Joe Musgrove Likely To Open Season On Injured List
A Padres club already thin on rotation depth delivered some rough news for fans Monday, as manager Craig Stammen revealed that righty Joe Musgrove is expected to open the season on the injured list (video link via 97.3 The Fan). Musgrove hasn’t thrown in more than a week. Dennis Lin of The Athletic reports that he didn’t recover as well as hoped following an exhibition start against Great Britain’s World Baseball Classic club.
It’s an ominous update, though it’s worth noting that Stammen didn’t suggest there had been a setback of any note. Musgrove hasn’t pitched since the 2024 season due to Tommy John surgery that cost him the entirety of the 2025 campaign.
“He’s most likely going to start on the IL this year,” Stammen said Monday morning. “We’re getting to the point where he’s taken enough time off that it’d be hard to ramp him up to get him to be a viable starter that could throw five innings, 90 pitches. … This was part of the plan. We knew he was going to have to take some time off. We knew we were going to have get him ready for the entire season and not just Opening Day.”
Getting a healthy Musgrove back in the fold will be key to the Padres’ chances at contending this season. San Diego’s rotation depth has thinned over the past year. Yu Darvish is injured and contemplating retirement. Dylan Cease became a free agent. Righties Stephen Kolek and Ryan Bergert were traded to the Royals last summer. Prospects Braden Nett and Henry Baez were sent to the Athletics as part of the Mason Miller trade.
A healthy Musgrove is arguably the Padres’ best pitcher. From 2021-24, the now-33-year-old righty gave his hometown club 559 1/3 innings of 3.20 ERA ball, fanning a sharp 25.5% of opponents against a terrific 6.1% walk rate. Musgrove doesn’t throw especially hard, sitting a bit north of 93 mph with his heater, but he has good command and induces both chases off the plate and swinging strikes at league-average or slightly better rates.
It’s always been fair to wonder how many innings the Padres can reasonably expect from Musgrove after a layoff of nearly 18 months. The uncertainty surrounding his workload is one of many pressing questions about San Diego’s starting staff.
The Padres now enter the year with Michael King (also coming off an injury-truncated season) and Nick Pivetta locked into spots. Randy Vásquez and free-agent pickup Germán Márquez are both likely to be in the starting five as well, though Márquez has been shelled this spring coming off his own worrying return from UCL surgery in Colorado. In 6 2/3 innings, he’s allowed nine runs on 10 hits and four walks. Vásquez posted a solid 3.84 ERA in 133 2/3 innings last season but did so with the third-worst strikeout rate (13.7%) of any pitcher in MLB (min. 100 innings pitched). Metrics like SIERA (5.43) and xFIP (5.51) both pegged him bottom-two in that same subset.
Options to fill out the rotation behind King, Pivetta, Vásquez and Márquez are fairly suspect. Left-hander JP Sears is on the 40-man roster but hasn’t seemed to have the confidence of the organization since coming over alongside Miller in that aforementioned trade. The Friars gave him only five starts last year despite the fact that he’d been a staple in the Athletics’ rotation. He spent the rest of his time with the organization in Triple-A last summer, and Sears has had very rough spring (8.44 ERA in 10 2/3 innings). Righty Matt Waldron is also on the 40-man roster but is behind in camp and could start on the IL himself. San Diego also signed Griffin Canning in free agency, but he’s a lock to open on the IL as he finishes rehabbing last year’s ruptured Achilles tendon.
In all likelihood, the Padres will need to break camp with at least one non-roster invitee in the rotation (barring further additions). Walker Buehler, Marco Gonzales and Triston McKenzie are the most prominent names to have signed minor league deals this offseason. None of the three have pitched well this spring. Buehler is the only one who’s allowed fewer runs than innings pitched (four runs on seven hits and two walks with six strikeouts in 6 2/3 frames).
Given the lackluster options and the nature of their early schedule, the Padres may not even fill Musgrove’s rotation spot at all. Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes that the Padres could open the season with a four-man rotation. Acee calls King, Pivetta and Vásquez locks, adding that Buehler has “likely” earned a spot, while Márquez’s spring struggles have at least created some doubt about his ability to handle the job.
San Diego has a pair of off-days within the first eight days of the season. That’ll allow them to skip the fifth spot in the rotation twice in their first ten games. The Padres’ bullpen is among the deepest and most talented in the sport, too, so even when they finally do need a fifth starter, they could opt for a bullpen game while awaiting Musgrove to get into game shape. Someone like Márquez or Sears could open a bullpen game and perhaps navigate the opposing lineup once before turning over to the bullpen.
