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Pirates Reportedly Have Very Few Untouchable Players At Trade Deadline

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The Pirates will be deadline sellers yet again, which should be clear to anyone who takes a glance at their 32-50 record and -68 run differential. There’d been hope earlier in the year among some fanbases that Pittsburgh would even weigh the merits of trading ace Paul Skenes for what would perhaps have to be the richest trade return in history, but GM Ben Cherington has publicly quashed speculation on that front. Outside of Skenes, however, it seems the Bucs will be broadly open for business. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic and Jon Heyman of the New York Post have both reported within the past 18 hours that Skenes and franchise icon Andrew McCutchen — who has repeatedly stated since his return to Pittsburgh a few years ago that he has no desire to play elsewhere — are the only two big leaguers who are seen as off the table.

That seemingly puts not only the expected trade candidates in play (e.g. Andrew Heaney, David Bednar, Dennis Santana, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, etc.), but also more controllable names like center fielder Oneil Cruz and longtime stars like outfielder Bryan Reynolds and right-hander Mitch Keller, both of whom signed an extension within the past two years. The Bucs surely aren’t going to move top prospect Bubba Chandler, but the majority of their major league roster could at least be discussed.

Keller stands as one of the most interesting names to watch, not just on the Pirates, but around the league as a whole. The former second-rounder is in the second season of a five-year, $77MM contract and being paid $15MM this year. He’s owed $16.5MM in 2026, $18MM in 2027 and $20MM in 2028. That’s a steep cost for the low-payroll Pirates but affordable for many clubs, particularly given the increasing prices of free-agent pitching on the open market.

The 29-year-old Keller isn’t an ace but was thought to have No. 2-3 starter upside in his days as a top prospect. He’s settled in a step below that, regularly giving the Bucs plenty of innings and an ERA in the low 4.00s with quality rate stats. The 2025 season is no exception. Keller is sitting on a 4.02 ERA in 94 innings. He’s averaged just under six frames per start this season. His 18.5% strikeout rate is a career-low, but Keller’s 6.1% walk rate is excellent and his 45.5% ground-ball rate is strong. Keller’s velocity is down a touch, sitting 93.9 mph in 2025 after averaging 94.4 mph in 2024 and 95.2 mph in 2023, but he’s picking up steam as the season goes along. He sat 93.5 mph in March/April but has averaged 94.1 mph since the calendar flipped to May, for instance.

The current version of Keller would draw plenty of interest even if he weren’t to make any gains with a new club, though teams around the league could well hope that Keller is the latest premier starter to thrive upon being traded away from the Pirates. Gerrit Cole, Tyler Glasnow and Joe Musgrove have all gone on to enjoy top-of-the-rotation success upon being traded by Pittsburgh. Keller, a former top prospect with a 6’3″, 212-pound frame who’s shown flashes of greater bat-missing potential — he struck out 25.5% of his opponents in 2023 — could prove tantalizing, particularly in a market that’s thin on pitching.

Rosenthal suggests that with Pirates not enjoying the attendance increase they likely expected at the time Keller was extended — the Bucs were hopeful of emerging from their rebuild at that point, but injuries and downturns from young players have scuttled that thought — the right-hander and his increasing salary could be more likely to move. Heyman suggests that a Keller trade isn’t as likely due to what’ll surely be a steep asking price.

Given the dearth of starters on the trade market and the deep stock of young arms the Pirates have cultivated, it does seem there’s a real chance to cash in on Keller. Skenes is already cemented as the Pirates’ ace. Jared Jones will miss this season but hopefully return in the first half of 2026. Chandler will debut this summer, and the list of rotation candidates beyond that trio include Braxton Ashcraft, Mike Burrows, Thomas Harrington, Hunter Barco, Bailey Falter (if he’s not traded) and the currently injured Johan Oviedo. Additional arms could join that contingent within the next five weeks, as the Pirates will be adding various new prospects and/or young big leaguers via a series of trades.

A trade of Reynolds would be more difficult to engineer. The 30-year-old is signed through 2030 but is currently scuffling through his least-productive season since the shortened 2020 campaign. In 330 plate appearances, Reynolds carries a tepid .233/.303/.372 batting line — 14% worse than average production, by measure of wRC+. That’s not what a team would want from any player, of course, but it’s magnified by his seven-year, $100MM contract extension, which stands as the largest deal in franchise history.

Reynolds, however, is still hitting the ball on the screws; in fact, he’s hitting the ball harder than ever before. This year’s 91.5 mph average exit velocity and 48.1% hard-hit rate are career-highs. His 10.7% barrel rate is just barely shy of his career-best 11.1% in 2023 — a season in which he produced a much more robust .263/.330/.460 output and slugged 24 homers. Reynolds is hitting just .600 on line-drives this year, and while “just .600” sounds like a ridiculous statement, the league-average on liners is .705 and his career mark entering the year was .697.

It’s not all bad luck driving his downturn at the plate. Reynolds’ 25.8% strikeout rate is a career-high in a 162-game season, although even that’s a bit misleading. The switch-hitter’s 11.6% swinging-strike rate and 25.1% chase rate on pitches off the plate both stand as the second-best marks of his career. His 72.6 mph bat speed, per Statcast, is actually his highest mark since that stat began being tracked in 2023. Reynolds isn’t punching out more because he’s expanding the zone or because he’s no longer capable of catching up to velocity; he’s simply swinging less, particularly within the strike zone, which seems more correctable than a decline in bat speed or erosion of plate discipline.

Reynolds is being paid $12MM this season and has five years and $76MM left on his contract thereafter. He hit decently in May before falling back into a slump, but Reynolds has shown some signs of life with eight hits (three doubles) over his past four games. If he can keep building up momentum, it’s possible a well-timed hot streak and this year’s gaudy batted-ball metrics will generate some interest. Still, his contract contains a limited six-team no-trade clause, and while we saw Rafael Devers shipped out just a few weeks ago, it’s nonetheless exceedingly rare to see a player traded when he has this much time left on a guaranteed contract.

