MLB Competition Committee Approves Automated Ball-Strike System For 2026 Season
7:33pm: Major League Baseball’s Joint Competition Committee voted 9-2 to approve the ABS challenge system, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports. All six owners and three of the four players voted in favor of the change. One of the players and the lone umpire on the committee voted against.
12:52pm: As expected, the ABS challenge system has been approved, per an MLB announcement.
11:50am: Major League Baseball’s Joint Competition Committee will meet today to vote on the implementation of the Automated Ball-Strike system for the 2026 season, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports. The 11-person committee — comprised of six owners, four players and one umpire — is expected to approve the ABS system for next year.
It’ll be a radical shift to the game’s identity — one that many fans feel is overdue but many others oppose with fervor. The strike zone will not be fully automated if and when the ABS system is approved. Rather, the challenge system that has been used in the minor leagues, during spring training and during this year’s All-Star Game will be in place.
Under the incoming ABS system, any pitcher, catcher or hitter will be able to tap his helmet or cap to signify his desire to challenge a ball or strike call from the home plate umpire. Teams are afforded two challenges per game but are only docked a challenge if it is unsuccessful. Once a team has two unsuccessful challenges, they’ll be out of challenges for the remainder of the game. In theory, there’s no limit to the number of successful challenges a team could go through in a game. Challenges must come immediately after a ball/strike call is made; the dugout cannot have the team’s replay coordinator review the pitch and call for a challenge 10 to 15 seconds after the pitch was delivered, for instance. The challenge result will be shown on the on the scoreboard immediately after a challenge is granted.
For many players, this system will be second-nature. The ABS system was first implemented in the low minors back in 2021. It’s been standard at the Triple-A level since 2022. More veteran players got their first taste of it during spring training 2025 and will have all of the 2026 spring schedule to acclimate to the changes. As with any notable change, there will be some hurdles and probably some hiccups in the adoption, but the league’s hope is surely that — much like the pitch clock and, to a lesser extent, instant replay — it will quickly become a fairly seamless integration.
Tylor Megill Undergoes Tommy John Surgery
Mets right-hander Tylor Megill underwent Tommy John surgery yesterday. Anthony DiComo of MLB.com was among those to relay the news. Megill will miss the remainder of this year and likely all of 2026 as well. It was reported last week that he had been recommended for the procedure.
The news doesn’t come as a shock. He has been on the injured list since June due to right elbow inflammation. He had begun a rehab assignment in August but was shut down in early September due to renewed soreness. As mentioned, he was recommended for surgery a few days ago, though he was still considering other options. It seems he couldn’t find a viable non-surgical alternative and decided to go under the knife.
The 30-year-old has generally put up decent numbers for the Mets over the years. In total, he has thrown 409 2/3 innings over five seasons, allowing 4.46 earned runs per nine innings. He has struck out 24.3% of batters faced, given out walks at a 9.3% clip and kept the ball on the ground at a 42% pace.
His volume of major league work has been capped by a few factors. The Mets have often had him just outside the top five of their depth chart, meaning he has been shuttled to Triple-A and back a number of times, depending on the overall health of the staff. He has also had a few injury absences of his own, including shoulder strains in both 2022 and 2024. He has only once surpassed 90 innings in a big league season and has never hit 130.
This year was Megill’s first arbitration season and he is making a salary of $1.975MM. He can be controlled for two more seasons via arbitration. He’ll be in line for a raise for next year, though he’ll be a bit limited by the fact that he only made 14 starts this season. The Mets could tender him a contract, perhaps bumping him into the $3MM range, speculatively speaking. They wouldn’t get anything in return for that investment in 2026, as the odds of him returning late in 2026 would be very low, but they could then keep him around for 2027 at about the same price.
