Jared Jones Will Not Require Surgery, To Be Shut Down For Six Weeks
Pirates right-hander Jared Jones recently had a start skipped due to some elbow inflammation, leading to a series of tests. Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that Jones does not have any ligament damage and will not require surgery. However, he will be shut down from throwing for the next six weeks.
About a week ago, manager Derek Shelton relayed to reporters that Jones had experienced the elbow discomfort. The club had already done some imaging but Jones was going to be sent for a second opinion. That’s generally not pleasant framing, as going for a second opinion typically means you didn’t like the first.
While they avoided the worst-case scenario of a surgery that would have sidelined him into 2026, the Bucs will be without arguably their second-best starter for quite some time. Jones won’t even resume throwing until the first or second week of May at the earliest. He’ll likely require a 4-6 week buildup from there. He’d need to get through multiple bullpen and live batting practice sessions before he’s ready to go on a rehab assignment. Jones would likely need at least 2-3 minor league appearances before he’s ready for his season debut. He’ll miss most of the first half.
Jones is coming off a strong rookie year. The former second-round pick made 22 starts and tallied 121 2/3 innings of 4.14 ERA ball. He struck out 26.2% of opponents against a reasonable 7.7% walk rate. Jones might have worn down a bit as the season progressed. He took a 3.56 ERA into the All-Star Break but allowed nearly six earned runs per nine in the second half. He continued to miss bats at an above-average rate but saw a spike in his home run rate late in the year. A lat strain shelved him for most of that time, as he was on the IL from early July into late August.
Rocky finish aside, Jones is one of the most talented young pitchers in the sport. He averages north of 97 MPH on his fastball and can miss bats with both an upper-80s slider and a low-80s curveball. Hitters swung through more than 14% of his offerings last season. Jones was in the top 10 in MLB (among pitchers with at least 100 innings) in swinging strike rate. That hints at top-of-the-rotation upside, but the focus now is on avoiding a more significant elbow issue.
Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller lead Pittsburgh’s rotation. They’ll be followed by lefties Andrew Heaney and Bailey Falter. Earlier this week, the Bucs named relief convert Carmen Mlodzinski their season-opening fifth starter. Prospects Thomas Harrington and Bubba Chandler should push for spots midway through the year.
Pirates Skipping Jared Jones’ Next Start Due To Elbow Discomfort
The Pirates provided an ominous update on one of their most promising young players Wednesday, when manager Derek Shelton announced that righty Jared Jones would have his next start skipped due to elbow discomfort (link via Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). Jones first experienced discomfort during his most recent bullpen session earlier this week. The team has already had imaging performed and is seeking a second opinion before proceeding with a firm diagnosis and recovery timetable, per director of sports medicine Todd Tomcyzk.
The obvious hope will be for a minor issue that sees the talented 23-year-old return to the mound in short order. Any talk of a pitcher skipping a start due to elbow trouble without a firm diagnosis will naturally create concern, however, especially for someone whose future is as bright as that of Jones.
The 44th overall pick back in 2020, Jones pitched his way into top prospect status as he climbed the minor league ladder and broke camp in the Pirates’ rotation last year. He came roaring out of the gates, too, pitching to a 2.63 ERA with elite strikeout and walk rates through his first seven starts. He hit a rough patch beginning at the end of May and by early July was on the injured list due to a lat strain that would sideline him for about six weeks.
At the time of the injury, Jones had pitched 91 innings of 3.66 ERA ball with a strong 26.4% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate. He was averaging 97.3 mph on his heater, inducing swinging strikes at a huge 15.4% clip, and generally looked the part of a mid-rotation starter at the very least — with the stuff and bat-missing ability to produce like a front-of-the-rotation arm. His velocity held when he returned from that lat injury, but his location wasn’t as sharp; Jones walked 9% of his hitters, induced far fewer swings off the plate and gave up far more contact within the strike zone. He finished out the season with a 4.14 ERA in 121 1/3 innings — a solid showing with plenty of hint for further upside.
Jones has looked sharp this spring. He’s pitched 12 innings and held opponents to three runs on eight hits and six walks with 17 punchouts. Again, that command isn’t as sharp as it was pre-injury in 2024, but he’s missing bats and hasn’t experienced any drop-off in the quality and power of his arsenal.
