive .304/.351/.381 (106 wRC+) while serving primarily as the Pirates’ shortstop. He’s not rated out especially well at the position this year, but he’s typically been a strong defender at both second and third base throughout his career and even won a Gold Glove award at the hot corner. Given Kiner-Falefa’s strong reputation as a defender, he’d be a very impactful addition for a team in need of infield help if he can maintain this above average offense going forward.
That being said, there’s clear red flags in Kiner-Falefa’s profile that suggest he’s likely to regress in the future. Kiner-Falefa’s .306 career BABIP is solid, but even it doesn’t compare to the .360 figure he’s put up this year. That’s all but guaranteed to come down at some point, and he’s actually hitting for less power than last season with plate discipline numbers that aren’t markedly different. Kiner-Falefa’s .298 xwOBA is almost a perfect match for the .299 wOBA he put up last season, which indicates he’s likely to resume being a below-average hitter going forward, although he may at least stay fairly close to league average considering last year’s 93 wRC+.
The good news for the Pirates is that even if Kiner-Falefa regresses to the mean, he’ll be a very attractive trade candidate in a market that looks fairly desperate for infield help. The Yankees are already known to be on the hunt for a right-handed bat who can play the infield, and Kiner-Falefa both fits the bill and is a player the club liked enough to acquire in the past. If the Red Sox end up buying this summer, an infielder could make sense for them depending on the status of Alex Bregman. The Mariners are always looking for help on offense, the Brewers could use an upgrade over Caleb Durbin, and the Astros could use infield help if they hope to make Jose Altuve a regular in left field.
Those are just a handful of contenders who could theoretically use an infielder like Kiner-Falefa on their roster. Perhaps some of them will prioritize addressing other needs this summer or end up not being buyers at all, but it’s also possible that some teams that weren’t mentioned here could enter the fray due to an injury in their own infield mix. In any case, it seems likely there will be at least some demand for infield help this summer, and that demand could outstrip the supply when it comes to rentals. It’s always possible that a team could surprisingly make a controllable piece available as the Rays did with Isaac Paredes last year, but that sort of deal would come with a much higher acquisition cost that could scare away some buyers.
With few surefire sellers, there aren’t a ton of quality infield options expected to be available. Amed Rosario of the Nationals, Thairo Estrada of the Rockies, and Josh Rojas of the White Sox are among a handful of potential trade candidates, but of that group only Rosario is hitting as well as Kiner-Falefa at present and none have his defensive reputation. That could put the Pirates in a fairly solid bargaining position when it comes to the infield market, especially given the fact that they have a second potential rental option for teams in need of infield help in the form of second baseman Adam Frazier.
Pirates Place Endy Rodriguez On 10-Day IL, Designate Joey Wentz
The Pirates announced four roster moves, including the news that catcher/infielder Endy Rodriguez has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to right elbow inflammation. Left-hander Joey Wentz was also designated for assignment. In the corresponding roster moves, the Bucs selected the contract of catcher Brett Sullivan, and called up right-hander Isaac Mattson from Triple-A Indianapolis. (Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was among the beat writers who noted earlier today that Sullivan and Mattson had locker space in the Pirates’ clubhouse while Wentz’s locker was gone, and manager Don Kelly told Hiles and other media and Rodriguez was going to the IL.)
Rodriguez has been limited to 18 games and 52 plate appearances in what has been another injury-plagued season for the former top prospect. A lacerated finger sidelined Rodriguez for six weeks, and he played in just one inning of his third game back from the IL before elbow discomfort forced him out of yesterday’s 5-4 Pirates win over the Phillies.
The exact nature of the elbow issue isn’t known, but it’s a notable red flag given that Rodriguez missed the entire 2024 season due to UCL surgery. The best-case scenario is that Rodriguez is just feeling some residual soreness perhaps more related to this year’s IL stint than anything lingering from his UCL procedure, but for now, Rodriguez will face additional time on the sidelines. With only a .173/.246/.250 slash line through his first 57 plate appearances, Rodriguez could also potentially use this absence as a reset on his season.
Rodriguez has split time between first base and catcher when he has been able to play. For the latter position, since Joey Bart is also on the seven-day concussion IL, Sullivan will now head to the majors to join Henry Davis as Pittsburgh’s catching combo. Sullivan was acquired in a trade with the Padres in mid-April soon after Rodriguez was placed on the IL with his finger injury, as the Pirates wanted to add to their depth behind the plate.
Sullivan has hit .206/.243/.299 over 103 PA at the big league level (all with San Diego in 2023-24). Over 11 pro seasons, the 31-year-old has posted some good numbers in the minors, including a .268/.338/.443 slash line and 43 home runs over 1670 Triple-A plate appearances. Sullivan has been considered a middling defensive catcher, which could explain why he hasn’t received much big league time even while spending most of his career with the Rays and Padres — two clubs that have their share of needs at catcher in recent years.
Wentz is out of minor league options, so the Pirates had to designate the southpaw and expose him to waivers before trying to move him off the 40-man roster. Pittsburgh acquired Wentz on a waiver claim from the Tigers last September, and he has been decent if unremarkable over 38 innings of bullpen work. Twenty-six of those innings came this season, with Wentz posting a 4.15 ERA, 19.1% strikeout rate, and 9.6% walk rate. As per usual, Wentz has performed better against left-handed batters than right-handed batters over his career, though his splits this year (.661 OPS against lefties, .716 OPS against righties) don’t reveal a huge gap.