Cruz, 26, is the other name who is notable by his absence from Pittsburgh’s list of purportedly untouchable players. He long rated as one of the organization’s top prospects and one of the top prospects in the entire sport. He posted monster numbers in April and hit decently in May before falling into an awful slump this month. Cruz carried a .230/.347/.481 batting line into June but has cratered with a .148/.247/.210 line this month. He’s now hitting .205/.317/.398 on the season.

It’s an unexciting line, but Cruz has some of the loudest tools in the game. He’s a towering 6’7″, 240 pounds and offers explosive athleticism. Cruz is 26-for-29 in stolen base attempts this season and has swatted 13 home runs. He’s averaging a ridiculous 96 mph off the bat with a 22% barrel rate and a 56.7% hard-hit rate. Only Aaron Judge has a higher barrel rate. Only Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Schwarber and James Wood have better hard-hit rates. No one in MLB has a higher average exit velocity or higher bat speed.

There are major hit tool concerns, evidenced by this year’s 33% strikeout rate and Cruz’s career 31.9% mark. However, Cruz is walking at a stout 13.5% clip as well and has actually reduced his chase rate and swinging-strike rate over last year’s levels. Like Reynolds, he’s swinging far less often this season; Cruz swung at 46.2% of the pitches he saw last year (and 61.3% of the strikes he saw) compared to just 40.7% in 2025 (and 55.9% of the strikes he’s seen). The team’s overall swing rate on pitches within the zone from 2024 to 2025 is virtually unchanged, but for whatever reason, Cruz and Reynolds have taken up much more passive approaches — ostensibly to their detriment.

Cruz has gone from a poor-fielding shortstop to a passable center field defender while learning his new position on the fly at the big league level. His plus-plus speed and elite arm strength — he not-so-shockingly leads all big leaguers in arm strength as well, per Statcast — lend themselves well to center field. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if he emerged as a plus defender there as he gains experience. Cruz was benched earlier this week for failing to run out a grounder that someone with his speed should easily have been able to beat, resulting in an inning-ending double play, but he said after the game that he’d lost track of the number of outs. Cruz took fault for the situation and said he supported manager Don Kelly’s decision to lift him from the game (link via the Associated Press).

Even if Cruz’s recent struggles persist, the asking price in a trade would presumably be enormous. Players with this type of tool set simply don’t come around often. Add in that he’s controllable via arbitration for three years after the current season, and Pittsburgh would need a substantial return to consider parting ways with him. The upside on Cruz is so great that it’s hard to see the Pirates actually trading him, but he’ll be a fascinating long-shot target for teams seeking center field help.

There are plenty of other trade candidates to consider. Lefty relievers Caleb Ferguson and veteran infielder/outfielder Adam Frazier are on a cheap one-year deals and could be moved. The Bucs would likely love to shed the four years and $36MM owed to third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes beyond the current season. He’s still an elite defender, but chronic back problems that developed after he signed his $70MM extension have severely sapped his production at the plate.

Latest On Cubs’ Rotation Targets

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The Cubs are on the hunt for rotation upgrades — a fact that’s both been widely reported and publicly confirmed by president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer. It’s easy enough to see why. Ace Justin Steele was lost for the season due to elbow surgery back in April. Shota Imanaga is returning to the rotation tomorrow, his first start since a hamstring injury sent him to the 15-day IL back on May 4. Javier Assad hasn’t pitched this year due to multiple oblique strains. Young right-hander Ben Brown was optioned to Triple-A yesterday amid ongoing struggles. Swingman Colin Rea, moved into the rotation during that injury deluge, has begun to struggle after initially excelling in a starting role.

Few teams have decided on a deadline direction yet, but Chicago has already been in contact with some clubs that know they’ll operate as sellers. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that the Cubs have inquired on Marlins right-handers Sandy Alcantara and Edward Cabrera. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale writes that the Cubs also have some interest in Pirates righty Mitch Keller (as well as closer David Bednar). He adds that they’ve kept tabs on A’s righty Luis Severino before quickly downplaying the possibility that the Athletics would actually trade the veteran right-hander in the first season of his three-year, $67MM contract.

There are surely other names on the Cubs’ radar, but the early connections are notable. That’s particularly true on the heels of 670 The Score’s Bruce Levine reporting earlier this week that the Cubs are being aggressive and are hoping to push something across the finish line well ahead of next month’s deadline — perhaps even within the next week to ten days (audio link). Levine suggested that Alcantara was not the likeliest target and that someone a bit more under the radar was more probable.

The Marlins duo stand as obvious trade candidates. Alcantara entered the season as perhaps the most plain-as-day trade candidate in the sport. The 2022 NL Cy Young winner is in his first full season back from a Tommy John procedure that cost him all of the 2024 campaign. He’s earning $17MM this year and next, and the Marlins hold a $21MM club option for the 2027 season.

Alcantara, 29, didn’t do his trade candidacy any favors early on. He pitched to an awful 8.47 ERA through the end of May, striking out only 16.9% of opponents against a 12.2% walk rate along the way. He’s since shown signs of life. Alcantara has pitched 23 innings over his past four starts and allowed a total of seven runs (2.74 ERA) on 18 hits and five walks with 19 strikeouts (20.4 K%, 5.4 BB%). His 46.4% grounder rate in that time is comfortably better than average but a ways from its 53.4% peak. His fastball velocity hasn’t been much of a question all year, averaging better than 97 mph — 97.6 mph over his past four starts. That’s down a slight bit from his 98 mph average pre-surgery, but not by an alarming measure.

If Alcantara can continue distancing himself from that bleak two-month start and continue resembling his 2022 self, the chances of a trade will only increase. Every club with even a glimmer of postseason contention would love to add the two-time All-Star with his ability to its staff, particularly when considering the relatively affordable nature of his salary under the terms of the contract extension he signed a few years back. The asking price on Alcantara figures to be steep, however, and the Marlins may wish to hold him a bit longer to allow him to continue posting improved results and further drum up interest. If that’s the case, the timing may not align with Chicago’s more urgent push for a starting pitcher.