There’s no obvious answer in sight at the moment, which will make the final week-plus of camp worth watching with a careful eye. Each of Márquez, Sears, Buehler and Gonzales should have another appearance or two to try to stake a claim to the job, and ever-active president of baseball ops A.J. Preller could always try to creatively bring in another arm. One of the remaining free agents (e.g. Lucas Giolito, Tyler Anderson, Patrick Corbin) probably wouldn’t have time to ramp up for the season, but there will be plenty of names hitting waivers or being granted their release from minor league deals over the final few days of camp.
Latest On Padres’ Bullpen Outlook
Padres right-hander Jason Adam has been targeting the Opening Day roster as he finished off his rehab from last year’s torn tendon in his quadriceps. The right-hander said three weeks back that team doctors hadn’t told him “no” on the possibility yet, and Annie Heilbrunn of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that Adam could get back into games soon. He’s been ahead of schedule in camp and is slated for one final simulated game this week before a likely Cactus League debut on the weekend.
The 34-year-old Adam is a major piece of a deep San Diego bullpen. Over the past four seasons, he’s worked to a 2.07 ERA with 92 holds, 24 saves, a 29.2% strikeout rate and an 8.4% walk rate across 256 2/3 innings between the Rays and Padres. If healthy, he’d join Adrian Morejon and Jeremiah Estrada as one of closer Mason Miller‘s top setup options.
A healthy Adam also leads to a relatively crowded bullpen that could force the Friars into some tough decisions. Miller, Estrada, Morejon and Adam would be locks for bullpen spots. That’s presumably true of righty David Morgan (2.64 ERA, 47 1/3 innings in 2025) as well. Lefties Wandy Peralta and Yuki Matsui are pitching on multi-year contracts and can’t be optioned.
That group accounts for seven of the Padres’ eight bullpen spots. Right-hander Ron Marinaccio is out of minor league options. Right-hander Bradgley Rodriguez has multiple option years left but has excelled in camp after impressing in a brief look last year. Righty Matt Waldron might start the season on the injured list, but he’s out of minor league options as well and would need to be added to the big league roster or designated for assignment. Bryan Hoeing is shut down with an elbow issue right now.
Having more talented relievers than bullpen spots available is obviously a nice problem to have, all things considered, and depending on the injury timetables of Adam and a couple teammates, the Friars might be able to kick any 40-man decisions down the road a bit for the early portion of the season. At some point, something will have to give on one of the players who can’t be sent down (whether due to contract or lack of minor league options.
That’s especially true if the Padres want to consider breaking camp with any non-roster invitees on the big league club. Veterans Walker Buehler, Marco Gonzales and Triston McKenzie are among that group, but manager Craig Stammen has been talking up the chances of a different former big leaguer for a potential bullpen job: right-hander Logan Gillaspie.
“He just goes out there, competes his tail off, lot of energy and enthusiasm, throws a ton of strikes and gets a lot of outs,” manager Craig Stammen told MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell when asked about Gillaspie. He noted that Gillaspie could be used in a multi-inning role, providing some length early in games if necessary.
The 28-year-old Gillaspie has pitched in each of the past four major league seasons, including 18 innings for San Diego across the 2024-25 campaigns. He’s had pedestrian results overall, but Gillaspie is a familiar hand for many Padres coaches and is in the midst of a strong spring training (7 2/3 shutout frames, 8-to-2 K/BB ratio). Cassavell suggests that Gillaspie is viewed as having a real chance to make the club, particularly if the Padres open the season with multiple veterans on the injured list.
How Will The Padres Round Out Their Rotation?
Barring injury, the Padres will open the season with an established top three in their rotation. Nick Pivetta, Michael King and Joe Musgrove have the upside to be one of the best top halves in the National League.
Musgrove is coming back from Tommy John surgery, while King was limited to 74 1/3 innings last year (playoffs included) by a nerve issue in his shoulder and left knee inflammation. They’re free of any restrictions this spring. Musgrove will make his exhibition debut tomorrow against Great Britain in a World Baseball Classic tune-up. King has already started two games this spring.
The picture is a lot less clear from there. Yu Darvish will miss the entire season. Free agent pickup Griffin Canning has yet to pitch this spring as he works back from last June’s Achilles tear. He’s very likely starting the season on the injured list.