While his 2025 work remains a smaller sample size, it does represent a big step up from the 6.03 ERA Wentz posted in 173 innings with Detroit and Pittsburgh in 2023-24. That could be enough for a southpaw-needy team to put in a claim on Wentz’s services, but if he clears waivers, he doesn’t have a prior outright on his resume so he’d have to accept an outright assignment to Indianapolis.
Pirates Re-Sign Nick Solak To Minor League Deal
The Pirates brought Nick Solak back on a minor league contract, relays Alex Stumpf of MLB.com. He was briefly a free agent after being placed on waivers this week.
Solak spent a couple weeks on the big league bench after being called up in the middle of May. He went 1-11 with two strikeouts over the four games he played. He started twice at first base and one time in left field. It marked his first MLB action in two years. The Bucs dropped him from the roster when Nick Gonzales returned from an ankle fracture. Solak is out of options, so Pittsburgh needed to run him through waivers to take him off the MLB roster.
While Solak didn’t make an impact in his MLB cameo, the former second-round pick has destroyed Triple-A pitching this year. He’s hitting .393/.452/.625 with six homers across 126 plate appearances with their Indianapolis affiliate. He’s a career .291/.379/.472 hitter over parts of six Triple-A seasons. Solak has never found a great defensive home and has not gotten an extended MLB opportunity since his 2021 season with the Rangers. He’ll try to maintain his blistering early-season pace in the International League to earn another big league look later in the year.
Angels, Carson Fulmer Agree To Minor League Deal
Right-hander Carson Fulmer is headed back to the Angels organization. Fulmer, who’d been with the Pirates on a minor league deal, was released by Pittsburgh earlier this week and has quickly signed a minor league deal to return to the Halos, per the MiLB.com transaction log. The Icon Sports client spent the 2023-24 seasons pitching between Triple-A Salt Lake and Anaheim as well.
A former first-round pick and top prospect, Fulmer never found his footing with the White Sox (his original club) or in subsequent stints with the Tigers, Orioles and Reds. He had a decent two-year run with the Halos, however, tossing a combined 96 2/3 innings with a 4.00 ERA, a 20.8% strikeout rate and a 10.5% walk rate from 2023-24. The bulk of that work came just last season, when he pitched a career-high 86 2/3 innings for Ron Washington’s club (29 relief outings, eight starts).
So far in 2025, Fulmer has worked 42 2/3 innings for the Pirates’ Triple-A club in Indianapolis and recorded a 4.64 ERA. He opened the season as a member of Indy’s rotation but struggled badly, yielding 17 runs in 28 2/3 innings. Since moving back to the bullpen on May 7, he’s pitched 14 innings with a 3.21 ERA and 12-to-5 K/BB ratio. Fulmer has pitched two or more innings in six of his seven bullpen appearances.
The Angels have spent much of the year scooping up pitching depth of all varieties as they try to piece together a passable staff. It hasn’t worked so far. Angels starters rank 22nd in the majors with a 4.33 ERA but are 28th in FIP, 29th in strikeout rate, 29th in walk rate and 30th in SIERA. Their bullpen has been even less effective, logging a 28th-ranked 5.75 ERA and issuing walks at the third-highest clip of any team in MLB. Fulmer is the latest in a growing line of veteran arms signed in-season on minor league deals, joining Hector Neris, Hunter Strickland, Buck Farmer, Andrew Vasquez and Sammy Peralta in that regard.
Nick Solak Elects Free Agency
Infielder/outfielder Nick Solak has elected free agency, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He was outrighted by the Pirates yesterday but has the right to reject that assignment since he has a previous career outright.
Solak, 30, will now head to the open market in search of his next opportunity. He settled for a minor league deal with the Pirates coming into the year and then got out to a great start. In 32 Triple-A contests, he put up a massive .393/.452/.625 batting line. That was partly due to an unsustainable .422 batting average on balls in play but Solak also hit six home runs while drawing walks at a 9.5% clip and only striking out 13.5% of the time.
That was enough to get him to the big leagues but he didn’t get much playing time in Pittsburgh. In almost three weeks on the roster, he only received 11 plate appearances in four games, recording just one single and no extra-base hits.
The Bucs nudged him off the roster when Nick Gonzales came off the injured list. Solak is out of options and therefore had to be removed from the 40-man entirely. The 29 other clubs all passed on the chance to grab him off waivers, so he’ll presumably be looking for another minor league deal in the coming days.
Broadly speaking, he has generally hit well in the minors but not the majors. He has a .250/.325/.369 line and 91 wRC+ in the big leagues. That includes a hot start when he was first promoted in 2019. Since then, he has a .243/.314/.350 line and 86 wRC+. Dating back to that same 2019 season, he has a .291/.379/.472 line and 118 wRC+ down on the farm.
Defensively, he’s played almost every position on the diamond but he’s not considered a strong fielder. In recent years, he’s mostly been limited to the outfield corners, first base and occasionally appearances at second base.
Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images