Pirates Finally Fixed Their Bullpen, But Did They Do Enough?

How many times have we started an offbeat and before we even got to me wishing you a good morning and you're doing the whole rundown there, I would just rattle off a stat about this bullpen, how they have almost as many blown saves as actual saves, how there

ERA is one of the worst in baseball, how they have a bad win probability added, how they are on pace to have one of the worst seasons ever in franchise history from the 7th to 9th inning.

It really felt like once a week and I really don't try to go for the low-hanging fruit, it was like it's right in front of you can't ignore it.

This bullpen was a problem that couldn't be ignored and to the Pirates credit, this trade deadline, they made significant additions to it to the point that I look at this group and I'm like, could this actually be a strength for the team?

At the same time, I'm wondering, like, they made four trades in the days leading up to the deadline.

Should they have only made bullpen trades?

Good morning and welcome to OffBeat here on North Shore Nine presented by FanDuel.

My name is Alex Stumpf and this is a daily look at your Pittsburgh Pirates.

I know there's irony in me saying, should they only make bullpen trades?

Because I was the guy banging the table saying, look, the bullpen needs to be your first, your second, your third, your fourth priority.

This is a huge issue for this team.

You can't blow games like this.

Not whenever you have one of the better performing offenses in franchise history, at least recent franchise history.

You have that, you have a starting rotation that has tremendous upside.

It's not being realized, but it is a type of group that I don't think anyone would blink twice if Paul Skenes reverts back to 2025 form.

Or Bubba Chandler has two really good months.

Or Braxton Ashcraft, gets back to his all-star pace or anything like that.

Like, the starting pitching could be really good.

Offense is really good.

It was the bullpen that was holding this team back.

How the guys like Dennis Santana and Justin Lawrence, who were supposed to be big leverage guys, just did not come through.

How this group that was basically half-lefty, they didn't get left-handed hitters out.

I wrote about that for Book Row Bucks, about how this was one of the worst performing bullpens against left-handed hitting.

So what do the Pirates do?

They pick up four right-handed relievers down the stretch.

And we talked about Camilo Doval yesterday.

I think he's a good change of scenery candidate.

Call him a reclamation project.

They got the big fish.

Like, Mason Miller, I didn't think he was ever getting traded.

Padres ended up buying.

Of course they weren't going to trade him.

It was always, that was the white whale.

But Luke Weaver was always positioned as probably the best reliever who was going to be traded.

And the Pirates landed him.

That is a huge addition to this group.

They needed it desperately.

And we talked last week about how, hey, how is this bullpen supposed to function?

Whenever your back is up against the wall, who do you go to?

And now they have that guy.

They have him.

They could use him either in those high leverage spots in the seventh, eighth, if Don Kelly wants to have a bullpen by committee.

Or if they just want to put him in the ninth inning and he's the closer, nobody's going to blink twice at that.

This guy is a top 20 reliever in baseball.

That's what this group needed.

They needed their stud.

Kirby Yates.

I really like this pickup.

this isn't the big move.

I totally get it.

This is a minor one.

But last year, he was supposed to be a ringer for the Dodgers for their bullpen.

Bad year.

Rebounded pretty well with the Angels.

ERA starts with a three.

It's a rarity with this Pirates bullpen.

And I know the lefty splits are bad, and that's an issue with this bullpen, but good enough.

That's a good veteran voice to add to this group.

He is still producing at a really good rate, and he's still getting right-handers out.

So if he is a right-handed loogie, a roogie, I guess, like that's fine.

That's a good enough add with the veteran presence that he's going to bring.

And then Lake Basher, like good multi-inning guy.

There's some upside there.

He gives up too many fly balls, and too many of those fly balls turn into home runs.

But I still see him as a quality multi-inning guy, someone who is able to give some quality and quantity with his innings.

And whenever you look at what the Pirates gave up, you don't feel bad at all.

Sammy Stafura was the only top 30 prospect that was dealt on deadline day.

They also traded Omar Alfonso for Doval.

But on actual deadline day, Sammy Stafura was the only top 30 prospect.

And I like him.

I think he could be a good Major League Baseball player one day.

But there is a lot of depth at shortstop right now, especially with Konnor Griffin as, locked into the largest contract in franchise history.

I don't think they need middle winfield depth right now.

That's fine.

You trade from that.

Like, I suggested that.

Wyatt Sanford was the guy I suggested.

But, that's same mind.

Same mindset.

And, hey, if Sammy Stafura does turn out to have a really good Major League career, the Pirates got him for Ke'Bryan Hayes.

So you could just think of this trade real easily as we traded Ke'Bryan Hayes and we acquired Luke Weaver instead.

That's a nice move right there.

That's a nice move for this team.

To the Marlins, they traded Brandon Bidwa.