They will have a few weeks to decide if they think Megill’s 2027 worth that kind of multi-year investment. In addition to the money, they will have to think about the roster ramifications. There’s no IL between the World Series and the start of spring training. If they want to keep paying Megill over the next year-plus with the plan of having him be a part of the 2027 club, he would have to take up a roster spot through this winter. He could then be put back on the 60-day IL during the 2026 season, though he would have to retake a roster spot again in the 2026-27 offseason.
Regardless of that decision, he won’t be part of the club’s rotation plans for the next year. The Mets will go into this offseason with their potential 2026 starting group including David Peterson, Clay Holmes, Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong, Brandon Sproat, Kodai Senga, Sean Manaea and Christian Scott.
Photo courtesy of Gary A. Vasquez, Imagn Images
Lane Thomas Undergoes Season-Ending Foot Surgery
Guardians outfielder Lane Thomas underwent foot surgery to address his plantar fasciitis this morning and will be out of action for three to four months. Zack Meisel of The Athletic was among those to relay the news. Thomas is already on the 15-day injured list. The Guardians could move him to the 60-day IL if they need to open a 40-man roster spot, though they currently have a vacancy there already. Thomas will be a free agent at season’s end.
Thomas, now 30, was acquired from the Nationals at the 2024 deadline. He had a good run in Washington but his production almost immediately took a downturn after coming to Cleveland. Over the 2021 through 2023 seasons, he stepped to the plate 1,436 times for the Nats and hit 52 home runs. That helped him produce a .258/.317/.446 slash line and 108 wRC+ for that span. He also stole 32 bases and spent time in all three outfield positions.
He was largely producing at that same rate in 2024. At the time of the trade, he had a line .253/.331/.407 and a 107 wRC+. He had already stolen 28 bases even though it was only late July. The Guardians sent prospects Alex Clemmey, José Tena and Rafael Ramirez to Washington in order to add Thomas for the stretch run. Unfortunately, he slashed just .209/.267/.390 the rest of the way for an 84 wRC+. He was striking out at a 21.1% clip before the deal but that jumped to 34.8% after.
He did get a nice finish, as the Guards made it to the ALCS, with Thomas slashing .222/.349/.417 for a 124 wRC+ in ten postseason games. He hit two playoff home runs, including a massive grand slam off Tarik Skubal, as seen in this video from MLB.com.
The Guardians tendered him a contract for 2025, his final year of arbitration control, with the two sides agreeing to a $7.825MM salary. His name popped up in some offseason trade rumors but he stayed on the roster.
Unfortunately, it has turned into a lost season for Thomas. He landed on the IL in April due to a right wrist bone bruise. That stint lasted a month but he returned to the IL about a week later due to his right foot plantar fasciitis. He came off the IL in mid-June but was back there due to the same issue in early July. Around the IL stints, he only got into 39 games this year and put up an awful .160/.246/.272 line in those contests.
The Guards have made an unbelievable charge to thrust themselves back into the playoff mix but probably had a good idea that Thomas wasn’t going to be helping them, even with a deep postseason run. It was reported earlier this month that surgery and a three-month recovery period was a possibility. That has now been confirmed, so the Guards will go into the final games of the regular season with an outfield mix consisting of Steven Kwan, George Valera, Ángel Martínez, C.J. Kayfus, Daniel Schneemann, Jhonkensy Noel and Petey Halpin.
For Thomas, it’s unfortunate timing for him to have this injury-marred season. He is now about to become a free agent for the first time in his career. If he had hit the open market on the heels of one of his previous seasons, he could have had a nice level of interest thanks to his combination of decent offense, glovework and baserunning. Instead, he’ll be a big question mark after this challenging season, now punctuated by this surgery. Given his timeline, perhaps he will focus on rehabbing with the plan of holding some kind of showcase to demonstrate his health to interested clubs in the new year.
Photo courtesy of David Richard, Imagn Images
Poll: Will The Pirates Trade Mitch Keller This Winter?