That’s also true of knuckleballer Matt Waldron, though it could be close to a minimal IL stay for the right-hander. Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote yesterday that Waldron plans to throw off a mound this week and is hopeful of getting a start in before the end of Cactus League play. He won’t be built up enough to start the season on the active roster, however. Waldron is out of options, so the Padres will need to carve out an MLB spot for him once he’s ready or risk losing him via trade or waivers.
That all but ensures that Randy Vásquez will get a season-opening rotation spot. Manager Craig Stammen said at the beginning of camp that the righty had a leg up on a job. Vásquez is out options and needed to make the team in some capacity. He outperformed mediocre peripherals for most of last season but improved his strikeout rate to a league average level in September. He finished last season with a 3.86 ERA across 133 2/3 innings.
It probably leaves the Padres will one spot to fill. The front office has taken a volume approach to the back of the roster, adding a handful of veterans on cheap one-year deals or minor league contracts to see who sticks. They added enough options that it’s not out of the question they open with a six-man rotation.
Pitching coach Ruben Niebla left open that possibility over the weekend, although he implied they preferred a five-man group (link via AJ Cassavell of MLB.com). Niebla said the team is preparing the starters on a usual five-day routine. If multiple depth arms pitch their way onto the roster, they could go to a six-man staff, but that requires dropping to a seven-man bullpen.
If there’s only one spot available, Germán Márquez enters camp as the favorite. The former Rockies righty signed a $1.75MM deal in mid-February. His spot on the MLB roster feels secure, which isn’t the case for non-roster invitees Walker Buehler or Marco Gonzales. Márquez could theoretically pitch in long relief if one of Buehler or Gonzales beats him for the fifth starter role. That scenario (or a six-man rotation) probably wouldn’t bode well for out-of-options reliever Ron Marinaccio’s bid to stick on the roster.
Lefty JP Sears is also in the rotation mix, though San Diego’s series of veteran additions means it’s likelier he’s headed back to Triple-A. Sears was hit hard in five MLB starts after being acquired from the A’s in the Mason Miller trade. He still has a minor league option remaining.
Sears also hasn’t an especially encouraging start to camp, giving up five runs on seven hits (including two homers) across 3 2/3 innings. Márquez allowed three runs on four hits over two innings in his exhibition debut over the weekend. Gonzales, who missed all of last season rehabbing flexor surgery, has given up five runs across 4 2/3 frames over two spring starts. Buehler hasn’t pitched in an official Spring Training game but took on the KBO’s NC Dinos in an outing on the back fields over the weekend, giving up two runs over three innings.
Padres To Sign Marco Gonzales To Minor League Deal
The Padres and left-hander Marco Gonzales have agreed to a minor league deal with an invite to major league spring training, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. The CAA Sports client will make a salary of $1.5MM if he makes the team with an extra $1MM available via incentives.
Gonzales, 34 in February, spent many years as a solid mid-rotation starter in the majors but is coming off a few injury-marred seasons. From 2018 to 2022, he gave the Mariners 765 2/3 innings, allowing 3.94 earned runs per nine. His 17.7% strikeout rate was subpar but he also only gave out walks at a 5.8% clip.
In 2023, nerve issues in his forearm limited him to just ten starts. He required surgery in August of that year. Going into 2024, he was included in the Jarred Kelenic trade with Atlanta, seemingly as financial ballast. He was traded to Pittsburgh a few days later. Due to further forearm strains, he went on and off the injured list and only made seven starts for the Bucs that year. He underwent flexor tendon surgery that August.
The Pirates made the easy decision to turn down his $15MM club option for 2025 since he was looking at a lengthy surgery recovery. He didn’t sign anywhere else and didn’t pitch in any official capacity last year.
It’s anyone’s guess what he can provide after three straight issues more or less tanked by forearm problems. For the Padres, he’s a sensible flier to take as they certainly need pitching. Right now, their on-paper rotation is fronted by Michael King, Nick Pivetta and Joe Musgrove. There’s not a ton of certainty in there. King was injured for a lot of 2025. Pivetta has been in trade rumors. Musgrove missed all of last season recovering from Tommy John surgery.
Behind those top three, there are guys like Randy Vásquez, JP Sears, Kyle Hurt and Matt Waldron. Vásquez had a 3.84 ERA last year but that seems unsustainable since he only struck out 13.7% of batters faced. The other three all posted ERAs above 5.00 in 2025.