If Jones is shelved to begin the season, the Pirates would run with a rotation including Paul Skenes, Mitch Keller, Andrew Heaney and Bailey Falter. Options for the final spot in the rotation would include prospects Bubba Chandler, Thomas Harrington, Braxton Ashcraft and Mike Burrows. The former two are still in camp but not yet on the 40-man roster. The latter pair is on the 40-man roster, but both have already been optioned. Of course, with Jones ailing, either could be summoned to the majors to replace him.
Jones accrued a full year of big league service time in 2024. He’s still controllable through the 2029 season and isn’t slated to reach arbitration until the 2026-27 offseason.
Red Sox Discussed Jared Jones Trade With Pirates During Winter Meetings
Starting pitching has been a priority for the Red Sox this winter, and the club has actively addressed that need by trading for Garrett Crochet and signing both Walker Buehler and Patrick Sandoval. Several other starters have been on Boston’s radar throughout the offseason, including some talks with the Pirates about right-hander Jared Jones during the Winter Meetings, according to the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier.
The depth of the negotiations aren’t known, or whether Boston’s interest was perhaps anything more than a due-diligence check-in just in case the Crochet trade didn’t come together. In an example of how teams are constantly following multiple paths at once during an offseason, Speier notes that the Red Sox were also showing interest in the Mariners’ Luis Castillo as a trade target along with Jones and Crochet, and also speaking with such free agents as Buehler, Nathan Eovaldi, and Nick Pivetta.
Despite their rotation additions to date, it can probably be assumed that the Red Sox would still be interested in acquiring Jones, simply because every team would love to have a controllable, 23-year-old pitcher coming off an impressive rookie season. Reports from earlier this month indicated that Pittsburgh was (somewhat surprisingly) open to the idea of at least hearing offers for Jones, though that was before the Pirates dealt from their rotation depth by moving Luis Ortiz to the Guardians for Spencer Horwitz.
Heading into the winter, it was widely assumed that the Pirates would swing such a pitching-for-hitting trade, given the team’s need for offense and its number of available pitchers. Even with Ortiz now in Cleveland, the Buccos still have a projected rotation of Jones, Paul Skenes, Mitch Keller, Bailey Falter, and Johan Oviedo, plus several highly-touted prospects in the minors who are knocking on the door for their MLB debuts.
Whether or not the Pirates would be willing to further deal from the pitching ranks remains to be seen, and in Jones’ case, it would assuredly take a massive offer for Pittsburgh to even consider moving the right-hander. As it relates to the Red Sox in particular, the Pirates would be justified in asking for any of Jarren Duran, Triston Casas, or at least one of Boston’s “big three” prospects (Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, Kristian Campbell) in return for Jones.
Casas’ name was already floated in talks with the Mariners about Seattle’s cadre of young starters, while Anthony, Mayer, and Campbell are thought to be all but untouchable in trade discussions. Speier writes that none of that minor league trio was ever offered to the White Sox for Crochet, and “the White Sox understood the Red Sox weren’t going to discuss” those players. However, it should be noted that the Big Three was initially a Big Four, but Kyle Teel ended up being the prospect sent to Chicago as the headliner of the Crochet trade package.
A blockbuster swap of young talent between the Pirates and Red Sox shouldn’t be ruled out entirely, given how a deal would neatly address the twin needs of both clubs. That being said, even if Skenes might be the only entirely untouchable Pirates pitcher in trade talks, it can be assumed that Pittsburgh would explore moving any of its other arms before looking to deal Jones. If the Pirates were considering a trade from closer to the top of their rotation, moving Keller and the $69.5MM remaining on his contract over the next four seasons would seem like the preferred option for the ever budget-conscious Bucs.
Pirates Have Reportedly Been Willing To Listen On Mitch Keller
The Pirates already moved one big league pitcher this week, sending righty Luis Ortiz to the Guardians in a trade to acquire new first baseman Spencer Horwitz, but Pittsburgh’s pitching depth could be sufficient enough to set the stage for another deal. Noah Hiles and Andrew Destin of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report that the Bucs have also been willing to talk about right-hander Mitch Keller, whom they signed to an extension just this past spring. Righty Jared Jones was even someone on whom the Pirates were at least willing to listen, per the report, though it’s not clear whether the trade of Ortiz has reduced their willingness to talk about other controllable, pre-arbitration arms.