Cabrera, 27, isn’t as well-known as his teammate but was a highly touted pitching prospect himself prior to his big league debut. He’s shown glimpses of that potential in the past, but the 2025 campaign thus far has the makings of a possible breakout. In 59 innings, Cabrera has pitched to a 3.81 ERA with a 24.8% strikeout rate, a 10.2% walk rate and a 42.9% ground-ball rate. He’s averaging a career-best 96.7 mph on his four-seamer, has ramped the usage of his sinker up to a career-high 23% and is throwing more sliders than he has in the past two seasons.

Cabrera entered the 2025 season with 2.147 years of major league service. That was enough for him to reach Super Two designation, meaning he’s already gone through the arbitration process once, coming away with a modest $1.95MM salary. He’ll be owed a raise in each of the next three offseasons before hitting free agency following the 2028 season. He’s nowhere near as established as Alcantara or Keller — Cabrera has never even pitched 100 innings in a big league season — but his power arsenal, low salary and that remaining club control hold obvious appeal.

Turning to the Pirates, Keller is a sensible enough trade candidate, even though the Bucs probably aren’t in a rush to trade him. He’s only in the second season of a five-year, $77MM contract. The former second-round pick and top prospect is earning $15MM this year, and that extension (which tacked four years and $71.6MM onto his previously agreed upon arbitration salary for 2024) calls for salaries of $16.5MM, $18MM and $20MM in the three subsequent seasons.

Keller has appeared in at least 31 games in each of the past three seasons and is on pace to do so again in 2025. He’s started 16 games and totaled 94 innings with a 4.02 ERA, an 18.5% strikeout rate, a 6.1% walk rate and a 45.5% ground-ball rate. That strikeout rate is down from 23.5% he posted in 2023-24, but Keller is getting more grounders and issuing fewer walks than in those seasons. His velocity is down about a half-mile per hour from last year, with his average four-seamer clocking in at 93.9 mph and his average sinker at 92.8 mph. Keller has made some alterations to his pitch selection, throwing his sinker less and his slider at a career-high 34.9% rate. He’s also ditched his cutter and is reincorporating a changuep that he effectively shelved for 2024.

The possibility of an intradivision trade with a player of this caliber is fascinating, if only because it rarely occurs. The Pirates are deep in pitching talent, however, with Paul Skenes anchoring the rotation and Bubba Chandler — perhaps MLB’s top pitching prospect — seemingly ready to go in Triple-A. Bailey Falter is a relative veteran at this point, and the Pirates have a deep stock of additional young arms including Mike Burrows, Braxton Ashcraft, Thomas Harrington and Hunter Barco. Jared Jones underwent Tommy John surgery this summer but looked promising as a rookie last year. Johan Oviedo was a solid fourth starter in 2023 before his own Tommy John procedure. Veteran Andrew Heaney is eating innings in the rotation right now but seems like a lock to be traded before the deadline if he’s healthy.

Whether that depth would be enough to persuade the Pirates to part with Keller is an open question. This is Ben Cherington’s sixth year as Pirates general manager, and the Bucs haven’t won more than 76 games in a season during his tenure. Trading Keller would be more akin to the large-scale rebuilding moves made earlier in his tenure, but if a trade partner were to give up immediate MLB talent, it wouldn’t necessarily indicate a step back. Dealing from a position of strength and then using the money that had been earmarked for Keller to bolster other areas of the staff could make good sense. Of course, given the Pirates’ history, it can’t be assumed that owner Bob Nutting would just pump Keller’s salary right back into the payroll by way of offseason free-agent signings or trade acquisitions.

From the Cubs’ stance, Keller or Alcantara would fit nicely into the payroll (and Cabrera even more so, of course). They’re veterans on the sort of mid-range contracts Cubs ownership seems to prefer with regard to pitchers.

The Cubs only have about $123MM in guarantees on the books next year, though that number will almost certainly rise to $138MM when the team picks up a three-year club option on Imanaga. Even still, that leaves plenty of room for Keller, Alcantara or just about any other rotation target. Assuming that Imanaga option is exercised, he and Dansby Swanson will be the only players signed beyond 2026. The Cubs obviously hope to extend Pete Crow-Armstrong and re-sign Kyle Tucker, but those goals arguably only increase the importance of finding some cost-effective ways to round out the starting staff.

Which Arms Could The Pirates *Actually* Trade This Summer?

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This week's report that there's "no chance" the Pirates trade ace Paul Skenes, just one and a half seasons into his six-year window of club control, stood out as fairly obvious for most onlookers. That anyone felt it needed to be said at all was more a reflection on the organization as a whole than Skenes himself.

Pittsburgh has taken a step back this season, sitting on pace to win 56 games after winning 76 games in both 2023 and 2024. A rebuild that has seen the Bucs pick ninth or better in five consecutive drafts, including No. 1 overall in 2021 and 2023, has not only failed to produce a contender -- it's failed to even produce a farm system that ranks in the top third of MLB. The team at Baseball America ranked the Pirates with MLB's 16th-best system prior to this season. Keith Law of The Athletic did the same. MLB.com's trio of Jim Callis, Jonathan Mayo and Sam Dykstra ranked the Bucs 14th. ESPN's Kiley McDaniel was more bearish, ranking them 20th.

The Pirates already fired manager Derek Shelton. General manager Ben Cherington can't feel as secure as he did a few seasons ago. Owner Bob Nutting bears the brunt of the blame; his refusal to invest in the roster leaves the front office and coaching staff zero margin for error. Nutting's overwhelmingly frugal nature also leaves veritably no chance that Skenes will be signed long-term.

Just because a trade at some point down the road feels inevitable, however, does not mean it'll happen this year. That's never seemed likely, and while the "no way, no chance, no how" quote was from a Pirates executive who preferred to remain anonymous rather than place their name on those words, GM Ben Cherington soon offered a similar sentiment on the record.

