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Trey Cabbage To Sign With NPB’s Yomiuri Giants

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Dec. 17: Cabbage will sign with the Yomiuri Giants of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, reports Andrew Destin of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Dec. 16: The Pirates released first baseman/outfielder Trey Cabbage, as first reflected on the MLB.com transaction log. Alex Stumpf of MLB.com reports that Cabbage will pursue an opportunity in a foreign league. That opens a spot on Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster, which drops to 37.

Pittsburgh claimed Cabbage off waivers from the Astros last month. Houston had attempted to outright him off their roster at the beginning of the offseason. Cabbage could’ve battled for a spot in Spring Training with the Bucs, but there was no guarantee he’d have stuck on the roster all winter. Even if he’d held the 40-man spot, Cabbage has an option remaining and might’ve spent most of next year in Triple-A.

It seems his camp is finalizing a deal with a team in another league that’d presumably come with a better payday. Cabbage has an intriguing power-speed combination. He had a 30-30 showing with a .306/.379/.596 slash in Triple-A with the Angels in 2023. His minor league production wasn’t quite as strong this year (.243/.351/.474) but he made a career-high 45 MLB appearances with the Astros. MLB pitching has exploited Cabbage’s propensity for huge strikeout totals in the upper minors, fanning him at a near-41% clip. He’s a career .209/.245/.331 hitter in 147 big league plate appearances.

Pirates Sign Nick Solak To Minor League Deal

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The Pirates have signed infielder/outfielder Nick Solak to a minor league deal, according to the transactions tracker on his MLB.com player profile page. The deal presumably includes an invite to big league Spring Training.

Solak, 30 next month, was a second-round pick by the Yankees back in 2016 but has rarely stayed in one organization for more than a few seasons at a time to this point in his career. The journeyman was traded from New York to Tampa in the three-team swap that brought Brandon Drury to the Bronx prior to the 2018 season, and then was flipped to the Rangers by the Rays in a deal that proved to be something of a coup for Tampa as they landed right-hander Pete Fairbanks.

While Fairbanks went on to become a dominant righty for the Rays, Solak made his big league debut for the Rangers in 2019. It was an impressive cup of coffee, and he hit .293/.393/.491 (126 wRC+) in 135 plate appearances for the club. The strong showing earned him a more regular role with Texas over the next two seasons, but Solak generally looked somewhat over-matched at the plate during that time with a lackluster .218/.350/.357 (88 wRC+) slash line in 744 combined trips to the plate. That led to Solak spending the majority of the 2022 season in the minor leagues before a season-ending foot fracture took him out of the picture for the remainder of the year.

At the start of the 2022-23 offseason, Solak was traded from the Rangers to the Reds in a cash deal. While he remained with the Reds throughout the offseason, he was designated for assignment by the club once it became apparent that he wouldn’t make their Opening Day roster. That led Solak to ride the transactional carousel all throughout the 2023 campaign. He briefly played for the Mariners, White Sox, Braves, and Tigers over this time, leaving him to be part of six MLB organizations in a single calendar year through a series of trades and waiver claims. Eventually, Solak finally cleared waivers after being designated for assignment by Detroit in August and elected free agency last winter.

Solak signed on with the Mariners on a minor league deal back in January, and while he didn’t make it onto the big league club he enjoyed a solid season at Triple-A Tacoma. In 90 games for the club, he slashed a respectable .311/.406/.446 with an impressive 15.3% strikeout rate. Even in the inflated offensive environment of the Pacific Coast League, that performance was good for a wRC+ 20% better than league average. Solak re-entered the open market earlier this offseason and has now found a new home with the Pirates, for whom he can offer some valuable positional depth capable of playing all over the diamond. For a club that sported the league’s third-weakest offense in 2024, a versatile bat like Solak that has had flashed of MLB success in the past could be an attractive bench option or non-roster depth piece headed into the 2025 campaign.

Pirates Acquire Enmanuel Valdez

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The Pirates and Red Sox announced a trade that will see infielder Enmanuel Valdez head to Pittsburgh in exchange for right-hander Joe Vogatsky.  Valdez was designated for assignment by Boston earlier this week.

Valdez has appeared in 125 big league games since making his MLB debut with the Sox during the 2023 season.  A solid .266/.311/.453 slash in 149 plate appearances made a good first impression for Valdez in his rookie year, but he didn’t fare well with more playing time this past year, hitting only .214/.270/.363 in 223 plate appearances.