It’s unclear how much spending capacity the Padres have at this stage of the winter. RosterResource currently projects them for a $220MM payroll and $262MM competitive balance tax figure. At the end of 2025, those numbers were $214MM and $266MM.
If the budget is tight, that could explain why the Friars are open to moving Pivetta and his backloaded contract. He made a $3MM signing bonus and $1MM salary last year but his salary jumps to $19MM, $14MM and $18MM in the next three seasons, with an opt-out after 2026. Flipping him would save some money but further thin out the rotation.
Gonzales is hard to bank on after his injury odyssey but he would be nice value for money if he can return to something resembling his prior form. He will join Triston McKenzie as non-roster arms pushing for big league jobs with the Padres this year.
Photo courtesy of Rafael Suanes, Imagn Images
Pirates Decline Option On Marco Gonzales
The Pirates declined their option on starter Marco Gonzales. There’s no buyout and it would have cost $15MM to keep him around. He’ll miss most or all of next season after undergoing flexor surgery in his throwing elbow. The Bucs also outrighted Ben Heller, Isaac Mattson and Daulton Jefferies off the 40-man roster.
Pittsburgh acquired Gonzales from the Braves in a move that amounted to a small salary dump for Atlanta. The southpaw made three decent starts to begin the year before it was tanked by injury. A forearm strain shelved him between mid-April and the All-Star Break. Gonzales only made four starts to close the month before going back on the injured list — this time with the injury that required surgery.
Gonzales closed the season with a 4.54 earned run average through 33 2/3 innings. He was limited to 10 starts and 50 innings by a forearm strain in 2023 as well. He’s probably looking at minor league offers this winter. The hope is that he’ll be able to recapture the solid back-of-the-rotation form he showed with the Mariners between 2018-22.
Heller, Mattson and Jefferies each made a handful of appearances for the Bucs this year. They all worked in low-leverage relief. None of them found much success in small samples. All three pitchers can elect free agency.
Marco Gonzales To Undergo Flexor Surgery; Hunter Stratton Undergoes Knee Surgery
Pirates lefty Marco Gonzales will undergo surgery to repair the flexor tendon in his left elbow, the team announced to reporters Wednesday (X link via Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). Additionally, right-hander Hunter Stratton already underwent knee surgery to repair the ruptured patellar tendon he recently suffered. Gonzales’ procedure will be performed in early September and comes with a recovery timetable of nine months to a year, while Stratton’s procedure was completed today. He’s projected to need seven to ten months to be ready for a return to a big league mound.
Pittsburgh acquired Gonzales in a trade with the Braves this offseason, taking on $3MM of the veteran lefty’s $12MM salary in the process. (Atlanta had taken on Gonzales’ contract as part of their deal to acquire Jarred Kelenic from the Mariners.) A pair of forearm injuries will ultimately limit Gonzales to only seven starts for the Bucs — the first five of which were quite effective. The 32-year-old notched a 2.70 ERA over 26 2/3 frames in that stretch, fanning 17.3% of his opponents against a 5.5% walk rate. In his final two starts with the Pirates, however, Gonzales yielded nine runs on 15 hits and five walks in only seven innings.
The Bucs technically hold a 2025 option on Gonzales, but that’s priced at $15MM and comes with no buyout if the team opts to decline it. Given Gonzales’ recent injury troubles and the now lengthy rehab period he’ll face following surgery, it’s a foregone conclusion that the team will decline the option and make Gonzales a free agent. He’ll likely be ticketed for a minor league deal in free agency.
Injuries have held Gonzales to only 17 starts and 83 2/3 innings over the past two seasons, but prior to that the lefty was a fixture in the Mariners’ rotation. Seattle acquired him from the Cardinals in a straight-up swap for then-prospect Tyler O’Neill, and Gonzales quickly cemented himself in Seattle’s rotation thereafter. From 2018-22, Gonzales started 131 games for the Mariners, tallying 765 2/3 innings of 3.94 ERA ball with a 17.6% strikeout rate and 6% walk rate.
While Gonzales’ injury likely ends his tenure with Pittsburgh, that’s decidedly not the case for Stratton. The 27-year-old will finish the current season with just over one year of big league service time, meaning he’s controllable for five seasons beyond the current campaign. Given the solid nature of his results in 2024, Stratton has likely pitched his way into a future role with the team, so long as he can make a full recovery from his knee injury.