The Pirates, for all their warts, are still a pitching-rich organization. The name at the very top of the pyramid may not be on the move, but the Pirates will have no shortage of pitchers who are legitimately available this summer. There's always a broad range of "availability." Pure veteran rentals will probably be aggressively shopped. Pitchers signed/controlled through 2026 will presumably be available but with a higher price tag. And there will be some arms with even more club control on whom the Bucs will listen but not outright dangle to contenders seeking to bolster their own staffs.

Let's run through some of the likely available inventory.

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Pirates Ownership Reportedly Intervened In Past Efforts To Trade David Bednar

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The Pirates are a mess. They fired manager Derek Shelton after a 12-26 start and currently sit 11.5 games out of a playoff spot. Their situation is dire enough that fans and pundits alike have wondered whether they might trade Paul Skenes just 1.5 years into his big league career. That’s never seemed likely, and a Pirates official recently said there’s “no way” the team would consider that, but the fact that it even needs to be said speaks to the current status of the team.

Pittsburgh’s ongoing rebuild simply hasn’t worked as hoped. Trades of Starling Marte, Josh Bell, Adam Frazier, Joe Musgrove, Jameson Taillon, Richard Rodriguez and others haven’t netted nearly enough talent. Other possible trade chips have been held onto and seen their stock dwindle. One player who many have expected to be on that list of traded Pirates stars over the years is closer David Bednar, but he’s still in Pittsburgh and working to rebuild his stock after a poor 2024 season and after being optioned to Triple-A amid some early-2025 struggles.

Bednar may well have been traded by now, it seems, if were up to the front office alone. But Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports in his latest mailbag column that ownership has previously “stepped in” to prevent the baseball operations staff from trading him.

It’s not clear when a potential Bednar trade might’ve been coming together. He’s been the subject of rumors dating back to the 2022 season, when the Pirates reportedly rejected what at the time were described as “tempting” offers for both Bednar and outfielder Bryan Reynolds. Bednar’s name has been synonymous with each of the two subsequent trade deadlines as well, and he’ll surely be talked about again this summer. Hiles notes that he does not expect ownership intervention this time around — presumably a reflection on Bednar’s struggles over the past calendar year, his mounting price tag ($5.9MM in 2025) and his dwindling level of club control (through the 2026 season).

Ownership stepping in to meddle in baseball operations affairs is hardly a situation that’s unique to the Pirates. Over the years there have been various reports of Angels owner Arte Moreno going over his front office’s head in free agency and more recently of quashing a potential Shohei Ohtani trade late in his tenure with the team. Astros owner Jim Crane operated without a GM in place for months after former GM James Click’s ouster in Houston and signed Jose Abreu and Rafael Montero to regrettable free agent deals while serving as the de facto head of baseball operations. You can go all the way back to 2012 and find reports of Rockies owner Dick Monfort nixing a trade that would’ve sent Jorge De La Rosa from Colorado to Baltimore in exchange for then-prospect Eduardo Rodriguez.

Bednar likely holds some extra value in the eyes of Pirates chairman Bob Nutting and the rest of the ownership group. He’s a Pittsburgh native who grew up rooting for the Pirates and quickly became the most (and only) productive player acquired from the aforementioned trade of Musgrove. Those Pittsburgh roots presumably make Bednar a bit more marketable, although his hometown ties to the area were not expressly mentioned by Hiles as a reason for ownership’s intervention in those trade talks.

Regardless of the reason, it’s likely that prior ownership protest prevented GM Ben Cherington and his staff from capitalizing on Bednar closer to peak value. Bednar broke out as a top-notch setup man in 2021 and by 2022 had assumed the closer’s role in Pittsburgh. From 2022-23, he pitched 119 innings with a 2.27 ERA, 30.6% strikeout rate, 7.6% walk rate and 0.53 homers per nine frames — all while compiling 58 saves for a team that only won 138 games. A hearty 42% of the Pirates’ victories in that two-year period were nailed down by Bednar.

Back in 2022, Bednar would’ve come with four and a half more seasons of club control. In 2023, that’d have (obviously) been three and a half. The asking price for an All-Star closer in his pre-arb years would presumably have been substantial. By 2024, Bednar’s value had plummeted. He missed several weeks in the first half due to an oblique strain and lugged an unsightly 4.95 ERA into the trade deadline. If ownership stepped in to quash a trade at that point, it’d be a bit more understandable, as selling low on a pitcher as talented as Bednar understandably may not have been viewed favorably. Again, the timetable surrounding the events isn’t clear.

Whether due to ownership or lack of sufficient offers, Bednar stayed put last summer — and the Pirates are probably better off for it. It’s true that he struggled enough early on to briefly be optioned to Triple-A Indianapolis, but that brief reset looks to have done wonders. In 13 1/3 innings since returning, Bednar has posted a sharp 3.38 ERA with exceptional rate stats. He’s punched out 20 batters (37% of his total opponents) against just one walk (1.9%). His velocity is as strong as ever, with a fastball sitting 97.1 mph, and he’s inducing grounders at what would be a career-high 48.5% clip (way up from last year’s 37.1%).

If Bednar can continue anywhere close to that pace over the next month or two, he’ll be an in-demand asset once again. With the Pirates in a total state of collapse and Bednar only controlled through 2026, he’d seem like a very strong candidate to change hands this time around. That’s perhaps even truer given that from midseason 2024 through early 2025, it looked like the Pirates had missed their opportunity to trade him for anything of note at all.

Pirates Place Tim Mayza On 15-Day IL, Recall David Bednar

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The Pirates have placed left-hander Tim Mayza on the 15-day injured list due to a lat muscle strain in Mayza’s throwing shoulder.  Former closer David Bednar has been called up to take Mayza’s spot on the active roster.

The biggest news here is the return of Bednar, who served as the Pirates’ closer for the majority of the 2022-24 seasons. An All-Star in both 2022 and ’23, Bednar posted a 2.27 ERA and 2.49 FIP with a 30.6% strikeout rate in those two years. Things took a turn for the worse last year, though, as Bednar struggled to a 5.77 ERA with a 4.80 FIP in 57 2/3 innings. His strikeout rate dipped to just 22.1%, and his walk rate ballooned up to 10.7%. The Pirates stuck with their man for the majority of last year despite his struggles, but eventually pulled him from the closer role in late August of last year.