Maybe Bidwa could still be really good.

I soured on him pretty fast up in the Major Leagues.

Not him as a person, but just seeing how the stuff played and how he was fooling no one.

Like, Spidey Sense was going off.

Like, yeah, I don't know if you could count on this guy to throw Major League innings in 2026.

So the Pirates traded one controllable reliever who probably has some higher upside and definitely has more team control for a controllable reliever who is actually performing in 2026.

Throwing two lottery tickets, that's a fine trade.

And then the Kirby Yates trade was just trading Kyle Robinson, who the Pirates got in, and a Lika Williams trade.

So it's basically a Lika Williams for two months of Kirby Yates.

Fine.

All told, that's a pretty good return on investment.

And it's also not cheaping out for 2026.

Like, this is a bullpen that now has some legs, has some actual guys that you can go to and leverage spots.

You've got Luke Weaver, who is a top 20 reliever in the game.

You have got Doval, who is a great change of scenery candidate, pitching to an ERA in the ones away from Yankee Stadium.

He has team control for 2027, if this works out.

Yates is the veteran presence you had.

The late bachelor, that's the multi-inning guy right there.

It's like, that's a good collection.

You get a stud, you get a reclamation project, you get a crafty vet and a multi-inning guy.

That's how you revamp a bullpen.

And we're still going to have to see how Karvin Mlodzinski is deployed and what his future is, and to a lesser extent, Dotel.

But you have those four, and you mix in Gregory Soto, Mason Montgomery, and Evan Sisk whenever he comes back from the injured list.

That's actually a bullpen.

That might actually be a pretty good unit for doing some meatball surgery on, the last, at the deadline.

This was a unit that was significantly improved, and it needed to be.

We have talked about it feels like, once a week.

That said, that Cincinnati series, man, there are some injuries that made me wonder if this is maybe the best course of action.

Mitch Keller is on the 60-day IL.

His season is over.

And it was something that wasn't, he wasn't reporting any issues beforehand, Ben Cherington said.

It was after the game on Sunday, he reported stuff, he got the MRI injured list.

So, we talked previously about, do you need to add a starting pitcher to this group?

Would have looked pretty decent right about now, but, I get there wasn't a lot of time where maybe a starting pitcher was a luxury beforehand.

It becoming a necessity at the 11th hour is tough from a negotiation standpoint.

Pirates didn't end up picking a starting pitcher.

Ryan O'Hearn, hurt for a while, expected to miss six to eight weeks.

He's still around.

They might get him at the end of the year, but they don't add an outfielder there.

Now, they did just get Spencer Horwitz back from the injured list.

They will be getting Oneil Cruz probably next week at some point.

I would have to imagine.

But, no addition, especially a right-handed bat, like, I don't know.

You're already talking to the Mets.

They had a couple righties up for grabs.

Another right-handed outfielder probably would have been a nice luxury to add, but I still stand by the bullpen was what needed to be fixed here.

The bullpen needed as much TLC as it could have possibly gotten.

Because this is a great offense, this is a rotation with upside, and now you've got a bullpen with some potential upside.

And not only now, but, with the exception of Yates, all these guys are under team control for 2027, too.

This isn't something that, you're just going to go into next offseason thinking, okay, you've got to find five, six relievers somewhere.

No, they've got some stability here now.

They need those calming presence.

They need those guys that, I know Don Kelly has gotten a lot of flack for some of his managerial decisions.

A lot of times with this bullpen usage, the issue is he just didn't have a good reliever to go to.

And he might have made the right choice.

But whenever you give it to the ball to a bad reliever, it's like, well, okay.

Roll the dice, see what happens.

I'm interested to see how the strategy evolves now.

Now that he doesn't have to try to find a two- or three-inning lane for, a rookie starter to pitch out of the bullpen.

Or just hoping that they can cobble together three innings somewhere and that Gregory Soto can get the save.

Like, no, there's actually tears to this bullpen.

There are actually people who can contribute in different ways, in different roles.

That's something that we couldn't have said at any other point this year.

This bullpen coming into the year, I think even the most optimistic takes on this bullpen were not as high as what this bullpen could be now.

There's a lot of season left to be had.

And I know there are some people who are clamoring, maybe you just sell this deadline.

But, this was the year.

If there was ever a year for Ben Cherington to be an unabashed buyer, it was this year.

Period.

Full stop.

And he did.

And he did.

This is a deadline that I have a hard time seeing this deadline being like a, oh, there's a Chris Archer trade in here.

Where it's like, how did they let those guys slip through their fingers?

There isn't that.

But this is also a unit that got significantly better.

And that's what they needed.

Thank you so much for listening to OffBeat here on North Shore Nine presented by FanDuel.

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We'll talk again tomorrow.

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