Trading either right-hander would be somewhat surprising, albeit to differing degrees. Any player who signs a notable contract in Pittsburgh is going to eventually come up in trade rumblings as the salaries escalate. Still, moving Keller fewer than 12 months after signing him to an extension that promised him just over $71MM in new money from 2025-28, would be unexpected. He’s owed $15MM in 2025, $16.5MM in 2026, $18MM in 2027 and $20MM in 2028 — a total of $69.5MM over the next four seasons.
Keller, 29 in March, has posted similar bottom-line results in each of the past two seasons: a 4.21 ERA in 32 starts during the 2023 campaign and a 4.25 ERA in 31 starts in 2024. He posted strong, nearly identical walk rates between the two seasons (6.7% in ’23, 6.5% in ’24) and had the exact same 1.16 HR/9 mark in each year.
However, Keller lost four percentage points off his strikeout rate from 2023 (25.5%) to 2024 (21.5%), while his average four-seamer dropped by 0.8 mph and his sinker lost about a half mile per hour. He allowed more balls in the air, more hard contact and more overall contact in 2024 — particularly within the strike zone. Fielding-independent metrics were more bullish on his 2023 work (3.80 FIP, 3.83 SIERA) than on his 2024 efforts (4.08 from both FIP and SIERA).
Regardless, Keller is a quality arm with enough velocity, prospect pedigree, track record and (perhaps most importantly) affordability to draw considerable interest on the market. Even if the Bucs weren’t necessarily interested in trading him at the outset of the offseason, the soaring prices of free-agent pitching have suddenly made Keller look like even more of a bargain. Consider that 37-year-old Alex Cobb secured a $15MM guarantee coming off a season in which he made three starts or that Frankie Montas, 32 in March, commanded a $17MM annual value (with an opt-out) after a 4.84 ERA with a similar strikeout rate and worse command in fewer innings — and Keller’s contract looks quite appealing.
The Pirates don’t necessarily need to shop Keller, but there’s no getting around the reality that a $15MM salary for him this season — and the escalating numbers in subsequent seasons — is a sizable number for Pittsburgh in a way that isn’t true in other markets. Hiles and Destin suggest that any trade from the big league rotation would be made with an eye toward both adding a major league bat to a lackluster lineup. In Keller’s case, it’d also free up money to pursue help at other areas of need. Corner outfield, second base and the bullpen are among the areas that come to mind.
A trade of the 23-year-old Jones would register as something of a stunner. The former second-round pick entered the 2024 season lauded as one of the game’s best prospects and quickly established himself as a viable big league arm while demonstrating star upside. Jones averaged a blazing 97.3 mph on his four-seamer, fanned 26.2% of his opponents against a tidy 7.7% walk rate and pitched 121 2/3 innings of 4.14 ERA ball. His huge 14.1% swinging-strike rate showed clear potential for even more strikeouts.
Jones missed about seven weeks with a lat strain and showed signs of rust in his return late in the year. Prior to landing on the injured list, he’d pitched 91 innings of 3.56 ERA ball with strikeout and walk rates right in line with his season-long rates. He was more prone to homers and walks in his relatively brief September return than he’d been prior to the injury, suggesting his command was lacking — not a huge surprise for a young pitcher simultaneously returning from an injury and establishing a new career-high number of innings (when combining his big league total with his 11 rehab frames).
Moving Jones would require a seismic return. He’s a 23-year-old with five seasons of club control, elite velocity, plus bat-missing abilities, strong command and some big league success already under his belt. One would imagine the Pirates would only even entertain the notion if presented with a hitter of similar upside and club control. Even then, given the rarity of starters with this upside, the Bucs might seek additional prospects on top of any young hitter(s) they’d target. If Jones were truly available, he would likely be the most coveted arm on the entire starting pitching market — and rightly so.