That led to plenty of questions about if he would be a trade or even non-tender candidate this winter, but Bednar ended up not only remaining in the organization but also in the mix for saves entering 2025. Unfortunately for both the Pirates and the right-hander, he surrendered four runs (three earned) on four hits (including one homer) and two walks while striking out just one over his first three appearances, only one of which saw him record an out before being pulled. He was optioned to the minors on April 1 as a result of this poor performance after months of attempts to try to get the 30-year-old right. There’s no obvious injury or decline in velocity to point to as an explanation for his struggles, and perhaps that’s why it’s not a surprise that he dominated Triple-A hitters with five scoreless frames and seven strikeouts against zero walks.

Bednar’s return to the majors was seemingly at least partially spurred on by how dominant he looked during his brief stay in the minors, but it’s unclear what role he’ll fill for the Pirates now that he’s back in Pittsburgh. Manager Derek Shelton discussed Bednar’s return with reporters (including those with the Associated Press) earlier this afternoon, but did not offer any concrete plans for the righty.

“We’re kind of pitching to what we think the leverage is and what we feel the matchup is, but excited to have him back,” Shelton said, as relayed by the AP. “He went down, he pitched really well. He handled himself really well. I think we’ve said all along we’re a better bullpen with David Bednar in it. It’s nice to have him back.”

Shelton went on to suggest there’s some fluidity to the Pirates’ plans regarding Bednar, which makes sense given their uncertain bullpen situation. Pittsburgh’s relief corps is a roughly average group by ERA and FIP when compared to the rest of the league, but more advanced metrics like SIERA and xFIP consider the Pirates to have a bottom-ten bullpen in the sport. The late innings are particularly uncertain for the club, with Dennis Santana currently serving as the club’s closer despite a 14.7% strikeout rate after a knee issue sent the scuffling Colin Holderman to the injured list earlier this month.

The uncertainty in the bullpen just got worse for Pittsburgh, as the loss of Mayza is a fairly significant one. The 33-year-old signed an MLB deal with the organization back in February and has looked like one of the club’s best relievers in the early going with a 2.89 ERA and 3.35 FIP in seven appearances. A disastrous first half in Toronto tanked Mayza’s 2024 numbers, but he’s generally be a very reliable middle relief arm over the years with a 3.43 ERA and a 3.48 FIP since the start of the 2021 season. While losing the southpaw certainly hurts, Caleb Ferguson and Ryan Borucki both remain available as left-handed relief options for the Pirates in addition to long relief arm Joey Wentz.

Pirates Option David Bednar

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The Pirates announced that they have optioned right-hander David Bednar to Triple-A Indianapolis and designated catcher Jason Delay for assignment. Those are the corresponding moves to add pitching prospect Thomas Harrington, a move which was reported earlier today.

The move highlights what a recent struggle it’s been for Bednar, who was once one of the most dominant closers in the league. From 2021 to 2023, he made 172 appearances for the Pirates. He had a 2.25 earned run average, 31.2% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate. He gradually took over the ninth inning in Pittsburgh in that time, with three saves in 2021, 19 the year after and then 39 in 2023.

That production would have been exciting for any club but it was enhanced by the “local kid makes good” angle. Bednar was born in Pittsburgh, went to Mars Area High School and attended Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. He was drafted by the Padres but made his way to his hometown club in January of 2021, just before his breakout, as part of the three-team trade that sent Joe Musgrove to San Diego.

But he’s been on a downward slide since then. He posted a 5.77 ERA for the Bucs last year. His strikeout rate fell to 22.1% and his walk rate climbed to 10.7%. He lost the closer’s role for the final month of the season.

His first three appearances in 2025 have gone poorly. On Opening Day against the Marlins, he was put into the bottom of the 9th in a 4-4 game. He allowed a triple, issued an intentional walk and then allowed a walk-off single. He got another chance the next day, getting the ninth with the Bucs up 4-1. A walk and a homer quickly made it 4-3, though Bednar then got three outs to record the save. On Sunday, he was again put into tie game in the ninth. A single, stolen base, throwing error and wild pitch quickly led to another loss.

It’s a frustrating mystery for Bednar and the Pirates, as his stuff doesn’t seem to have lost any zip. He averaged 96.6 miles per hour on his fastball in 2023 with opponents batting .188 and slugging .315 against it. Last year, his velo actually ticked up to 97.2 mph but the pitch allowed a .256 batting average and .459 slug. His splitter and curve didn’t seem to lose any velo either.

Bednar and the team have presumably been trying to find an explanation for his struggles without coming up with a clear solution, so the Bucs have taken the step of sending him to Indianapolis, perhaps with the idea of him having a chance to get into a good groove away from the pressures of the big leagues. In Bednar’s stead, the closing duties will perhaps fall to someone like Colin Holderman or Dennis Santana.

The move isn’t likely to impact Bednar’s trajectory to free agency. He came into this season with his service clock at four years and 76 days. That’s 96 days shy of the five-year mark and he’s already added five more days this year. That means he needs about three more months in the majors to get over that line. Assuming he gets beyond five years at some point here in 2025, he would have just one season of club control remaining.

If he stays down for longer than that, the Bucs could theoretically gain another year. But in that scenario, he likely didn’t pitch well in the minors, meaning they probably wouldn’t tender him an arbitration contract since he is making $5.9MM this year. The arbitration system is set up so that salaries almost never go down, even with poor performance.

It will surely lead to plenty of “what-if” questions. The Bucs haven’t been competitive for most of the recent past, so Bednar’s name came in a trade rumors from time to time. The Pirates never clicked on any deal. In hindsight, plenty will say that they should have taken whatever offers were on the table, but it’s hard to fathom anyone foreseeing this quick downfall.