Dating back to last year’s MLB debut, Stratton has pitched 49 2/3 innings for the Pirates, during which he’s turned in a 3.26 ERA with a 21% strikeout rate, 4.9% walk rate and 41% ground-ball rate. He’s averaged 95.6 mph on his heater, done a nice job at dodging hard contact and recorded a hearty 12.6% swinging-strike rate that suggests some growth in his strikeout rate remains possible.
If Stratton is able to return on the short end of the team’s provided timetable, he’d be ready for game action near the end of spring training next year. That might ticket him for an early stint on the injured list, but a return in April would be feasible. If he skews closer to the lengthier end, a summer return would still be in the cards.
Pirates Place Marco Gonzales On 60-Day IL With Forearm Strain
9:43pm: Pittsburgh now announced that they selected Ryan’s contract before tonight’s game. They placed Gonzales directly on the 60-day injured list to create the necessary 40-man roster spot. While he’d technically be eligible to return at the end of a long playoff run, it’s clear that Gonzales won’t be back this season.
8:21pm: The Pirates will place Marco Gonzales on the injured list due to a forearm strain, manager Derek Shelton told the Pittsburgh beat (X link via Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). The Bucs haven’t officially announced that nor a corresponding roster move, but Alex Stumpf of MLB.com tweeted this evening that reliever Ryder Ryan joined the team in San Diego. Ryan is not on the 40-man roster, so the Pirates would need to make another move to bring him up if they place Gonzales on the 15-day IL.
It’s the second time this season that Gonzales has been shelved by a forearm strain. He avoided surgery the first time around but nevertheless was out of action between mid-April and just before the All-Star Break. The southpaw has returned to make four starts. Gonzales only completed five innings in one of those appearances. He surrendered four runs across 2 1/3 frames in his final start of July before allowing five runs over 4 2/3 innings against the Padres last week.
Gonzales has made just seven starts for the Bucs on the whole. He owns a 4.54 ERA with a well below-average 15.2% strikeout percentage and a solid 7.3% walk rate in 33 2/3 innings. That’s fairly typical production for the soft-tossing control artist. Gonzales ate plenty of innings at the back of a rotation at his best in Seattle. He unfortunately has not been able to do that over the last two seasons. A forearm strain also deprived him of the final four months of the 2023 campaign.
The Bucs traded Martín Pérez and Quinn Priester at the deadline. They weren’t selling, but moving Priester allowed them to bring back an upper minors hitting prospect (Nick Yorke) while Pérez was arguably superfluous while Gonzales was healthy. The pair of trades coupled with another Gonzales injury is stretching their starting pitching depth. Pittsburgh has plugged Jake Woodford and Luis Ortiz into the rotation.
Ortiz had a brilliant three-start run in the middle of July but has been hit hard in his most recent trio of appearances. Woodford signed a minor league contract in June after being cut loose by the White Sox. At the MLB level, he has given up 17 runs in as many innings this year. Jared Jones isn’t too far out from returning from a lat strain, but the rotation depth is diminishing at a time when the team is reeling.
Pittsburgh has hung in the playoff mix for most of the season. They’re taking a seven-game losing streak into tonight’s series opener in San Diego. They’re still only five games back of the Braves in the National League Wild Card race, but they’ve dropped five games below .500 and need to jump six teams to get into playoff position. It’s very much an uphill battle.
Gonzales is in the final season of the $30MM extension that he signed with the Mariners back in 2020. The Bucs hold a $15MM option for next year, though that’ll be an easy call for the front office to decline. Pittsburgh is reportedly only on the hook for $3MM of his $12MM salary this year, as the Mariners and Braves each paid down part of the contract among the series of offseason trades that landed him in the Steel City. Even if Gonzales again avoids surgery and is able to make it back for the stretch run, he’ll hit free agency with durability questions going into his age-33 season.
Ryan lost his roster spot on deadline day when the Bucs called up Woodford. He cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A. The 29-year-old righty made his debut with Seattle last season. He has pitched in 13 games for Pittsburgh, allowing 11 runs (10 earned) across 17 frames. Ryan has tossed 28 1/3 innings with Indianapolis, allowing a 4.45 ERA with a modest 16% strikeout percentage but a strong 50% grounder rate.