Of the whopping 11 players who were part of Boston’s revolving door at second base in 2024, Valdez had the most playing time, with 56 starts and 65 total appearances at the keystone.  Pittsburgh’s second-base situation is also far from settled, with Nick Gonzales penciled into a starting role for now, and Nick Yorke and Jared Triolo also fighting for at-bats.  Valdez is the only left-handed hitter among these other righty options, which could give him an opening for a platoon role.

Valdez figures to be part of this mix, though he has a smattering of MLB experience at third base, shortstop, and left field, and he has played all over the diamond in the minors.  This versatility will help Valdez’s chances of winning a job out of Spring Training, and his ability to handle third base might be particularly useful if Ke’Bryan Hayes continues to be bothered by back injuries.  Valdez has a minor league option year remaining, giving the Pirates the ability to use him as minor league depth if the 26-man roster is full.

Vogatsky (who turns 23 later this month) was a 19th-round pick for the Pirates in last summer’s amateur draft, and the right-hander has yet to begin his pro career.  A product of James Madison University, Vogatsky worked exclusively as a reliever in his last two college years, with much better results than his first two NCAA seasons.  This role change likely got Vogatsky drafted, and it seems likely that he’ll stick in the bullpen going forward.

MLBTR Podcast: Winter Meetings Recap

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Tim Dierkes, Steve Adams and Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Pirates Hire Miguel Perez As Bullpen Coach

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The Pirates announced the hiring of Miguel Perez as bullpen coach on Friday afternoon. He’ll take over for Justin Meccage, with whom the club parted ways at the end of the season.

Perez, 41, is a former professional catcher. He had a cup of coffee with the Reds in 2005 amidst a 12-year minor league career. Perez finished his playing days in the Pittsburgh system in 2013. He moved directly into coaching. Perez has spent the past decade coaching and managing at various levels of the Bucs’ organization. He has managed their Triple-A team in Indianapolis for the last three years, overlapping with players like Oneil Cruz and Endy Rodríguez along the way.

While he wasn’t a pitcher himself, Perez’s catching background means he’s comfortable with pitching staffs. He’ll work alongside pitching coach Oscar Marin and assistant pitching coach Brent Strom to try to turn the relief group around. Pittsburgh relievers had the fourth-highest ERA in the majors this season, allowing 4.49 earned runs per nine. They ranked 20th in strikeout percentage (22.9%) while posting the seventh-worst walk rate (10%). The top priority is getting David Bednar on track after the star righty turned in 5.77 ERA and relinquished the closer role late in the season.

Pirates, Carson Fulmer Agree To Minor League Contract

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The Pirates are in agreement with right-hander Carson Fulmer on a minor league deal, reports Robert Murray of FanSided (X link). The Icon Sports Management client will be in MLB camp as a non-roster invitee.

Pittsburgh’s interest in the 31-year-old Fulmer as a depth option goes back a few years. They claimed the former eighth overall pick off waivers twice during the 2020 season. Pittsburgh never used in an MLB game and designated him for assignment early in the following year. While Fulmer hasn’t donned a Bucs uniform in the majors, he has appeared for five teams over a career spanning parts of eight seasons. A good portion of that work came with the White Sox early in his career.

After bouncing around in journeyman fashion, Fulmer found something of a home with the Angels. He inked a minor league deal with the Halos in 2023 and nabbed a spot on the big league roster late in the season. While they waived him at season’s end, they brought him back on another minor league deal and called him up within two weeks of the ’24 campaign.

Fulmer stuck on the roster for the rest of the season. He started eight of 37 appearances and logged a career-high 86 2/3 innings. The Vanderbilt product turned in a 4.15 ERA with a 21.4% strikeout rate that’s a little below average. He issued walks at a slight elevated 10.6% rate. The Halos ran him through waivers at the end of the year, sending him back to minor league free agency. He’ll battle for a spot in Derek Shelton’s bullpen during Spring Training.

Pirates Exploring Corner Outfield, Bullpen Markets

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The Pirates checked an item off their offseason to-do list when they acquired Spencer Horwitz in hopes that he can serve as a long-term option at first base. They’re still not done hunting for bats, however, as Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports within a broad-reaching piece on several Winter Meetings takeaways that the team is looking for a corner outfielder, with a likely preference to operate on the trade market. The Bucs will also likely be in the market for a low-cost reliever or two, Hiles adds.

Corner outfield help isn’t a new need for the Pirates. They sought to address the issue with their deadline acquisition of Bryan De La Cruz from the Marlins, but he turned in a disastrous .200/.220/.294 slash in 44 games with Pittsburgh following the trade. The Pirates chose not to double down on an acquisition they’d come to regret, non-tendering De La Cruz rather than paying him a projected $4MM salary in arbitration (courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz).

