The Pirates and right-hander José Urquidy are in agreement on a contract, reports Will Sammon of The Athletic. He’ll earn $1.5MM on a one-year deal, Jon Heyman of the New York Post adds. Urquidy, an Octagon client, can boost that salary further via incentives.
Pittsburgh generated headlines yesterday when they jumped in as a late entrant in the Framber Valdez bidding before he ultimately went to the Tigers last night. They’ll still add a former Astros hurler to reunite with new pitching coach Bill Murphy, though on a much smaller scale. Murphy coached Urquidy with Houston from 2021-24.
From 2021-22, Urquidy was an unheralded but quality member of the Houston rotation, starting 48 games and pitching to a solid 3.81 ERA with a 20.3% strikeout rate and a tiny 5.2% walk rate. Injuries began to slow him down in 2023. He missed three months with a shoulder injury that season, and his entire 2024 campaign was wiped out by an elbow injury that ultimately required Tommy John surgery over the summer. The 2025 season had been scheduled to be Urquidy’s final year of club control, so the Astros unsurprisingly cut him loose following the season.
Urquidy latched on with the Tigers on a one-year, $1MM contract that included a 2026 club option valued at $4MM. He returned from the injured list in September but pitched only 2 1/3 innings in the majors before consenting to be optioned. He pitched well in the minors last year (2.91 ERA, 22.2 K%, 6.2 BB% in 21 2/3 frames) but was hit hard in his small big league sample. The Tigers opted to decline their 2026 option and send Urquidy back to the open market.
With the injury troubles ostensibly behind him, Urquidy heads to the Pirates as an interesting buy-low candidate with some upside. Because he favors a changeup as his go-to offspeed pitch, he has substantial reverse splits in his career. Lefties have posted an awful .203/.257/.362 slash against him, whereas righties — with some help from the short left-field porch in Houston — have tagged him for a .267/.314/.468 batting line. Moving from one of the best environments for right-handed home runs to perhaps the worst in MLB will surely benefit his skill set.
Exactly what role the Pirates have in store for Urquidy, who turns 31 in May, remains to be seen. The Bucs are as deep as nearly any team in the sport when it comes to starting pitching but seem to add a low-cost veteran around this time of the offseason every year. In the past, that’s meant short-term pickups of Tyler Anderson, Jose Quintana, Martín Pérez and Andrew Heaney. Urquidy isn’t a lefty like that quartet but still seems to meet general manager Ben Cherington’s annual bargain starter quota.
Reigning NL Cy Young winner Paul Skenes will, of course, be the Pirates’ Opening Day starter. He’ll be followed in some order by veteran Mitch Keller and young flamethrowers Bubba Chandler and Braxton Ashcraft, both of whom impressed as rookies in 2025. Urquidy will join a competition for the fifth spot that includes Carmen Mlodzinski, Hunter Barco, Thomas Harrington and Jared Jones, who’ll be returning from 2024 Tommy John surgery. Mlodzinski fared better as a reliever than a starter last season, so this move could push him to the ’pen. If Urquidy is outshined by Jones, Barco or Harrington in camp, he could open the season in a swingman capacity.
Not the former Astros pitcher they were hoping for
Oh this could be a sneaky good signing for pitt
He seems a little old to be playing for Pitt. But the Pirates are basically a college team, so it’s valid.
Good replacement for one of our arms. Time to trade Keller for that bat they’re looking to get from the Mets, Bo!
I hate the Pirates..
Why? That’s like hating the slow kid.
Because ive been stuck following them for the last few decades, and they say they’re in on 30 mil AAV guys, then sign guys for 1.5 mil
While this may be true, you have to accept reality that the big AAV guys don’t want to play there.
Because the Pirates offer equal or less money. They aren’t going to win any tiebreakers with their performance the last 40+ years.
The 30 million aav guys are signing for 40
I don’t hate the Pirates,
Just Bob Nutting, Neil Huntington, Will Craig, O’Neill Cruz’s assumption that the Dodgers will want him back despite how he’s playing, and their hitting coach.
Oh yeah, and the Clemente Sign in Right Field being replaced by an ad. Also the fact that the Angels are the only team to make the playoffs less recently.
Fellow Bucco fan concurring with your sentiment.
I didn’t know about the sign, but that seems criminal.
Good pickup for 1.5 million you can’t get anything these days so paying that for a potential middle rotation arm is a great pickup.
I missed that the Tigers did not pick up that miniscule option. Harris has been known to be frugal over small amounts, though. Tigers loss is Pirates booty.
Urquidy’s career has been derailed by injuries. He can be pretty good when healthy but beware of his health. Nice to see Jose get another contract.
Does Nutting know that Cherington is spending all this money in the offseason? Nutting’s going to have to raise ticket prices to offset all this spending being done.
Now that is a Pirates like signing. We all knew Valdez was never a possibility.
Would you sign Valdez for close to 40 million crazy money for that guy
Definitely not Framber Valdez, but this former Astros SP has a reasonable chance to break camp as a #5 SP for Pirates. And if he bounces back from injury which has kept him from performing up to his standard, he could be a valuable addition to the organization.
He has mid rotation upside.
This is not a bad signing by any means.
Nice pickup by the Bucs
We wanted the guy who took 115mil but we will have to settle for the guy who took 1.5 mil. Nice consolation prize. This is the time of year that BC swings and misses with these guys for the most part.
Would have preferred a lefty, but at least it’s something.
Ah, I missed the reverse splits part. So cheap reclamation project who gives you lefty-ish results and has worked with the new pitching coach.
Now use the savings to pay a 3B you get in a trade.
Same difference actually. This guy has huge reverse splits, so it’s kinda like a lefty. Still need that 3B!!
Wow Ben. Great timing. We miss in Framber and get a broken down 30 year old. We may win 72 this year.
If the Pirates were seriously in on Framber, then they can still sign a guy like Bassit. A one-year deal and he’s not going to cost a ton of money.
This makes sense but think it means they are seriously considering trading away Ashcraft or worse, Chandler. I’m guessing those are the arms that the Astros and Mets would be seeking if they’re willing to give us one of their 3B.
Not true.
Who do they drop, 40 is full. Could wait til pitchers and catchers report and designate someone to the IL.
Some are going to call me insane for thinking this but I can see the Pirates winning a Wild Card this year. I’m not a Pirates fan but I will say this team has a lot of good pieces. I’m not talking World Series winning, but I can see them getting in the playoffs in 2026.
For less than 2 million this could be an excellent pickup
….not unless they find a 3B.
I hope so, that would be great for baseball. They’re one of those franchises that makes MLB a little more fun when they’re competitive.
We’ve got Framber Valdez at home champ
Could very well be.
He could ne really good in long relief
Alex Stumpf reported his deal comes with a minor league option, which is interesting. Seems to leave the door open for another addition, or the opportunity for a top prospect to grab the last rotation spot.
You kind of knew that teams were using the Framer Valdez to the Pirates rumors to their advantage. And I guess that Valdez decided to travel 286 miles to Detroit gave us that answer. Jose Urquidy was decent a lifetime ago, even winning 13 games with a 134/38 K/BB in 2022 for the Astros. The Pirates are the NL version of the Angels, throwing crap against the wall to see what sticks. Having said all that, if Urquidy has a semblance of health, this may work out to be one of the better signings of the offseason by any team. I just don’t see it happening!