4:14PM: The Pirates are also open to hearing what teams might offer for Mitch Keller, Heyman tweets, but like with Bednar, a trade doesn’t seem likely. It would seem like Pittsburgh is taking a broad, due-diligence approach to the deadline just in case a special opportunity arises, yet moving a building-block type like Keller or Bednar would indeed require a real blockbuster of an offer.
3:25PM: The Pirates are willing to listen to trade offers on closer David Bednar, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post, though he adds that it will likely be difficult to get a deal together.
Bednar, 28, would undoubtedly be of interest to any club around the league, given the way he keeps taking his game to new levels. Across 2021 and 2022, he posted a 2.40 earned run average in 106 appearances, striking out 32.7% of batters faced while walking 7.8%. This year, he’s cut his walk rate to just 5.8%, helping him drop his ERA to 1.15. He earned 19 saves last year and has already matched that figure here in 2023.
On top of his obvious skills, Bednar would have plenty of appeal to MLB clubs based on his status. He came into the 2023 season with two years and 76 days of service time. That means he’ll qualify for arbitration for the first time this winter and won’t be scheduled to reach free agency until after the 2026 campaign. Just about every contending club can use a strong bullpen upgrade at this time of year, bumping every other reliever down one spot in the pecking order.
Of course, the same qualities that make Bednar attractive to the other 29 clubs also work on the Pirates. The club has faded after a hot start and is now 43-56, but they have shown enough potential this year to suggest that maybe contention isn’t too far away. Reliever performance is volatile and there is a school of thought that a club in seller position should be open to moving any member of its bullpen, which makes it fairly logical for the Bucs to listen and see what’s out there. But Bednar’s elite performance and local ties, having been born in Pittsburgh and raised nearby, suggest they will need to be blown away in order for a deal to come together.
It’s important to distinguish between a club that’s willing to listen to offers versus one that is actively shopping a player around. There’s nothing to suggest the Pirates have done the latter, so it’s possible that their open mind to incoming calls is merely due diligence. Perhaps some club makes them an offer they can’t refuse, but it seems the most likely scenario is that he stays in Pittsburgh as they take another shot at contention next year.
Although obtaining Bednar may prove difficult, teams looking for quality bullpen upgrades should have plenty of other options among the potential trade candidates this summer. Some other names that figure to be more attainable include Scott Barlow, David Robertson, Jordan Hicks and many others.
Johnson, 32, signed a one-year, $5MM deal with the Rockies in the offseason. He was coming off a strong three-year stretch with the Padres wherein he made 102 appearances with a 3.39 earned run average and 32.2% strikeout rate. His 11.3% walk rate was on the high side but it was a good performance overall.