The Pirates have recalled right-hander Brandan Bidois from Triple-A Indianapolis and optioned righty Cam Sanders back to Indy in his place. Bidois was already on the 40-man roster, so no corresponding moves are necessary. Bidois will join the Pittsburgh bullpen and make his major league debut the first time he takes the mound. The Bucs also placed catcher Joey Bart on the 10-day injured list with a left foot infection and recalled Endy Rodriguez in a corresponding move.
Bidois, 24, was an international signee out of Australia back in 2019. He’s sporting an unsightly 7.20 ERA in 15 Triple-A frames this season but has been dogged by a .371 average on balls in play despite holding opponents to a feeble 87.9 mph average exit velocity and an even weaker 34.2% hard-hit rate. Bidois hasn’t done himself any favors by walking 12.9% of his opponents, but his 32.9% strikeout rate is excellent and his power arsenal is impressive.
The Aussie-born righty works predominantly off a four-seamer/slider combination, sitting 96.5 mph with the former and 85.9 mph with the latter. He’ll mix in an occasional low-90s changeup but has only thrown that pitch at an 8.6% clip this year. Bidois touts a very strong 13.8% swinging-strike rate — about three percentage points north of the major league average — and has induced chases on nearly one in three pitches he’s thrown outside the strike zone.
Although this year’s results haven’t stood out, those under-the-hood traits are encouraging — as was Bidois’ dominant 2025 campaign. He tossed 61 innings across four minor league levels last year and logged a superlative 0.74 ERA with a 30% strikeout rate and 11.7% walk rate. That includes 13 shutout frames in Triple-A.
Pittsburgh’s bullpen has been a middle-of-the-pack unit on the season overall, sitting 17th in the majors with a 4.14 earned run average. The past couple weeks have been grueling, however. Over the past 14 days, Pirates relievers have coughed up 29 earned runs in 36 2/3 innings (7.12 ERA). After fanning nearly one quarter of opponents through the season’s first five weeks, they’ve managed to strike out only 17.8% of the batters they’ve faced in the past two weeks. Sanders, who’s yielded six runs in five innings during that rough patch, has contributed to the bullpen malaise for manager Don Kelly.
Wish they would just release Bart when he’s ready to come off the IL. Every pitcher (except Keller) is so much worse when Bart starts
Trading him would be a better use of resources.
Isn’t that one of those European back-side cleaners?
Dotel should be up here now. Ramirez and Matthison should be removed asap and Lawrence should not be given many more chances going forward.
I suppose that they see something in Cam Sanders, but I’ll be darned if I know what it is.