Delay, 30, has seen a decent amount of time as Pittsburgh’s backup catcher in recent years. From 2022 to 2024, he hit .231/.295/.315 in 134 games with solid glovework. However, the catching depth for the club has become more crowded. Endy Rodríguez missed all of 2024 recovering from UCL surgery but is now back. While he was gone, the club took a flier on Joey Bart and saw him break out. Between those two and former first overall pick Henry Davis, Delay was likely fourth on the depth chart.

The Bucs will now have a maximum of one week of DFA limbo to figure out what’s next. The waiver process takes 48 hours so any trade possibilities would have to come together in the next five days. Delay still has options and hasn’t yet reached arbitration, so he could be an affordable depth addition for a club looking to bolster its catching corps.

Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images

The David Bednar Question

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David Bednar has been the subject of trade speculation for the past few seasons. For the most part, that was a testament to his effectiveness. Bednar broke out as a leverage reliever with 60 2/3 innings of 2.23 ERA ball during his first season with the Pirates in 2021. He carried that into the ninth inning. Between 2022-23, the big righty combined for a 2.27 ERA while striking out more than 30% of batters faced over 111 appearances. He locked down 58 games, including an NL-leading 39 saves in 2023.

That production came on rebuilding teams. Pittsburgh was nowhere close to the postseason. Other teams no doubt tried to pry Bednar away, but the Bucs never seemed interested in moving him. He’s a Pittsburgh native who looked like a lockdown late-game weapon. The Bucs control him through 2026 and surely envisioned fielding a playoff team before then.

Bednar could resurface as a trade candidate in the coming weeks but under much different circumstances. He’s coming off by far the worst season of his career. The question now is not whether the Pirates should sell high on an affordable, breakout closer. It’s whether to move on in a cost-saving measure at a time when his trade value has hit a low ebb.

Even with the understanding that reliever performance can be volatile, Bednar’s 2024 season is confounding. After rattling off consecutive sub-3.00 performances in his first three full seasons, he allowed 5.77 earned runs per nine this year. That’s not a reflection of poor batted ball results that could be dismissed as luck. Bednar’s peripherals tanked across the board.

His strikeout rate had landed between 28% and 33% in each of his first three years. That fell to 22.1% this past season, slightly below the league average for relievers. Bednar’s walk percentage jumped from the 7-8% range to nearly 11%. He allowed more home runs (nine) in 57 2/3 innings this year than he’d given up (seven) across 119 frames in the previous two seasons combined. Bednar lost a lot of whiffs on both his four-seam fastball and curveball compared to prior seasons. Opponents teed off on the heater, in particular, hitting .256 and connecting on six longballs.

Bednar started the season terribly, allowing 14 runs in 10 innings through the end of May. He managed much better results over the next two months, albeit without the level of swing-and-miss to which he’d been accustomed. Bednar missed a couple weeks leading into the All-Star Break with an oblique strain. The wheels came completely off coming out of the Break, as he gave up 16 runs over his next 14 2/3 frames.

The Pirates, who had plummeted from contention, pulled Bednar from the ninth inning at the end of August. By that point in the year, the focus was on getting him right going into the offseason. Bednar’s run prevention in September was better, as he allowed a manageable five runs (four earned) over 10 2/3 frames. Yet he walked another 10 hitters with nine strikeouts in mostly low-leverage spots. It wasn’t a resounding finish.

It’d be easier to explain the dip in performance if Bednar’s velocity had tanked coming back from the oblique strain. That’s not the case. His fastball averaged north of 97 MPH from the start of May onward. His 97.2 MPH average heater for the season was the highest of his career. Bednar didn’t lose any life on his splitter or curveball. His stuff hasn’t dramatically deteriorated. His results never consistently turned the corner, though.

That leaves GM Ben Cherington and his front office in a difficult spot. Bednar’s early-career dominance earned him a solid $4.51MM salary during his first run through arbitration. He’ll be due a raise even on the heels of a down year. Arbitration salaries are designed to escalate as a player accrues service time. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects Bednar for a $6.6MM sum if tendered a contract for 2025. That’s the highest figure in Pittsburgh’s arbitration class and would make him the fourth-highest paid player on the roster as things stand.

A $6.6MM salary would be a bargain if Bednar pitched at anywhere near the level he showed from 2021-23. It’s clearly not the kind of money the Pirates (or any team) would want to devote for his ’24 results. The Pittsburgh front office annually works with a tight budget from ownership. That didn’t stop the Pirates from committing a $10.5MM salary to Aroldis Chapman last offseason, suggesting they’re willing to take some chances on talented but volatile relief pitching.

They’ll weigh the risk on Bednar alongside the need for multiple additions to a well below-average offense. Pittsburgh doesn’t have a great bullpen, though someone like Colin Holderman or waiver find Dennis Santana could get a closing opportunity if the Pirates dealt the two-time All-Star.

It’s unlikely the Bucs would non-tender Bednar. He should be too talented to give up without getting anything in return. A sell-low trade is plausible. There are presumably teams that have more budgetary flexibility than the Pirates possess that would be happy to gamble something like $6.6MM on a return to form. That’d be a tough pill for a Pittsburgh front office that has surely declined much better offers over the years than the ones that’ll be on the table this winter.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Pirates Notes: Skenes, Bednar, Hayes

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After a difficult season that saw the Pirates flash signs of life in the first half with a 48-48 record before crashing to a 28-38 record after the All-Star break, Pittsburgh GM Ben Cherington discussed a few of the club’s key players as they team now looks ahead toward the 2025 campaign and the coming offseason.

Chief among those was like NL Rookie of the Year favorite Paul Skenes. For all of the club’s faults this year, Skenes was the most obvious bright spot as he was nothing short of dominant practically from the moment he made his big league debut back in May. In 23 starts from then on, Skenes posted an eye-popping 1.96 ERA with an excellent 2.45 FIP. With a 33.1% strikeout rate across his 133 innings of work, Skenes was perhaps the most dominant pitcher in all of MLB this year. The one flaw in is otherwise dominant rookie campaign was volume, as Skenes threw just 160 1/3 innings of work in total this year between the major and minor leagues. That includes eight starts where Skenes failed to pass 80 pitches in his outing.

