A lot of talk and focus by the front office this season was upgrading the offense and rightfully so after the bats had an abysmal 2025 season (30th in runs and HRs). And while the offense looks to be significantly improved, what about the strength of the team the starting pitching. I think it’s safe to pencil in Paul Skenes, Mitch Keller, Bubba Chandler and Braxton Ashcraft as your 1-4 starters to start 2026. What’s a little less clear is who the 5th starter will be when the season begins against the Mets in New York. With Jared Jones moving to the 60-day DL Wednesday as he recovers from surgery to repair a torn UCL, the Pirates will need a 5th starter for at least the first couple months of the season. Let’s take a look at some of the candidates to fill that role…
Carmen Mlodzinski
We’ve seen this show before. Mlodzinski has made at least one start in every season of his three-year MLB career to date. He made it known to the organization that he would ideally like to start and last season he made a career-high 12 starts. I think we all know the numbers. As a starter, he posted a 4.99 ERA in 48.2 innings. As a reliever that ERA drops significantly to 2.15 ERA in 50.1 innings. Last year in his 12 starts, the first batters he faced hit .222 off him, but when he faced them a second time in those starts, they hit .381. These numbers are very similar across his career as well. All this said, could Mlodzinski start in the rotation come Opening Day? Sure he’s done it before and has experience in that role, but I’m not sure the Pirates will go there again. I know I wouldn’t. Mlod carved out a nice role in the bullpen in the second half of 2025, allowing just seven earned runs in 32.2 innings (1.93 ERA) in the last two months of the season. He can be that multi-inning reliever to bridge the gap from the starter to the back of the bullpen or he can be part of that back of the bullpen if need be too. Overall, I think his value is in this role in the bullpen, and I’m not sure the Pirates will rock the boat to try Mlod as a starter again.
Internal options: Hunter Barco, Jose Urquidy and Tom Harrington
The Pirates could push the envelope a bit and rely on one of their internal options. All three have MLB experience as Hunter Barco and Tom Harrington both made their MLB debut last season, but it was a very brief stay. Harrington made just one start and threw 8.2 innings in three appearances and Barco only saw 3.0 innings and it was just two outings out of the bullpen. Harrington did make 20 starts in Triple-A Indianapolis last season, but he struggled there with a 5.34 ERA and continued to struggle in his short time in Pittsburgh. If the Pirates really want a lefty to be a part of the rotation then Barco is really the only option unless they go out and sign a free agent (see below).
The internal option with the most experience here is Urquidy who they signed on Wednesday to a 1-year/$1.5M deal. Urquidy made 70 starts with the Astros from 2019-2023 and was a solid middle of the rotation arm for Houston. The problem is that he ran into injuries and missed all of ’24 with Tommy John surgery and then signed a one-year deal with the Tigers, returned late last season and was hit hard in just two outings in Detroit. Overall, he’s only tossed 2.1 innings in the Majors the past two seasons. If he’s healthy and shows it in spring training, I think Urquidy has a good chance to be the Pirates 5th starter. But that’s a big if, at the very least I think he could be a nice addition to the pen.
Free Agent Signing
The Pirates under Ben Cherington have been known to go and sign a veteran starting pitcher to eat some innings in the rotation. In the past five years, we’ve seen the likes of Jose Quintana, Andrew Heaney, Martin Perez, Rich Hill and Tyler Anderson provide a lot of starts. With a very young and right-handed rotation and the depth just not quite there yet as mentioned above, could Cherington go this route again? Old friend Tyler Anderson is still available along with Patrick Corbin. Corbin in his age 35 season last year with Texas made 30 starts and 155.1 innings to the tune of a 4.40 ERA. Anderson, also 35 last season, made 26 starts in 136.1 innings for the Angels. I think this is a very viable option and probably the one I would lean toward if they want a lefty in the rotation. They have a history of doing it and when you have young pitchers who’s workload will be monitored like Bubba Chandler, it makes a lot of sense to go get a vet you can give the ball to every fifth day. The only issue with this one is the Pirates payroll is already more than $100M and I’m not sure how close they are to budget, but there probably isn’t much room left in there. Signing one of these guys to a 1-year, $4-6M deal is worth it in my opinion.
Piggybacking/Opener?
Let’s get weird with the last option. The Pirates experimented with the opener before with someone like Ryan Borucki and last season, they had guys like Bubba and Barco come up and pitch out of the pen after following the starter. Could the Pirates do something similar this season and get creative with the 5th spot in the rotation? Someone like Mlodzinski starts and goes one time through the order for 2-3 innings then gives way to Barco or Harrington or Urquidy for 4-5 innings. That would be the blueprint anyway if they went this route. They certainly have a lot of pitching depth, albeit most of it is young, so this could be a way to get everyone involved if they choose to out of camp and if they really want to lean into valuing only having some their pitchers face the order two times. I don’t love this idea overall, mostly because it’s probably not the greatest way to properly develop your young starters like a Barco and Harrington.
There are the candidates for the 5th rotation spot. I’m leaning toward signing one of the available arms for some stability and veteran experience in the rotation. What do you think the Pirates will do for the last spot? And who do you want to see starting for the Pirates?
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