With De La Cruz now on the open market, the Pirates’ outfield alignment includes Bryan Reynolds in left and converted shortstop Oneil Cruz in center field. Right field options include Joshua Palacios, Billy Cook and Jack Suwinski, the latter of whom looked to have broken out as a key bat for the Pirates in 2023 before struggling through a disastrous 2024 season (.182/.264/.324 in 277 plate appearances). There’s been some talk of Reynolds logging some reps at first base (link via Alex Stumpf of MLB.com), but the Horwitz trade pretty clearly indicates that’s at best a backup plan for the time being.

Cruz will be getting the lion’s share of reps in center field. Reynolds can technically play either corner, though his once-premium range has eroded substantially. Reynolds still posted better-than-average sprint speed in 2024, per Statcast, but his reaction times and jumps in the outfield graded quite poorly. As recently as 2021, Statcast credited Reynolds with 98th-percentile range in the outfield; in 2024, he was at the very bottom of the league, in the first percentile. His arm strength on his outfield throws actually ticked back up after a down year in 2023, but he’ll need to make some adjustments regardless of which corner he roams (though it’ll presumably be left, based on recent usage).

There are a handful of known and obvious corner outfield trade candidates on the market. Pittsburgh was never going to pony up for Kyle Tucker, who just went to the Cubs, as ownership wouldn’t be willing to spend the necessary money to keep him long term. But names like Taylor Ward (a deadline target for the Bucs), Wilyer Abreu, Jake McCarthy, Alek Thomas and Mike Yastrzemski have all been bandied about the rumor mill this offseason. The Pirates will surely look into some potential under-the-radar options as well. Budget-strapped teams with some outfield depth (e.g. Twins or, if they’re comfortable dealing within the division, Brewers) could make intriguing partners, as could a team like the Orioles, with plenty of interesting young hitters but less supply in terms of quality young starting pitching.

Of course, if trade efforts fall flat, the free agent market does have some affordable names. Max Kepler, Alex Verdugo, Jesse Winker and Austin Hays are among the interesting and affordable free agents who could fit even a small-payroll club like Pittsburgh.

On the bullpen front, there’s little use speculating on specific targets, given the sheer volume of possibilities. Hiles cautions against the chances of another relatively significant splash like the one the Bucs made when signing Aroldis Chapman last year, instead positing that the Pirates will be shopping at far lower rates. Typically, the best way to find bargain options is to wait out the market and see who’s left without a seat when the musical chairs stop in February. The Pirates could also try to convince a potential trade partner to include some pre-arbitration bullpen help in any deal netting them an outfielder.

The Pirates currently project for a payroll of about $74.5MM, per RosterResource. That does not include an expected reunion with designated hitter Andrew McCutchen. Pittsburgh finished the 2024 season with a roughly $87MM payroll and peaked with a franchise-record $100MM outlay back in 2016.

Pirates Have Reportedly Been Willing To Listen On Mitch Keller

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The Pirates already moved one big league pitcher this week, sending righty Luis Ortiz to the Guardians in a trade to acquire new first baseman Spencer Horwitz, but Pittsburgh’s pitching depth could be sufficient enough to set the stage for another deal. Noah Hiles and Andrew Destin of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report that the Bucs have also been willing to talk about right-hander Mitch Keller, whom they signed to an extension just this past spring. Righty Jared Jones was even someone on whom the Pirates were at least willing to listen, per the report, though it’s not clear whether the trade of Ortiz has reduced their willingness to talk about other controllable, pre-arbitration arms.

Trading either right-hander would be somewhat surprising, albeit to differing degrees. Any player who signs a notable contract in Pittsburgh is going to eventually come up in trade rumblings as the salaries escalate. Still, moving Keller fewer than 12 months after signing him to an extension that promised him just over $71MM in new money from 2025-28, would be unexpected. He’s owed $15MM in 2025, $16.5MM in 2026, $18MM in 2027 and $20MM in 2028 — a total of $69.5MM over the next four seasons.

Keller, 29 in March, has posted similar bottom-line results in each of the past two seasons: a 4.21 ERA in 32 starts during the 2023 campaign and a 4.25 ERA in 31 starts in 2024. He posted strong, nearly identical walk rates between the two seasons (6.7% in ’23, 6.5% in ’24) and had the exact same 1.16 HR/9 mark in each year.

However, Keller lost four percentage points off his strikeout rate from 2023 (25.5%) to 2024 (21.5%), while his average four-seamer dropped by 0.8 mph and his sinker lost about a half mile per hour. He allowed more balls in the air, more hard contact and more overall contact in 2024 — particularly within the strike zone. Fielding-independent metrics were more bullish on his 2023 work (3.80 FIP, 3.83 SIERA) than on his 2024 efforts (4.08 from both FIP and SIERA).

