The Pirates announced that veteran right-hander Mike Clevinger will be in camp as a non-roster invitee. The ACES client signed a minor league deal this afternoon.
Clevinger spent most of the 2025 season in Triple-A with the White Sox. He had a decent year, allowing a 4.20 ERA with league average strikeout (21.9%) and walk (8.5%) marks. The 34-year-old had actually broken camp with Chicago in a bullpen role, but he was taken off the roster after giving up five runs with eight walks across his first 5 2/3 innings. He built back up as a starter in the minors but never got another look from the big league club.
That was the ninth season in which Clevinger logged some MLB action. He was an above-average starter for Cleveland early in his career. His stuff dropped off following a 2020 Tommy John surgery. Clevinger managed decent run prevention marks in 2022-23 but didn’t have anywhere near the same strikeout ability as he showed before the elbow injury. He was limited to four starts in 2024 by a neck injury that required surgery and hasn’t been much of a factor at the MLB level over the past two years.
Pittsburgh has plenty of upside in the rotation. They’ve subtracted from the depth behind Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller by trading away Mike Burrows and Johan Oviedo for offensive help. Bubba Chandler and Braxton Ashcraft are entering their first full MLB seasons. With Jared Jones still recovering from last year’s UCL surgery, the fifth starter job would be up for grabs among Hunter Barco, Thomas Harrington and Carmen Mlodzinski. Any Spring Training injuries would seriously test the depth.
It’s likely the Pirates still have at least one big league rotation pickup coming. They’ve even jumped into the mix on Framber Valdez, improbable as that kind of splash seems based on Pittsburgh’s usual spending habits. There are a number of mid-rotation or back-end arms still available if Valdez ends up elsewhere. A minor league deal for Clevinger shouldn’t have an impact on those pursuits. They’ll need a couple veteran arms at Triple-A Indianapolis to avoid pushing too many prospects as injuries necessitate during the season.
Yuck!
Just depth though.
Even depth means a level of serviceable quality. Not sure current Clevinger is even that.
Oh. Okay.
Best player for the Phillies in the 2022 NLCS
man he’s 35 already? he had such a promising career back with the Indians.
Yes, he is age 35. But his contract is much more reasonable than the Valdez contract. This shows that the Pirates are the MLB leaders in fiscal responsibility.
I would not give Valdez 40 million a year to pitch either I would prefer Galen or Giolitp
Trevor Bauer can’t be happy with this one
Use some of that money and get a haircut. Damn hippy
The shaggy DA
I would bet he doesn’t even break camp.
Fair chance you would win that bet
Aim for Valdez and get Clevinger. Yep
We went out to buy a Porsche, but all we could find was this beater Chevy Vega that we’ll need the guy from Vice Grip Garage to work his magic on.
Piss poor substitute for Valdez..But at least MLBTR made their fans actually believe they tried.
Who believes they tried?
@jaord. They probably tried sent a 1/10 offer, and it was declined
Happy the Bucs aren’t getting Valdez, especially at that price.
Nice of you to be so careful with Nutting’s money.
Lol id give anyone good 5 years 150 mil to join this 4-5 year window with Skenes & Konnor
Id have gone 10 years on Schwarber and 5 years on Okamoto ,
cuz who really cares after skenes leaves?
Feels like they love Triolo at 3rd and are potentially looking for a backup who can flex Triolo over to SS situationally.
With DH/1B options O’Hearn (RF) & Lowe (2B) Reynolds (LF?) I still dont see a fit for another DH like Cutch… but they’ll do it anyways.
Okamoto to me was kind of iffy. Taking a risk on a guy who has never seen MLB was a reach for a “financially limited” franchise. But you’re right. If you’re going to truly go for it, then do so.
I still have doubts they were ever really “all in” on any of these guys
Agreed. It was all talk. Based on what Framber got, they weren’t involved at all.
A lot of smart baseball minds are saying Clevinger is the poor man’s Framber
Clevinger and Fulmer signings would have had a lot more readers about 10 years ago. That long already?
Would have been doing flips 5 years ago I do like Clevinger maybe in the bullpen if he has anyleft
Pirates were going to sign the guy for 115 mil, but settled on this guy for 500k instead
They were never going to sign him for that much.
I think you missed the joke
Pirates got a shot for the Stanley Cup now!
Minors signing great for a guy who had some decent success a couple years ago. No risk high reward.
If only the Pirates could get a Russian kid from Columbus for a couple bucks
Nutting must have figured out you can’t buy Framber Valdez at the Dollar Tree…
The pirates are all in
NOT!! White Sox Legend