This trade season, a number of controllable players were heavily rumored to be on the market who ultimately did not end up getting traded at all. Among that group, one of the most surprising players who wound up staying put with their current club was Pirates right-hander Mitch Keller. The Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Mets, and Cubs were all connected to Keller over the summer, and at one point a proper fire sale seemed to be on the table for Pittsburgh.
A deal didn’t come to pass with any of those clubs, however. Keller, Bryan Reynolds, and even pending free agents like Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Andrew Heaney were still in Pittsburgh come August 1. On some level, that seems to reflect the front office’s belief in the team as a potential short-term competitor, even in spite of its major flaws. GM Ben Cherington told reporters just recently that he believes the team can contend in 2026, so it stands to reason that a player like Oneil Cruz might not be on the market at this point, even if there were reasons to believe a team could’ve pried him away a few months ago.
That doesn’t necessarily mean room to make trades goes out the window, however. In that same conversation with reporters, Cherington acknowledged that upgrading the offense on the trade market was on the table for the Pirates heading into this winter. While Pittsburgh has one of the richest farm systems in the majors from which they could deal if so inclined, an organization that regularly runs some of the lowest payrolls in MLB may not want to part with packages rich with prospect capital to acquire just one or two hitters. That could make trading for the MLB roster an attractive alternative, and when looking at the players already in the majors it’s not hard to see why Keller in particular could be a piece it would make sense for Pittsburgh to part with.
While the right-hander looked quite good in the first half of the 2025 season, his numbers began to falter after the All-Star break. In his last 11 starts, he’s posted a 5.87 ERA and 5.21 FIP across 53 2/3 innings of work. Brutal as those numbers may be, when zooming out to look at his full-season stats, one sees that this tough stretch really only brought him back to what he’s established as his career norm at this point. For three seasons in a row now, Keller has made between 31 and 32 starts with an ERA between 4.20 and 4.25 with a FIP between 3.80 and 4.10. That’s remarkably consistent for a starting pitcher in today’s game. And while that works out to roughly league average production, average results with that volume and consistency are still valuable.
Valuable as Keller might be in theory, he’s not exactly a fit for the Pirates’ needs in practice. Paul Skenes offers plenty of consistency at the front of Pittsburgh’s rotation with much more impressive production. And while Keller is the only other established arm in the club’s starting five, a bevy of intriguing young arms like Jared Jones, Bubba Chandler, and Braxton Ashcraft appear poised to step into larger roles as soon as next year. With so many young players who have mid-rotation upside or better in the upper levels of the farm system starting to get their feet wet in the majors, perhaps sinking nearly $17MM in salary next year into a player who provides only average results doesn’t make much sense for a team that RosterResource suggests will finish 2025 with a payroll of less than $87MM.
That’s not to say he wouldn’t be valuable to other clubs, however. Keller’s contract is arguably slightly below market rate for a pitcher with his impressive consistency. Former Pirate Jameson Taillon received a four-year, $68MM contract from the Cubs during the 2022-23 offseason after two seasons as a Yankee with similar results to Keller’s recent work. And Yusei Kikuchi‘s roughly league average work with the Mariners, Blue Jays, and Astros over the years earned him nearly $64MM over three years with the Angels just last offseason. By that metric, the just over $55MM Keller is owed over the next three seasons looks like something of a bargain for a large- or even mid-market club in need of rotation help, or it’s at least roughly market rate.
If the Pirates are able to work out a trade for a young, controllable hitter involving Keller and then reinvest Keller’s salary into position player talent, they could significantly retool their lineup by dealing the right-hander away. Of course, that course of action would risk the possibility that Keller puts it all together in the future and delivers a full season like his first half (3.48 ERA, 3.39 FIP) at some point after the trade, at which point the Pirates would have likely sold low on the righty. Keller won’t turn 30 until April of next year, so a step forward isn’t impossible to imagine even in spite of his year-to-year consistency. Trading Keller would also be a big gamble on the team’s young rotation talent, of whom only Skenes has proven himself truly reliable at this point. Perhaps that could be eased by signing another low-cost veteran like Heaney to offer some stability, but that would eat into the budget for improving the club’s offense.