Pirates Could Add To Offense By Dealing From Pitching Depth
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.
Pirates Reinstate Marco Gonzales From Injured List
2:40pm: The Pirates have made it official, reinstating Gonzales and designating Honeywell for assignment. They also reinstated closer David Bednar from the IL and optioned right-hander Ryder Ryan.
2:15pm: Left-hander Marco Gonzales is going to start today’s game for the Pirates, with Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette among those to relay the news on X. He’s currently on the 60-day injured list and will therefore need to be reinstated to the 40-man roster, but it was reported earlier that righty Brent Honeywell Jr. is to be designated for assignment. Unless there are other moves involved, it seems it will be a simple swap of Gonzales taking Honeywell’s spot.
Gonzales, 32, was acquired from Atlanta in the offseason and started the season in Pittsburgh’s rotation. He made three starts with a 2.65 earned run average before landing on the injured list in mid-April with a forearm strain. He now returns after missing roughly three months of the season.
The lefty has generally been a solid but not overwhelming starter over his career. In 910 career innings, he has a 4.10 ERA but with a subpar strikeout rate of 17.6%. At his best, he limits damage even if he doesn’t miss bats. In 2019, he logged over 200 innings with Seattle with a 3.99 ERA. He only punched out 17% of opponents but Statcast considered his barrel rate to be in the 87th percentile of qualified pitchers.
The Bucs could have some decisions to make about how they shape their rotation for the rest of the year. Gonzales and Martín Pérez were brought aboard in the winter to ideally serve as veteran anchors in a somewhat inexperienced group but neither has been able to achieve that so far. As mentioned, Gonzales took the ball just four times before a lengthy IL stint while Pérez also missed some time due to injury and has 14 starts with an ERA of 5.15.
In the long term, Pittsburgh seems to be well set up in the rotation with a core three of Paul Skenes, Jared Jones and Mitch Keller. Skenes has debuted this year and dominated with a 1.90 ERA through 11 starts, getting named the National League starter for the All-Star game. Jones hasn’t been quite that dominant but a 3.56 ERA through 16 starts is still quite an achievement for a rookie. Keller is in his sixth season and has a 3.40 ERA and is signed through 2028.
Jones is currently on the injured list and won’t be available for a few weeks, but the Bucs have Gonzales, Pérez, Skenes and Keller, as well as Quinn Priester and Luis Ortiz. The 23-year-old Priester isn’t generating as much hype as Skenes or Jones but he has a 4.30 ERA for the Bucs this year. The 25-year-old Ortiz started the year in the bullpen has pitched so well that he’s carved out a starting gig for himself. He has a 2.95 ERA on the year with five of his last six outings being four innings or longer. Two of his last three appearances have been six-inning starts with only one earned run allowed total over those two starts.
That gives Pittsburgh six possible starters for now and seven when Jones comes back. Bailey Falter is also on the IL with left triceps tendinitis, though it’s unclear when he’ll be back. He was also having a good season before the IL stint, with a 4.08 ERA in 17 starts.
The Bucs are currently 45-48 on the year. Despite that fairly unimpressive record, they are only 2.5 games out of a playoff spot in a relatively weak National League Wild Card race and will have to figure out how to juggle these different rotation choices. Priester has options and may end up in the minors in spite of his decent results. Ortiz could end up back in the bullpen and Pérez also has some relief work on his résumé.
With all those starting options, it’s possible the Bucs look to make someone available even if they’re not truly selling at the deadline. For example, the Rays recently welcome Shane Baz back from his Tommy John layoff and were able to trade Aaron Civale to the Brewers without significantly downgrading their rotation, getting a prospect back in return. Many teams are looking for pitching but there are few clearcut sellers, so perhaps there would be interest in a veteran like Pérez or Gonzales, allowing the Bucs to use their pile of starters to add a position player or a reliever without truly harming their chances in 2024.
Whether a trade comes together or not, the Pittsburgh rotation seems to have a lot of long-term potential between Skenes, Jones, Keller, Priester, Falter and Ortiz, as well as prospects such as Braxton Ashcraft. There’s also Johan Oviedo, who will miss this season due to Tommy John surgery but should be back next year. Everyone in that group is controlled through 2027 or longer.
