The Pirates Bullpen Still Has One Hole to Fix

So last year at the winter meetings, the Pirates made a very uncharacteristic signing and brought in Gregory Soto for $7.75 million.

So much discussion had been about improving the lineup, getting deeper one through nine, but the team also recognized that left-handed relief was an area that they needed to get better at.

And their list of potential candidates who could make them better was pretty short.

Gregory Soto was on that list, so they picked him up.

It was interesting because it was about the time of that signing that the Brandon Lowe trade started to pick up a little bit.

And you wonder, would they have made that signing knowing that Mason Montgomery was going to be a Pirate in the not-so-distant future?

Well, we're going into 2027.

Mason Montgomery is more than just a lefty reliever.

He is going to be one of this bullpen's premier back-end arms, if not their closer.

So that raises a question.

Do you bring Gregory Soto back?

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.

Gregory Soto, I think, was the subject of perhaps a little more ire than he deserved.

There was so much anguish, for lack of a better word, with this bullpen for a good chunk of the season.

And he was made the de facto closer.

That wasn't the plan whenever he signed.

The Pirates had planned for him and Dennis Santana to split the highest leverage roles.

But Santana obviously did not have a good year, pitched his way out of being a leverage arm, and that just left Soto as the last man standing.

And even though he was the figure of a lot of grief, at the end of the day, 67 innings, 79 strikeouts, a .363 ERA,

and if you want to go by win probability added, which is, I think, the best metric for a reliever, 1.1.

All in all, I would consider that a good season.

Maybe not as good as the Pirates had hoped.

There are obviously a couple blown saves along the way that, did impact the course of the season.

But he was thrown into a position, elevated, beyond what I think the Pirates originally signed him for.

And he did okay.

He is he was the meme of, I accidentally became important at work and it's ruined my life.

It was also an issue because Mason Montgomery obviously would develop and flourish as the year went on.

But, lefty reliever with a lot of question marks coming into the year.

And then Evan Siss comes in and, look, there are some good back of the baseball card stats for him.

A 302 ERA over 41 innings pitched, or 41 outings, you're like, okay, that's pretty good.

But, a negative one win probability added, and a lot of that is, he did not do a good job at stranding runners.

He inherited 30 runners in the major leagues this year, and 16 of them scored.

Out of all the relievers who inherited at least 20 runners this last season, and that's the sixth highest run scored percentage.

The Pirates brought in Brandon Eisert around the time of the draft, right before the draft.

And he spent most of the year in AAA Indianapolis.

Those two are very similar.

Lefty, funky arm angle, not exactly the hardest throwers.

Eisert did have a nice little run to end the year.

So, while I'm fine with, whenever I project what a 40-man roster could look like, he is on it for me.

But I currently have him penciled in as an up-down guy.

If he proves that he is more, that is great.

That is a champagne problem.

You need a couple relievers like that every year, because there are always going to be injuries.

There are always going to be guys who underachieve.

But I don't know, going into 2027, if those are my only other options for a lefty in the bullpen.

Maybe you could consider Hunter Barco.

But, for one, he did not have a really good year.

Two, has not really shown that he could get major league hitters out, coming out of the bullpen.

And three, wouldn't you rather roll the dice with him as a starter?

there are still question marks surrounding him, but if you're going to do that, I think it'd be better off to have him be starting pitching depth.

And then internally, the only other guy in the system, in AAA, is Brandon Neek, who they got in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft the year before.

Again, not the hardest of throwers, but 233 ERA in AAA.

I really like the sweeper.

Gets a really high whiff rate, has some spin, has some movement.

I'm buying a pitch, pretty much.

But even then, I would put him in that same camp of Sisk or Izert, of up-down guys, depth guys, see what happens.

what's that next line of defense?

More than penciling them in here on October 14th, of like, yeah, that is my lefty reliever.

Because that's really the only thing, I look at this bullpen, that I have pause about.

And I know we just talked about the bullpen in depth not that long ago, but like, I think Montgomery and Weaver is a really good one-two punch to close out games.