How would MLBTR readers approach Keller this offseason, if they were in the Pirates’ shoes? Would they aggressively shop him for offense, or would they hold onto him for 2026 unless overwhelmed by an offer? Have your say in the poll below:
Should the Pirates trade Mitch Keller this winter?
-
Yes, trade him for help on offense and get his salary off the books. 73% (1,862)
-
No, hold onto him unless overwhelmed by an offer from another team. 27% (682)
Total votes: 2,544
Red Sox Outright Ali Sánchez
Catcher Ali Sánchez has cleared waivers and been assigned to Triple-A Worcester, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive. The Red Sox had designated him for assignment a couple of days ago when outfielder Wilyer Abreu was reinstated from the injured list.
Sánchez has been outrighted before in his career, which means he has the right to elect free agency. However, Cotillo says he is staying in the organization, which suggests he won’t exercise that right. Worcester’s season is over, so he doesn’t have to actually report to that club.
There’s some sense in that decision for Sánchez. At this late stage of the season, he wouldn’t have much appeal elsewhere. The Sox, however, acquired him just ahead of the September 1st postseason eligibility deadline. By staying in the system, he might be third on the club’s catching depth chart. Carlos Narváez and Connor Wong are the only two backstops on the 40-man roster. If one of those two suffers an injury in the next few weeks, Sánchez might get added back to the roster for the final days of the regular season or even for some postseason work.
The alternative choice doesn’t have much upside. He wouldn’t be postseason eligible with any other club. He’s not making a guaranteed salary, so there’s no financial component to the decision. If he’s not added back to the 40-man by season’s end, he could elect free agency at that point. The only real upside to electing free agency now would be getting a headstart on his offseason, so it’s understandable if he has decided to stay with the Sox and keep open the chance of playing some postseason games.
His major league track record is still fairly unimpressive. He has appeared in 50 games and stepped to the plate on just 133 occasions with a .183/.220/.233 line. But he’s considered a competent defender and his offense has been better in the minors. He made 943 plate appearances at the Triple-A level from 2022 through 2025 with a .272/.348/.418 line. That results in a 96 wRC+, indicating below average offense overall, though catchers usually come in about ten points below league-wide average.
Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images
Nationals Place MacKenzie Gore On Injured List
The Nationals announced today that left-hander MacKenzie Gore has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a right ankle impingement. Right-hander Mason Thompson has also been placed on the 15-day IL, retroactive to September 20th, in his case due to right biceps tendinitis. Righties Julian Fernandez and Orlando Ribalta have been recalled in corresponding moves.
Gore started last night’s game against Atlanta and wasn’t at his best. He faced 13 opponents but recorded just six outs while allowing four earned runs on four hits and four walks while striking out three, throwing 71 pitches in the process. Perhaps his ankle was bugging him and the Nats decided not to push him any further, since they’re eliminated and aren’t playing for anything in the remainder of the campaign.
His health will be a situation to watch in the coming weeks and months, as he has a chance to be one of the most notable trade candidates this winter. It’s not a guarantee that the Nats make him available, but he did garner interest ahead of the trade deadline. The Padres reportedly tried real hard to bring him back to San Diego, though the Nats reportedly asked for a five-player package headlined by Leo De Vries, who is one of the top prospects in the league. De Vries ended up going to the Athletics in the Mason Miller trade instead.
It’s possible that Washington revisits trade possibilities this winter. Dealing Gore would be a notable subtraction from their big league roster. However, he is now down to two remaining years of club control, as he’s slated for free agency after 2027. Gore is represented by the Boras Corporation. While it’s not true that Boras clients never sign extensions, it is generally true that it’s more challenging to sign players with that agency.