Pirates Announce Several Roster Moves
The Pirates announced a series of roster moves today. They recalled catcher Henry Davis, outfielder Jack Suwinski and infielder Liover Peguero from Triple-A Indianapolis. They also selected the contract of right-handed reliever Ben Heller from Indy. In one corresponding move, they placed infielder/outfielder Ji Hwan Bae on the 10-day injured list with a right wrist sprain, retroactive to June 3. Outfielder Michael A. Taylor went on the paternity list, opening another roster spot, while left-hander Jose Hernandez was optioned to Triple-A and catcher Grant Koch was designated for assignment.
Additionally, the club reinstated catcher Jason Delay from the 60-day IL and optioned him to Triple-A. To open a 40-man spot for him, left-hander Marco Gonzales was transferred to the 60-day IL.
The news on Davis was reported on the weekend. Manager Derek Shelton was on 93.7 The Fan earlier today, as relayed by Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and revealed the news about Suwinski, Peguero, Bae and Taylor.
Davis, the No. 1 overall pick from the 2021 draft, returns to the majors after spending a bit more than a month in Triple-A. He’d gotten out to not only a rough start in 2024 (.162/.280/.206 in 83 plate appearances) but to his overall big league career. The former Louisville star also struggled through 255 plate appearances last season in his debut campaign and carries a disappointing .201/.297/.319 slash to this point in the majors.
Of course, that’s a small sample of just 338 plate appearances — far too limited a data set to make any broad-reaching conclusions about Davis’ long-term outlook. He looked reinvigorated during his short time in Indianapolis, utterly laying waste to International League pitching. In 101 turns at the dish, Davis recorded an outrageous .296/.436/.642 batting line with seven home runs and seven doubles.
Davis has long been viewed as a bat-first catching prospect, which admittedly makes his early struggles at the plate concerning but also creates some optimism that he’ll eventually turn a corner in the batter’s box. The Pirates’ hope is that this brief Indy reset will be a catalyst for just such a turnaround. And with Joey Bart now joining fellow catcher Endy Rodriguez on the injured list, Davis should have a clear opportunity to prove he can carry some of those gains over to the MLB level.
Suwinski will return after just a week in the minors. He was optioned last week after struggling to a brutal .174/.268/.297 slash to begin what he hoped would be a strong follow-up to last year’s 26-homer breakout. His rate stats were better in Indianapolis, as he hit .250/.276/.429 with a homer and a triple in his seven-game sample, but Suwinski also fanned in 13 of his 29 plate appearances (44.8%). That’s not the type of progress for which he and the team were hoping, but Bae’s injury created an outfield need and forced the team’s hand.
Heller, 32, has pitched in parts of five major league seasons and has a 3.06 ERA in 50 big league innings, albeit with a below-average 20.9% strikeout rate and a hefty 11.8% walk rate. Metrics like FIP and SIERA both peg him north of 5.00. He’s benefited from some decent fortune on balls in play (.261 BABIP) and a sky-high 89% strand rate that’s about 17 percentage points higher than average.
That said, Heller has also posted genuinely intriguing numbers in Indianapolis this year — none more so than his enormous 43% strikeout rate. Through 18 1/3 frames, he’s yielded a 4.91 ERA, but most of the damage against him came in one stretch of four straight appearances in which he allowed runs. He’s since rattled off 5 2/3 shutout frames, fanning 10 opponents along the way against four walks. Command is still an issue for Heller, but his 10.1% walk rate in Triple-A is a bit better than his big league standards.
Koch was only just called to the majors for his big league debut when Bart landed on the injured list. The 27-year-old former fifth-rounder appeared in three games but did not collect a hit in eight trips to the plate. He’s a .236/.295/.362 hitter in parts of two Triple-A seasons. The Pirates will have a week to trade Koch, attempt to pass him through outright waivers, or release him.
Delay played a prominent role with the Pirates over the past couple seasons and hit .251/.319/.347 in 187 plate appearances last year. That’s respectable production for a backup catcher, but Delay is generally considered just that — a backup option behind the dish — whereas Davis is the potential future if not at catcher then perhaps at first base or in right field. The Pirates understandably want to give Davis as many opportunities as possible, and he’ll now slide back into the primary catcher role with veteran Yasmani Grandal backing him up.
As for Gonzales, his move to the 60-day IL was largely procedural. The team needed a 40-man spot to reinstate Delay, and Gonzales has been on the 15-day IL since April 14. He’ll be eligible to return later this month, but he’s yet to begin throwing. He’s out with a strained left forearm muscle and may not be back until the season’s second half at this rate.