Fortunately, that seeming unwillingness to have Skenes pitch deep into games faded as his season continued, with the right-hander ultimately throwing more than 100 pitches in six of his 23 big league outings. What’s more, Cherington told reporters (including Alex Stumpf of MLB.com) that the hard-throwing righty could find himself unleashed completely next year. Cherington indicated that the Pirates do not currently plan on “any sort of hard limits” on Skenes’s innings or pitch counts headed into 2025, leaving the door open for Skenes to post an even stronger season next year should he be able to post something close to this season’s results over a full slate of 30 starts. The righty figures to headline Pittsburgh’s rotation next year, followed by Jared Jones and Mitch Keller. There’s some uncertainty at the back of the club’s rotation behind those three, but Johan Oviedo, Luis L. Ortiz, and Bailey Falter could all be in the mix for starts as well.

Looking beyond the rotation, Cherington notably also offered a vote of confidence in longtime closer David Bednar, who struggled badly throughout the 2024 campaign and was eventually removed from the closer role in late August. Bednar’s results improved over the month of September but his peripheral numbers remained shaky, as he posted a solid 3.38 ERA but walked (ten) more batters than he struck out (nine) across 10 2/3 innings of work. That left Bednar with an overall ERA of 5.77 on the year, and while his 4.80 FIP offered some reason for optimism even that figure was still worse than average as it was held back by a 10.7% walk rate.

Given Bednar’s brutal performance and a fairly considerable $6.6MM salary projection for next season courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz, it wouldn’t be a shock to see the club explore moving on from Bednar this winter. If that possibility is on the table, however, Cherington did not acknowledge it. On the contrary, Stumpf notes that Cherington suggested Bednar could even recapture the closer’s role in time for 2025. Even in spite of Bednar’s poor performance, such an outcome would hardly be a shock. After all, the club has few proven relievers under team control besides Colin Holderman and Bednar dominated to the tune of a 2.25 ERA with a 2.56 FIP over the 2021-23 seasons. If Bednar can even come close to that sort of production next year, he’d be well worth the $6.6MM investment via arbitration.

Now turning to the positional side, Cherington also provided a small update (as relayed by Stumpf) on third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes. A former top-of-the-line infield prospect who enjoyed something of a breakout campaign in 2023 where he paired excellent defense with a roughly league average at, Hayes appeared sure to join Skenes, Jones, and Oneil Cruz among the club’s core this season. Instead, injuries derailed Hayes’s year completely. He was limited to just 96 games by a disc problem in his back that sent him to the injured list twice this year and left him playing through pain for the majority of the year when he was on the field. The injury marred campaign led to disastrous results, as Hayes hit just .233/.283/.290 in 396 trips to the plate alongside defensive numbers that were a far cry from previous seasons.

Difficult as 2024 was for Hayes, however, Cherington expressed optimism about the infielder’s status as he looked ahead to 2025. The GM acknowledged that there’s “always some level of concern” regarding an injured player until he’s once again on the field, but added that he believes the club is better informed about Hayes’s injury situation and that the third baseman is “excited” to return to action in 2025. When Hayes was unable to take the field this year, Jared Triolo and Isiah Kiner-Falefa were the club’s primary options at the hot corner this year. Both players are in line to return to the club next year and could continue backing up the position in the event Hayes struggles to stay on the field in 2025 as well.

Pirates Remove David Bednar From Closer Role

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The Pirates are pulling star closer David Bednar out of the ninth inning, manager Derek Shelton told the Pittsburgh beat before tonight’s loss to Cleveland. The team will go with a committee approach for now (X link via Alex Stumpf of MLB.com).

Bednar was one of the best relievers in the majors each season between 2021-23. He posted a sub-3.00 ERA with plus strikeout rates in all three years. Bednar worked as a setup option in 2021 before assuming the closing role in ’22. He made the All-Star Game in both 2022 and ’23 and topped the National League with 39 saves just last season. That’s particularly impressive on a team that finished 10 games below .500.

This year has been far less consistent. Bednar was torched for more than 11 earned runs per nine through the end of April. He turned in an excellent 2.01 earned run average in 23 appearances from the start of May through the All-Star Break, though his modest 20.7% strikeout rate suggested he still wasn’t back to peak form.

The wheels have come back off since the Midsummer Classic. Bednar has given up 16 runs (15 earned) in his last 14 2/3 innings. Opponents have teed off at a .328/.434/.531 slash in 77 plate appearances. Bednar’s strikeouts are still down (20.8%) while his walk rate has spiked to an untenable 14.3% clip. His season hit its nadir on Wednesday. Shelton called upon Bednar to protect a two-run lead against the Cubs. He allowed three hits and two walks (one of which was intentional) while recording two outs. Chicago tagged Bednar for five runs — two of which were inherited runners who scored after he was replaced by Jalen Beeks — and went on to a 14-10 win.

For the season, Bednar now carries a 6.32 ERA through 47 innings. His 22.9% strikeout percentage is six points lower than last season’s mark, which had been the lowest of his career. He’s giving up home runs at an elevated rate of 1.53 per nine innings. Bednar’s 97.2 MPH average fastball velocity is still as strong as ever. Opponents have nevertheless feasted on the pitch, connecting for six homers with a .286 average and .527 slugging mark.

Aside from Bednar, Aroldis Chapman and Colin Holderman have been Pittsburgh’s primary high-leverage arms. Holderman has been out for a few weeks with a sprained wrist, leaving Chapman as the favorite for most of the closing work. Dennis Santana and Carmen Mlodzinski are potential options to pick up save chances if Shelton wants to turn to a right-hander.

How the Pirates handle the ninth inning for the next few weeks isn’t as significant as determining whether Bednar can recapture his lockdown form. A disastrous August has tanked their playoff hopes. As the focus turns toward the offseason, the front office could face questions about Bednar’s future with the organization. Pittsburgh rebuffed trade interest when the big righty was at his peak form. They had an extended control window and probably had some designs on agreeing to an extension with the Pittsburgh native. That’s a tougher call to make coming off the worst season of Bednar’s career.