Regardless, Keller is a quality arm with enough velocity, prospect pedigree, track record and (perhaps most importantly) affordability to draw considerable interest on the market. Even if the Bucs weren’t necessarily interested in trading him at the outset of the offseason, the soaring prices of free-agent pitching have suddenly made Keller look like even more of a bargain. Consider that 37-year-old Alex Cobb secured a $15MM guarantee coming off a season in which he made three starts or that Frankie Montas, 32 in March, commanded a $17MM annual value (with an opt-out) after a 4.84 ERA with a similar strikeout rate and worse command in fewer innings — and Keller’s contract looks quite appealing.

The Pirates don’t necessarily need to shop Keller, but there’s no getting around the reality that a $15MM salary for him this season — and the escalating numbers in subsequent seasons — is a sizable number for Pittsburgh in a way that isn’t true in other markets. Hiles and Destin suggest that any trade from the big league rotation would be made with an eye toward both adding a major league bat to a lackluster lineup. In Keller’s case, it’d also free up money to pursue help at other areas of need. Corner outfield, second base and the bullpen are among the areas that come to mind.

A trade of the 23-year-old Jones would register as something of a stunner. The former second-round pick entered the 2024 season lauded  as one of the game’s best prospects and quickly established himself as a viable big league arm while demonstrating star upside. Jones averaged a blazing 97.3 mph on his four-seamer, fanned 26.2% of his opponents against a tidy 7.7% walk rate and pitched 121 2/3 innings of 4.14 ERA ball. His huge 14.1% swinging-strike rate showed clear potential for even more strikeouts.

Jones missed about seven weeks with a lat strain and showed signs of rust in his return late in the year. Prior to landing on the injured list, he’d pitched 91 innings of 3.56 ERA ball with strikeout and walk rates right in line with his season-long rates. He was more prone to homers and walks in his relatively brief September return than he’d been prior to the injury, suggesting his command was lacking — not a huge surprise for a young pitcher simultaneously returning from an injury and establishing a new career-high number of innings (when combining his big league total with his 11 rehab frames).

Moving Jones would require a seismic return. He’s a 23-year-old with five seasons of club control, elite velocity, plus bat-missing abilities, strong command and some big league success already under his belt. One would imagine the Pirates would only even entertain the notion if presented with a hitter of similar upside and club control. Even then, given the rarity of starters with this upside, the Bucs might seek additional prospects on top of any young hitter(s) they’d target. If Jones were truly available, he would likely be the most coveted arm on the entire starting pitching market — and rightly so.

General manager Ben Cherington told Hiles and Destin Wednesday (after the Ortiz trade) that he could “in theory” move another arm from his rotation but cautioned against dipping to far into his cache of arms. The Pirates have Paul Skenes, Keller, Jones, Bailey Falter and Johan Oviedo as current starters with some big league success under their belts, plus an enviable line of well-regarded prospects behind them. Mike Burrows and Braxton Ashcraft are both on the 40-man roster, while prospects Thomas Harrington and Bubba Chandler are close to the majors. Chandler, in particular, is regarded as one of the best pitching prospects in the game (as Jones and Skenes were an offseason ago). He ranked 15th, 19th and 21st on the most recent top-100 prospect rankings from MLB.com, FanGraphs and Baseball America, respectively.

Readers (Pirates fans, in particular) will want to check out the entire piece from Destin and Hiles, as the portion on starting pitching is just one of several Winter Meetings topics the report explores. The Post-Gazette duo also touches on Jack Suwinski’s offseason efforts to put an ugly 2024 season behind him, injured righty Hunter Stratton’s rehab, and some potential news on the coaching front.

Pirates Acquire Spencer Horwitz From Guardians

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The Pirates announced the acquisition of first baseman/second baseman Spencer Horwitz from the Guardians for a three-player package: righty Luis Ortiz and left-handed pitching prospects Josh Hartle and Michael Kennedy. Cleveland dealt Horwitz within hours of acquiring him from the Blue Jays in this afternoon’s Andrés Giménez deal.

Horwitz, 27, looks as if he’ll get a crack at Pittsburgh’s starting first base job. He would’ve been an imperfect fit on a Cleveland team that already has Josh Naylor and Kyle Manzardo. There’s a much clearer path to playing time in Pittsburgh. The Bucs used Rowdy Tellez as their primary first baseman for most of the ’24 season. He didn’t perform well and was cut loose at the end of the year.