General manager Ben Cherington told Hiles and Destin Wednesday (after the Ortiz trade) that he could “in theory” move another arm from his rotation but cautioned against dipping to far into his cache of arms. The Pirates have Paul Skenes, Keller, Jones, Bailey Falter and Johan Oviedo as current starters with some big league success under their belts, plus an enviable line of well-regarded prospects behind them. Mike Burrows and Braxton Ashcraft are both on the 40-man roster, while prospects Thomas Harrington and Bubba Chandler are close to the majors. Chandler, in particular, is regarded as one of the best pitching prospects in the game (as Jones and Skenes were an offseason ago). He ranked 15th, 19th and 21st on the most recent top-100 prospect rankings from MLB.com, FanGraphs and Baseball America, respectively.
Readers (Pirates fans, in particular) will want to check out the entire piece from Destin and Hiles, as the portion on starting pitching is just one of several Winter Meetings topics the report explores. The Post-Gazette duo also touches on Jack Suwinski‘s offseason efforts to put an ugly 2024 season behind him, injured righty Hunter Stratton‘s rehab, and some potential news on the coaching front.
Pirates Call Up Mike Burrows For MLB Debut
The Pirates announced that right-hander Mike Burrows was called up to the active roster, while Jared Jones was optioned to the team’s Florida Complex League affiliate. Jones’ demotion is purely an on-paper move, as he made his last start of the 2024 season yesterday and has already amassed a full season of MLB service time in his rookie year.
Burrows was already on Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster, and the 24-year-old now figures to make his big league debut in one of the Pirates’ two remaining games. An 11th-round pick in the 2018 draft, Burrows was making steady progress up the minor league ladder before a Tommy John surgery derailed his career in April 2023.
Starting a rehab assignment in June of this year, Burrows has a 5.26 ERA over 51 1/3 innings split across three minor league levels. The most relevant set of numbers are his 4.06 ERA, 26.6% strikeout rate, and 8.9% walk rate in 37 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level, with Burrows starting nine of his 10 games for Indianapolis. Burrows has only twice made it into the fifth inning in any of his outings since the Pirates have been limiting his workload, but he tossed 91 pitches in his last Triple-A start on September 22.
An appearance today or Sunday will officially make Burrows a Major League player, achieving one big milestone in his pro career. Heading into 2025, the Pirates have Jones, Paul Skenes, Mitch Keller, and Bailey Falter lined up as the top four members of the rotation, leaving Burrows as one of several candidates battling for the fifth starter’s job or (perhaps more realistically) as a depth starter in Triple-A or as a swingman in the big league bullpen. Offseason signings or trades could further shake up the equation, like the trade deadline move that saw the Pirates swap righty Quinn Priester to the Red Sox for infielder Nick Yorke.
Pirates Outright Brady Feigl
August 31: Feigl has been outrighted to Triple-A Indianapolis, according to his MLB.com transactions tracker.
August 27: The Pirates announced that both right-handers Jared Jones and Carmen Mlodzinski have been reinstated from the injured list. In corresponding moves, infielder/outfielder Ji Hwan Bae has been optioned to Triple-A Indianapolis while left-hander Brady Feigl has been designated for assignment.
Feigl, 33, is a journeyman who has been known in baseball circles for some time due to an odd coincidence, or series of coincidences. He and Brady Feigl got some attention a few years ago due to not only having the same name, but also having a similar appearance. Both had red beards, wore glasses and were the same height. Both are pitchers, though one throws from the left and the other from the right. Inside Edition did a story on the weird juxtapositions between the two five years ago (YouTube link), even getting the two to take a DNA test, though it turned out they aren’t related.
The left-handed Feigl was added to Pittsburgh’s roster on Sunday after over a decade grinding away in the minors and indy ball. He had tossed 51 2/3 innings in Triple-A this year with a 3.83 earned run average, 29% strikeout rate and 6.1% walk rate.
He was able to make his major league debut yesterday, though it didn’t go especially well. He allowed six earned runs in an inning and two thirds, allowing seven hits without recording a strikeout. While sitting on a career ERA of 32.40 was probably not how he dreamed it would go, he can at least say he made it to the show.
With the trade deadline now passed, the Pirates will have to place Feigl on waivers in the coming days. If he goes unclaimed, he won’t have the right to reject an outright assignment, as he lacks both three years of service and a previous career outright. If that comes to pass, he will return to his previous status, providing the Bucs with depth in a non-roster capacity.