The Nats don’t currently appear close to contention, as they sport a 64-93 record, one of the worst in the majors. The club surely hoped to come out of their lengthy rebuild a while ago but has struggled to do so. The lack of progress led to president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez getting fired back in July. Reportedly, there are systemic issues in the organization beyond the decisions coming from the front office and the dugout.
Going into this winter, the Nats still have to decide on a new front office leader. Mike DeBartolo is currently the interim general manager but the club is speaking with external candidates. It’s unclear at that point if the club wants to make an aggressive push to contend in the near term or continue the attempts to add young talent.
If the club is not going to be aggressive, then there’s an argument for making Gore available. With just two years of club control, he’d be wasted on a team not trying to win. On the other hand, his value may not be at an apex. He was quite strong earlier this year but has faded more recently.
In the first half, he tossed 110 1/3 innings with a 3.02 earned run average, 30.5% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate. In the second half, he’s added 49 1/3 innings with a 6.75 ERA, 20.7% strikeout rate and 12.8% walk rate. He spent less than two weeks on the IL in early September due to shoulder inflammation. He was able to return but is now going back on the IL yet again.
Teams would still be interested in Gore given his two years of control and affordability. He is making just $2.89MM this year. He’ll be due raises in arbitration over the next two years but will still be underpaid relative to pitchers signed in free agency.
Put all together, it will be an interesting decision for whoever ends up running the Washington front office. If they think the rebuilding process is going to take another year or two, it makes sense to listen to offers on Gore. If his recent downturn leads to tepid offers, they could hold him and try again at next year’s deadline, though that path also comes with the risk of him suffering a significant injury before they get a chance to trade him.
Photo courtesy of Eric Hartline, Imagn Images
White Sox Select Corey Julks
The White Sox announced today that outfielder Andrew Benintendi has been placed on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to September 21st, due to left Achilles tendinitis. Fellow outfielder Corey Julks has been selected to take his place on the active roster. The Sox had a couple of 40-man vacancies, so no further corresponding moves were necessary.
Benintendi’s injury brings another pedestrian season to a close for the former All-Star. The 31-year-old was excellent from June 1 onward in 2024 and looked to be on track for a full-fledged rebound earlier this season, but an uneven summer and multiple trips to the injured list will leave him with a .240/.307/.431 batting line that’s more or less league-average (102 wRC+).
We’re now three years into Benintendi’s five-year, $75MM free agent deal — remarkably, still the largest contract in franchise history for the White Sox — and he’s turned in a .245/.309/.391 batting line in 1613 plate appearances. Coupled with declining speed/baserunning value and defensive ratings that have tanked since signing with the South Siders, that output from the batter’s box has left Benintendi as a roughly replacement-level player since 2023 (-0.3 fWAR, 0.6 bWAR).
Earlier in the summer, the Sox were reportedly willing to pay down some of Benintendi’s contract if it meant facilitating a trade. No deal came together (obviously), and now that he’s further removed from that big finish to his ’24 season, it’s harder to take an optimistic stance on his 2026-27 outlook. He’s owed $31MM in the final two seasons of his contract, and the Sox would need to eat the vast majority of that or take on a different underwater contract to make a trade even remotely plausible in the offseason.
Julks, 29, was originally acquired from the Astros in May 2024 after he’d been designated for assignment in Houston. He’s seen minimal MLB time with the Sox since that swap and turned in a collective .221/.279/.320 batting line (71 wRC+) between the two seasons.
Chicago has already passed Julks through waivers unclaimed twice during the 2025 calendar year. He went 3-for-8 with a pair of doubles during his brief MLB look earlier this season but is a career .236/.290/.340 hitter in 520 major league plate appearances between the ‘Stros and Pale Hose. That said, he’s had a solid showing in Triple-A Charlotte this year, hitting .300/.374/.477 with 15 homers and 18 stolen bases in 487 turns at the plate.