Lake Bakar had a really good season whenever he came over from Miami.

I think he is someone who could go multiple winnings, could maybe slot into a more leverage role if needed.

Carmen Mlodzinski is a giant wild card here.

I don't know what, his future holds, if he's going to be a starter, if he's going to be a reliever, if he's going to be a pirate.

But if he is in the Pirates' bullpen, and especially that guy that we saw in September, who isn't getting three or four days between outings, and could go one inning,

one outing, and then go two innings, with some built-in rest after, like, that's huge.

That's the Andrew Miller type.

That's the guy who really makes his bullpen click if they go that route.

And then whenever you look at, the Wilber Dotels, and the Antoine Kellys, and like, it's, I see the makings of a good right-handed bullpen, and,

which is, anchored at the end by a left-handed closer.

You can't use Mason Montgomery like that.

He's not going to come in the sixth inning to clean up, two runners on base and two outs.

Even if it might be one of the highest leverage moments of the game.

That's not how they're going to play regular season baseball in 2027 yet.

They still need, I think, a lefty.

Would they be best suited?

Make it a Gregory Soto.

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You can find relievers a lot of different ways.

Isaac Mattson was a minor league free agent.

Dennis Santana was a waiver claim.

Jason Montgomery was a throw-in almost.

Essentially a throw-in on a bigger trade.

There are different ways you can acquire impact relievers.

Like the Luke Weaver trade is one way where you give up a really good prospect and you get a really good player back, but you could polish up some guys.

Relievers are probably the one Ilka baseball player that if you just get really good at one tool at one pitch, you could become a big leader in a viable part of a bullpen.

But I'm just going to look at more traditional means here because I look at this free agent class.

I think there is a little depth here.

Sean Newcomb had a really good year for the White Sox.

Steven Okert for the Astros.

Tim Meza, who they signed the year before in 2025, he was pretty good for the Phillies this last year.

Maybe you consider a reunion.

He is a Pennsylvania kid after all.

I imagine those would all be cheaper than the 7.75 Soto is due to make.

And whenever we look at this payroll, which right now back in the envelope math is in the ballpark of $100 million, which is within the ballpark of what they started last year at.

And you don't know what's going to happen this winter.

You don't know if the Pirates are going to have a green light to spend before the lockout.

or spend significantly, I guess I should say.

significantly increased payroll like they did last winter.

You don't know if they will find ways to create financial flexibility like a theoretical Mitch Keller trade.

You don't know.

There is a lot of question marks surrounding it.

And there's also the knowledge that if this lockout goes the way I expect it to go, the way I think most people expect it to go, that there are going to be a lot of good players still unsigned through the lockout.

And then whenever a new CBA is agreed to, they immediately had to spring training.

Like it was in 2021, 2022.

They signed that CBA and they were almost immediately, within like 48 hours, 72 hours, they were in Bradenton.

And the Pirates made a few signings.

They picked up a reliever at that time.

Heath Hembree, right after the signings happened.

Now, Heath Hembree ended up not being not very good, but they also signed Daniel Vogel back, who was good.

So it's like, it's the principle.

It's the principle that you can still do that.

Maybe you wait for that.

Maybe you explore other markets.

But like I said, I think this bullpen has the makings to actually be a strength in 2027, which I don't know how many people would have thought that would have been the case in June of this year.

There's just one noticeable hole right now.

And that's who gets the lefties out.

And Soto showed through the ups and downs of this year that he can do that.

I imagine if he was to resign, it would be for a contract fairly similar to what he got this year.

Arms length, either way.

I think you could do worse spending money like that, but there are still question marks with this team.

There are still holes that need to be filled.

They need to pick up at least one infielder.

They need to find a way to get better against left-handed starting pitching.

But I would view, left-handed relief is like the next biggest issue for this winter.

Because the internal options all have some question marks around them.

And if you build a really good back end of the bullpen, it'd be a shame to blow a lot of games in the sixth and seventh inning again.

It's a big reason why the Pirates didn't make the postseason this year.

Can they afford to run that risk again in 2027?

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