NL Central Notes: McLain, Horton, Jones
After finishing fifth in NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2023, Matt McLain‘s sophomore season has thus far been a wash, as a shoulder surgery in March has kept him off the field. McLain was set to begin a minor rehab assignment tomorrow but those plans have now been put on hold, Reds manager David Bell told the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Gordon Wittenmyer and other reporters. McLain suffered a stress reaction in his ribcage area last week and was assigned a shutdown period of 3-7 days, which has now stretched to beyond the intended start date of the rehab assignment.
As recently as Thursday, McLain “was having some progress and feeling better,” as Bell relayed about a text message sent to him from the infielder. The short timeframe of the initial shutdown period would seem to suggest that the rib injury isn’t as serious as it might sound, yet basically any setback at this point adds extra doubt about McLain’s ability to return to action before the 2024 season is over. He’ll need a pretty lengthy rehab period to get fully ramped up after his layoff, so even if McLain is able to start playing relatively soon, his return to the majors looks like it’ll be in September at the earliest. The 57-61 Reds are on the outskirts of an NL wild card race that is still relatively compact at the moment, so the team will need all the help it can get (including whatever McLain can provide) if Cincinnati has a shot of leapfrogging the field and snagging a playoff berth.
More from the NL Central…
- Cade Horton also suffered a setback in his rehab from the subscapularis strain that has kept the Cubs pitching prospect off the mound since late May, Cubs president of operations Jed Hoyer told the Chicago Tribune’s Meghan Montemurro. As a result, Horton’s 2024 campaign is likely over, as Hoyer said the right-hander probably wouldn’t start throwing again until after the minor league season is finished. Selected seventh overall in the 2022 draft, Horton is considered one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball, though his first taste of Triple-A action resulted in an ugly 7.50 ERA over 18 innings (five starts). Between the shoulder strain, this latest setback, and a Tommy John surgery in his college days, Horton has already had to deal with a lot of injury concerns, and his MLB debut will now have to wait until 2025 at the earliest.
- In the first start of his minor league rehab assignment, Jared Jones threw 47 pitches over 2 2/3 innings for Triple-A Indianapolis last Thursday. Pirates GM Ben Cherington said during his weekly radio show today (hat tip to Kevin Gorman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) that the plan is for Jones to having another rehab outing on Wednesday with a higher pitch count, and the Bucs will decide from there whether or not Jones could be ready to return from the 15-day injured list. Jones suffered a Grade 2 strain in his right lat during his last MLB start on July 3, thus necessitating a lengthy IL stint. Somewhat overshadowed by the Paul Skenes phenomenon, Jones has had a big rookie year of his own, posting a 3.56 ERA over his first 91 big league innings and emerging as another key building block of the Pittsburgh rotation.
Pirates Notes: Skenes, Jones, McCutchen, Rodriguez
As noted by Kevin Gorman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Pirates GM Ben Cherington made his weekly radio appearance on 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh earlier today. In that appearance, Cherington suggested that right-hander Paul Skenes is in “good shape” in regards to his innings workload to this point in the season. The star rookie has thrown 108 innings so far this year between the major and minor leagues, just below his career high of 129 1/3 between LSU and the minor leagues last year. Cherington went on to suggest that while the club could consider lowering Skenes’s pitch counts at some point but didn’t commit to that path, instead noting that the right-hander’s intense preparation between starts puts him in a good position to handle volume, and that the club’s focus is on how well he recovers between starts rather than his pitch counts or total innings of work.
That’s surely a relief for Pirates fans, as Pittsburgh will need every inning they can get from their young ace as they look to work their way into the playoff conversation. The Pirates currently sit at a decent 56-54 record after buying at the trade deadline. While they’re six games back of the Brewers for the NL Central crown as things stand, Pittsburgh sits just 2.5 games back in a crowded NL Wild Card picture that also features the Braves, Diamondbacks, Padres, Mets, and Cardinals. Skenes has been a huge part of the club’s resurgence this year, as the club has won nine of the 13 games he’s started for them since debuting in mid-May. Team record during a pitcher’s starts is an imperfect measure of that pitcher’s effectiveness, but it’s obvious that Skenes has helped the Pirates in a big way by posting a sparkling 1.90 ERA in 80 2/3 innings of work in the majors while striking out exactly one third of batters faced entering play today.