The 29-year-old is playing on a $4.15MM arbitration salary. The process is designed to escalate salaries even amidst down years, so Bednar’s price tag next year should top $5MM. His track record makes a non-tender difficult to envision, but the Pirates could entertain trading his final two seasons of arbitration eligibility.

Pirates Could Add To Offense By Dealing From Pitching Depth

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The Pirates are scouring the trade market for ways to improve their lineup, and given the lack of pure sellers with available bats, one potential avenue the team has explored is trading from another area of its major league roster to augment the offense. General manager Ben Cherington discussed such a possibility on Sunday (link via Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), and he mentioned just today that the team has an abundance of pitching that could appeal to other clubs (also via Hiles).

Pittsburgh indeed has a deceptively deep collection of arms, as MLBTR’s Darragh McDonald explored last Wednesday in a piece for MLBTR Front Office subscribers. ESPN’s Jeff Passan suggests that a back-end starter such as Bailey Falter or perhaps a late-inning relievers like Aroldis Chapman or even Colin Holderman and David Bednar could be in play if the Bucs indeed want to use their collection of arms to add a bat. Alex Stumpf of MLB.com tweets that the Pirates have been willing to deal from the bullpen to improve the lineup but also adds that some of the team’s pitching prospects could come into play.

It goes without saying that Paul Skenes, Jared Jones and Mitch Keller don’t factor into this thinking. That excellent trio is the very foundation on which the Pirates’ staff will be built for the next several years. But the Buccos have plenty of affordable back-of-the-rotation options.

The Braves are covering all but $3MM of Marco Gonzales’ salary this season. He’s pitched to a 2.70 ERA with a 17.3% strikeout rate and 5.5% walk rate in 26 1/3 innings and has looked sharp since returning from a two-month IL stint owing to a muscle strain in his forearm. A team looking for an affordable fourth or fifth starter (e.g. Twins, Astros, Guardians) could be intrigued. Falter is currently on the injured list due to tendinitis in his triceps but should be back before long. He’s posted a 4.08 ERA in 17 starts (90 1/3 innings) while fanning 16.7% of his opponents against a 7.7% walk rate. He’s out of minor league options but controlled another four seasons beyond the 2024 campaign. Martin Perez tossed six shutout innings today but did so while issuing five walks and only lowered his ERA to 5.20 in the process. He’s earning $8MM, which makes it hard to see him bringing back a bat of note.

In terms of less-established options, the Pirates have names like Quinn Priester, Mike Burrows and Braxton Ashcraft to peddle. Priester has gotten some MLB experience, but the former top prospect has yet to establish himself as a core rotation piece. Burrows and Ashcraft haven’t yet debuted. The former only just returned from Tommy John surgery performed last April. He’s slowly moving up the minor league ladder on a rehab assignment. The latter has had a breakout season between Double-A and Triple-A.

The Pirates surely don’t want to deplete their stock of arms too greatly, but in an ideal world, top prospect Bubba Chandler will claim a rotation spot by 2025. At that point, there’s a notable glut of arms with only one rotation spot truly open. Even if Chandler needs more time or gets hurt, Pittsburgh would still have him, Priester, Falter, Ashcraft, Burrows, Luis Ortiz and Johan Oviedo (recovering from offseason Tommy John surgery) as long-term rotation options behind Skenes, Jones and Keller.

In the bullpen, Chapman is back to his excessively wild ways. He’s fanned a mammoth 36.6% of his opponents but also issued walks at a woeful 19.5% clip. To Chapman’s credit, he’s been better in that regard after a shaky April/May showing. Over the past two months, he’s sitting on a 3.43 ERA, 35.6% strikeout rate and 13.3% walk rate. That’s still too many free passes, but it’s more in line with some past marks from Chapman, who has frequently been able to overcome poor command because of his blistering velocity and knack for missing bats. Overall, Chapman sports a 3.93 ERA on the season. He’s being paid $10.5MM, and the Pirates still owe him about $3.72MM as of this writing. He’s a free agent at season’s end.

Both Bednar and especially Holderman would come with greater appeal. Bednar has long frequented the pages of MLBTR in past trade deadlines and offseasons. Clubs throughout the league have targeted the Pittsburgh-area native since he established himself with his hometown club, but a deal has never come together. Now, Bednar is struggling through a career-worst season, with a 4.98 ERA in 34 1/3 innings. The shaky ERA seems tied largely to a spike in homer-to-flyball rate; from 2021-23, only 6.6% of Bednar’s fly balls became homers. This year, he’s nearly doubled that, sitting at 12.2%. Bednar is also allowing more fly balls than ever (50%), making the timing of that spike most unwelcome.

Still, there’s plenty of track record with Bednar, who from ’21-’23 posted a 2.25 ERA with 61 saves and elite strikeout and walk rates. He’s earning $4.51MM this season and is controllable through the 2026 campaign.

The 28-year-old Holderman would be difficult to trade. He’s not yet arbitration-eligible, though he will be this season as a Super Two player. Holderman is controlled four more years, all the way through 2028, and has delivered 36 2/3 innings of 1.72 ERA ball this season, fanning 28.8% of his opponents against a 10.9% walk rate. Moving on from a controllable leverage reliever of that ilk isn’t easy, though the Bucs could consider it a nifty piece of business to acquire Holderman from the Mets in exchange for Daniel Vogelbach (back in 2022) and then trade him for a more impactful bat just two years later. And with so many arms in the system behind Skenes, Keller and Jones, some of those in-house options are going to wind up in the bullpen.

Trades of Holderman and Bednar seem like a long shot, particularly since the latter would be selling low on a popular hometown All-Star. That said, the Bucs do have a large stock of arms from which to deal. Moving an established reliever/starter for a bat could open the door for any number of young, promising in-house replacements, while a more conventional swap might simply see them trade some of those prospects for immediate offensive help — ideally a bat controlled for multiple years beyond the current season.

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