North Shore Nine

On Monday, the Pirates signed free agent left-handed starting pitcher Martín Pérez to a one-year deal. It was first reported by Robert Murray in the above Tweet (or whatever they call posts on that site now).

Pérez has 12 years of MLB experience across three different teams. The majority of that experience has been with the Texas Rangers where he’s played for nine years including last year for their World Series championship where he appeared in game 2 out of the bullpen and gave up four earned runs in 1.1 innings pitched. That aside, he had a decent year with the Rangers last year. He appeared in 35 games and had a 10-4 record with a 4.45 ERA. He struck out 93 batters and walked 49 in 141.2 innings pitched.

This move helps address what is the Pirates’ biggest need this off-season. With Johan Oviedo getting Tommy John surgery, Mitch Keller was left as pretty much the only major league caliber starting pitcher. The Bucs have now added Marco Gonzalez and Martín Pérez. It would be ideal to see them add at least one more significant starting pitcher. We should hopefully also see Paul Skenes at some point in mid-June to add to the rotation.

DiNardo and Neil sat down for a short emergency podcast to address this latest move. You can watch their thoughts in the below video. Let’s Go Bucs!