Skenes isn’t the only young arm that Cherington commented on, as he indicated that right-hander Jared Jones is “real close” to a rehab assignment at Triple-A following a 45-pitch live bullpen session. Cherington suggested that Jones’s first rehab outing is likely to be of a similar pitch count before moving up from there. Pittsburgh’s other front-of-the-rotation rookie has been on the 15-day IL since Independence Day due to a lat strain, but prior to that injury had looked excellent in his first season as a big leaguer with a 3.56 ERA and a 26.4% strikeout rate in 91 innings of work. Jones’s return to action should not only provide the club with a boost down the stretch, but would offer them a daunting and entirely homegrown playoff rotation alongside Skenes and Mitch Keller should the club manage to make the postseason for the first time since 2015.
While the news regarding Jones and Skenes is undoubtedly positive, a turn towards the lineup yields more mixed results. Veteran slugger Andrew McCutchen is out of today’s lineup after being pulled from yesterday’s game due what the team announced as tightness in his left quad muscle. It’s unclear as of yet whether or not the 37-year-old veteran will require a trip to the injured list due to the issue or not, but a lengthy absence for McCutchen would be a frustrating turn of events for a Pirates club that had just begun to fire on all cylinders in the lineup after adding Bryan De La Cruz and Isiah Kiner-Falefa at the trade deadline. The veteran, who has slashed a decent .228/.328/.383 with a 102 wRC+ as the club’s primary DH this year, could be replaced by Connor Joe or a youngster currently at Triple-A like Edward Olivares in the starting lineup if an IL stint is required. Catcher Joey Bart is DH’ing in today’s game, making room for Yasmani Grandal behind the plate.
Speaking of catchers, Cherington offered some positive positional news today when he indicated that there’s a “chance” that longtime catching prospect Endy Rodriguez could play in minor league games before the end of the year despite undergoing what was thought to be season-ending UCL surgery back in December. Cherington cautioned that any such rehab games would first come at DH and then first base due to the excessive pressure put on a player’s arm by the catcher position, though he didn’t completely shut the door on the possibility of Rodriguez getting time behind the plate before the year comes to a close. The 24-year-old switch hitter hit just .220/.284/.328 in his first taste of the majors last year but is a career .282/.361/.442 hitter at Triple-A who was a consensus top-50 prospect in the game prior to his debut and subsequent injury last year.
Pirates Notes: Jones, Bednar, Jefferies, Ryan
The Pirates placed right-hander Jared Jones on the 15-day injured list on Thursday, and manager Derek Shelton gave the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Andrew Destin and other reporters some details on the lat strain that has put the star rookie on the shelf for the foreseeable future. Jones suffered a Grade 2 strain and isn’t likely to throw for the next two weeks, so the team can allow him to rest and recover before checking on his progress. If all goes well and Jones is able to restart a throwing program at that time, Jones could be on track to return perhaps by early August, based on past timelines for other pitchers who have suffered similar injuries.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see Jones get a bit more recovery time, both as a precautionary measure given his importance to the Pirates’ future, and because the team was already taking steps to manage the workloads of both Jones and Paul Skenes in their mutual. Only two of Jones’ 16 starts have come on the standard four days of rest, as the Bucs have used a six-man rotation for the majority of the season. Jones threw a career-high 126 1/3 innings combined between Double-A and Triple-A ball in 2023, and he is up to 91 innings in the big leagues this year.
Jones’ last start on July 3 came after an 11-day break, as he had a turn in the rotation skipped in order to help keep him fresh. Shelton didn’t think the layoff played a role in Jones’ injury, as the Pirates still had Jones take part in a live bullpen session (“We did ramp his intensity up, we still did make sure he threw“) during his 11 days between starts, and instead chalked the lat strain up the vagaries of baseball.
While it’s good news that Jones’ injury isn’t overly serious, missing him for even a month is a hit to Pittsburgh’s postseason hopes. The Pirates are 42-45 entering today’s play but are still four games out of a wild card spot, so there is time for the team to still mount a run — or, if things go south before July 30, to explore selling at the trade deadline.