Given the late nature of Julks’ return to the 40-man roster and the multiple outrights already in 2025, there’s a decent chance it’ll be a short stay on the roster for Julks once again. If the Sox remove him from the roster following the season, he can become a minor league free agent, though his strong work in Charlotte this year might be enough to keep him around as a depth option.
Mets Outright Wander Suero
Mets right-handed reliever Wander Suero has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A Syracuse, according to the transaction log at MLB.com. The club recently called him up to serve as bullpen depth, but he didn’t make it into a game before being designated for assignment on Saturday. He now has 48 hours to either accept the assignment or elect free agency.
The 34-year-old righty has only pitched 6 1/3 big-league innings in 2025, which came during a stint with the Braves. In those innings, Suero allowed eight earned runs and served up three home runs while striking out seven. He has pitched 199 2/3 innings in his career, the bulk of them coming in 2018-21 with the Nationals before moving to the Dodgers, Astros, Braves, and Mets. He has a 4.96 career ERA with a 25.2% strikeout rate, an 8.8% walk rate, and 1.17 homers allowed per nine innings.
Suero has fared much better at the Triple-A level this year, pitching 48 1/3 innings with a 1.29 ERA and only two home runs allowed. He has also struck out 32.5% of hitters while walking just 6.6%. Suero has been outrighted before, which means he has the right to reject the outright assignment in favor of free agency. As a player with more than three years of service time who is no longer on the 40-man roster, he can become a minor-league free agent at the end of the season (unless he’s added back to the 40-man roster at some point before then).
MLBTR Chat Transcript
Steve Adams
- Good morning! I’ll get going at 1pm CT, give or take a couple minutes. As always, feel free to ask a question(s) in advance if you prefer!
- Let’s begin!
Kevin
- Should the Phillies re-sign Harrison Bader? Brandon Marsh has regressed heavily in CF, Johan Rojas has not shown any ability to hit, and top prospect Justin Crawford is getting billed by scouts as a better fit in LF. Not many quality CF options out there.
Steve Adams
- It’s a fine fit, and I don’t anticipate him being especially expensive — at least not by the Phillies’ standards. I do think he’s been so good in Philly that he’s started to price himself well beyond what my initial expectations were (something like 2/25). But even if he’s pushed firmly into three-year deal territory or beyond by now, the Phils can afford that, and at minimum you know you’ve got a plus-plus defender who can hit lefties, while his 2025 has shown he can be substantially more than that.
Cincinnati kid.
- With the reds not resigning Nick Martinez, Gavin Lux and Emilio Pagan for the 2026 season is it realistic to try to bring Kyle Schwarber on a 3 year $90 million dollar deal to be designated hitter in Cincinnati
Steve Adams
- Back in April, I’d have said 3/90 for Schwarber seemed right. Heck, I shouldn’t say “I *would* have said that.” I did say that. But he’s way beyond that now, lack of defensive value notwithstanding. He’s got four years for me, probably at or even a bit north of that $30MM AAV. (Or slightly below, if someone goes nuts and stretches to like 5/140).I think somewhere in the $120-130MM range overall though. And that will shatter precedent for a player at this age and with this lack of defensive utility, but I still expect it. Contractual precedents all fall eventually.
Pirates Promote Hunter Barco
Sept. 23: The Pirates have formally announced Barco’s promotion. His contract has been selected to the 40-man roster, and Simon has indeed been transferred to the 60-day IL to create space. That’ll officially end Simon’s season. Lefty Evan Sisk was optioned to clear an active roster spot for Barco.
Sept. 22: The Pirates are calling up pitching prospect Hunter Barco, reports Brent Martineau of CBS47/FOX30. The Bucs will need to make corresponding moves to open active and 40-man roster spots for the lefty. The 40-man move might be easy since infielder/outfielder Ronny Simon recently dislocated his left shoulder. If he’s not coming back in the final few days, he could be moved from the 10-day injured list to the 60-day.
Barco, now 24, was selected by the Pirates in the second round of the 2022 draft. Since then, he has been putting up good numbers on the farm, climbing the ranks of the minors while also climbing up prospect rankings.
Many in the industry considered him a potential first-round pick while he was pitching for Florida. Unfortunately, he required Tommy John surgery before being drafted, which bumped him down the board and allowed the Bucs to get him in the second round.
He recovered from that procedure and was able to get back on the mound late in 2023, though he only logged 18 1/3 innings that year. He got a more proper professional season last year, throwing 66 innings over 18 appearances, split between High-A and Double-A. He allowed 3.27 earned runs per nine, struck out 31.2% of batters faced, gave out walks at an 8.3% clip and got grounders on 46.4% of balls in play.
This year, he has stretched out to 99 1/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A. In that time, he has a 2.81 ERA, 27.8% strikeout rate, 11.8% walk rate and 45.8% ground ball rate. The Triple-A season finished yesterday, so he wasn’t going to have a chance to add to that innings total if he stayed on the farm.
He was slated to be Rule 5 eligible this winter. The Bucs were surely going to add him to their 40-man roster to protect him, meaning he was going to be using up a 40-man roster spot this offseason regardless. By adding him now, they can put a few more innings on his arm here in 2025, get him accustomed to the big league environment and see how his stuff plays against major league opponents.
The Pirates have been stuck in a rebuild for a while now, but those prone to optimism could point to a few things. Shortstop prospect Konnor Griffin is now considered one of the top prospects in the sport, with some outlets considering him to be the very best. He is only 19 years old but has reached Double-A and could plausibly make a major league debut at some point in 2026. At the big league level, guys like Spencer Horwitz, Jared Triolo and Bryan Reynolds are having strong second halves, perhaps giving the position player group a bit of momentum towards better results next year.
But the most notable part of the Pirates’ roster is their collection of talented and controllable starting pitching options. Paul Skenes is one of the best pitchers alive right now and is controlled for another four seasons after this one. Mitch Keller is a solid mid-rotation guy who is signed through 2028. Johan Oviedo just returned from a long surgery layoff but he could be a viable back-end guy.
Then there’s a big cluster of young guys who are just bubbling to the big league level. Bubba Chandler, Mike Burrows, Braxton Ashcraft and Thomas Harrington have all made it to the majors but each one still has fewer than 100 big league innings, with varying degrees of big league success. Jared Jones had a nice debut last year, posting a 4.14 ERA in 121 2/3 innings, but he required UCL surgery in May of this year and will be out until mid-2026.
There are still lots of question marks in that group, given the limited experience of most of those guys, but it’s possible the front office thinks about using this collection of starting pitchers on the trade market. The Pirates have had great difficulty developing hitters. They also have one of the smallest payrolls in the league, which means solving the problem in free agency isn’t likely to happen either.
This summer, there were plenty of rumors surrounding the Pittsburgh rotation. Keller in particular seemed to get a lot of attention but ultimately wasn’t moved. The Bucs did flip Bailey Falter to the Royals, but that was a far less impactful deal than a potential deal of Keller or anyone else in this group.
Going into the winter, it will be an interesting situation to watch. The Pirates could hold onto all of their pitchers and see how things play out in 2026. Not all of them will meet expectations and some of them will surely get hurt. There would be risk in subtracting an arm or two and reducing the overall depth, though it also might be the club’s best path to making a notable lineup boost. For now, they can get a look at Barco in the majors and see how it goes, but some big decisions will have to be made in the coming months.
At this late stage of the calendar, Barco won’t be able to exhaust rookie status before the winter arrives. That means the prospect promotion incentive could be on the table in 2026, depending on where he lands on prospect lists between now and then. A player is PPI eligible if he is on two of the three top 100 lists from Baseball America, ESPN and MLB Pipeline. He’s currently listed in the #82 spot at MLB Pipeline, though he’s not on BA’s list and wasn’t on the ESPN August update.
Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images