David Bednar‘s status is a key factor in how the Pirates’ July might play out, and the closer made progress in his injury recovery with a live batting practice session today. As per MLB.com’s Alex Stumpf (X link), Bednar faced five batters over the course of 21 pitches, with Bednar using his entire arsenal. A left oblique strain sent Bednar to the 15-day IL on June 20, and while he has already missed beyond the 15-day minimum, today’s throwing session is a good sign that he might not be too far away from a minor league rehab assignment or even a straight-ahead activation. The closer has 16 saves and a somewhat deceptive 5.17 ERA over 31 1/3 innings this season, as Bednar has been lights-out following a rough April.
Speaking of bullpen injuries, Pittsburgh called right-hander Ryder Ryan up from Triple-A today after righty Daulton Jefferies was placed on the 15-day IL. Jefferies is dealing with discomfort in his right elbow, and the injury comes just under two months after the Pirates claimed Jefferies off waivers from the Giants.
Jefferies has a 9.82 ERA split between 10 innings for Pittsburgh (6.30 ERA) and 4 2/3 frames with San Francisco (17.36 ERA), and both clubs have optioned him back and forth from Triple-A on multiple occasions. This marked Jefferies’ return to big league action after missing all of 2023 recovering from both a thoracic outlet syndrome surgery and then a Tommy John surgery within a six-month span in 2022. Considering that Jefferies also had another TJ procedure earlier in his career, it isn’t a good sign that he is experiencing another bout of elbow soreness.
Pirates Place Jared Jones On 15-Day Injured List
The Pirates announced this morning that they’ve placed right-hander Jared Jones on the 15-day IL with a right lat strain. Jones was pulled from his start against the Cardinals last night after just 78 pitches last night after throwing five innings of one-run ball, and manager Derek Shelton told reporters (including Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) that the quick hook was due to the issue.
“He’s got a little right lat strain going on,” Shelton said (as relayed by Hiles). “So we decided to get him out.”
Pittsburgh has long been candid about their plans to carefully manage the workload of their young pitching this season, a group that includes rookie fireballers Jones and Skenes. The young duo have been a revelation at the top of the Pirates rotation as Jones has pitched to an excellent 3.56 ERA with a 26.4% strikeout rate in sixteen starts, while Skenes has struck out 34.1% of opponents with a 2.06 ERA across nine starts. That process of managing workload has already begun for Jones, as the righty’s last appearance prior to last night’s game was all the way back on June 22. Given the fact that the club was already carefully managing Jones’s workload, it’s hardly a surprise that the club would be cautious and sit the righty down rather than have him pitch through a lat problem, even if it proves to be as minor as both Shelton and Jones himself have indicated that it’s expected to be.
A specific timetable for Jones’s return has not yet been discussed publicly, although the Pirates will need to sort out a replacement for the righty in the rotation regardless of his IL stint’s length as the club will need a fifth starter on July 8 against the Mets. The club has called up outfielder Joshua Palacios to lengthen their bench mix for the time being but will need to figure out who will take the ball in Jones’s stead before then. Right-hander Braxton Ashcraft, the club’s #5 prospect per MLB.com, is already on the 40-man roster and has dominated the Double- and Triple-A levels for Pittsburgh this year with a 3.00 ERA and 25.9% strikeout rate in 69 innings but has made just three starts at the Triple-A level to this point.
If the Pirates want to take things slowly with Ashcraft, they could turn to a non-roster arm such as Jake Woodford, who pitched in the majors for the White Sox earlier this year and has looked good with a 2.08 ERA in three starts at Triple-A for the club since he joined the organization last month. Turning to Woodford (as well as other non-roster veterans currently in Triple-A such as Domingo German and Luis Cessa) would require the club to clear space on the 40-man roster, however.
Whoever the Pirates turn to in replacing Jones will be thrust into the club’s most competitive season in years. Pittsburgh has a decent 41-44 record that places them just three games out of the final NL playoff spot, and that respectable performance has led ownership to suggest that he and the front office will be aggressive in improving the club this summer. Much of that success has been thanks to the rotation, where Jones and Skenes have combined with Mitch Keller, Bailey Falter, and Martin Perez to deliver a combined ERA of 3.63 that ranks sixth among starting staffs around the league.