The lefty-hitting Horwitz has shown offensive promise both in Triple-A and the big leagues. He turned in an impressive .265/.357/.433 batting line over 381 plate appearances this year. Horwitz picked up 12 homers and 19 doubles while showing excellent strike zone awareness. He walked at an 11% clip while striking out 18.4% of the time.

Horwitz has a stellar minor league track record. He’s a career .316/.433/.471 hitter with nearly as many walks as strikeouts in 208 Triple-A games. He clearly has offensive ability, but he’s yet to get a full MLB run because of a lack of defensive value. Horwitz has been a first baseman for most of his minor league career. His 5’10” frame and hit-over-power approach are rare at that position. Toronto used him as part of their second base mix as well, but teams don’t seem to view him as an everyday player there.

The Bucs don’t have a great option at second base either. Nick Gonzales is the in-house favorite on the heels of a pedestrian .270/.311/.398 showing. The Pirates will probably stick with Gonzales at the keystone and use Horwitz at first, but the latter is at least capable of kicking over to second base as a fill-in option.

Horwitz has yet to reach a full year of MLB service. He’s under club control for six years. He’ll very likely be eligible for arbitration after two seasons as a Super Two qualifier, but the Bucs will get a couple years of what they hope is a plug-and-play first baseman on roughly league minimum salaries. It’s questionable whether Horwitz has sufficient power to profile as an everyday option. If he hits his ceiling, he’d probably project as a LaMonte Wade Jr. type who gets on base enough to be a solid regular. Pittsburgh’s first-year hitting coach Matt Hague worked for Toronto in recent years and is surely bullish on Horwitz’s offensive acumen.

Ortiz is the only member of the trio heading to Cleveland who has MLB experience. The 25-year-old righty has pitched in a swing role over the past couple years. Ortiz struggled over his first two seasons but turned in a quietly strong ’24 campaign. He started 15 of 37 appearances and logged 135 2/3 innings of 3.32 ERA ball. Ortiz managed solid results no matter what role he was asked to play. He turned in a 3.22 mark out of the rotation while allowing 3.49 earned runs per nine in relief.

The underlying profile didn’t match the strong ERA. Ortiz neither gets ground-balls nor strikeouts at high rates. His 8.8% swinging strike percentage was well below average. To his credit, Ortiz did take a major step forward with his control this year. After walking at least 12% of opponents in his first two seasons, he limited the free passes to a 7.6% clip.

Ortiz will have a tough time repeating this year’s success unless he finds a way to miss more bats. That’s not out of the question, as he has intriguing raw stuff. Ortiz sits in the 95-96 MPH range with both his four-seam and sinking fastball. He found a lot of success with a mid-80s slider that served as his top secondary offering. If he can sustain this year’s command while finding a better swing-and-miss pitch, he’d have a shot to be a mid-rotation arm. If not, he could find himself back in the bullpen as a long reliever.

The Guardians have a solid track record of pitching development, but they’re thin in the rotation for the second straight season. Tanner Bibee is the only lock for their season-opening rotation. Gavin Williams and Ben Lively will probably occupy back-end roles. Ortiz has a decent shot of cracking the front five, which would also include one of Triston McKenzie, Logan Allen or Joey Cantillo if they don’t make any further additions. Shane Bieber re-signed and could factor in by May or June as he works back from Tommy John surgery.

It’s still a relatively weak group, but the Guardians papered over a poor rotation by relying on a dominant bullpen this past season. While they’ll likely need to do so again, Cleveland could add at least one more starter via free agency or trade. Pittsburgh has a lot of upper level pitching talent, so Ortiz would’ve had an uphill battle to hold off arms like Thomas Harrington and Bubba Chandler for a rotation spot.

Ortiz lands between one and two service years. He’s at least one season from arbitration and could find himself on the border of Super Two eligibility next winter. Regardless of whether he gets to arbitration early, he won’t become a free agent for five seasons.

The Bucs also pay a bit of a prospect price to even the deal. Hartle was Pittsburgh’s third-round pick this summer. The Wake Forest product entered the spring as a potential first-round talent before struggling to a 5.97 ERA in his junior season.

Baseball America wrote in their draft report that Hartle has good command with fringy stuff. He sits in the low 90s with roughly average secondary pitches. It’s not the highest-upside profile on paper, but this is the type of arm with whom the Guardians’ player development department has thrived. Bibee and Bieber were also command-oriented college draftees whose stuff didn’t take off until they got into pro ball. While that’s certainly not a guarantee that Hartle will progress the same way, it’s not a surprise that he’s of interest to Cleveland.

Kennedy, 20, was a fourth-round pick out of a New York high school in 2023. He made 18 appearances in the low minors this year, working to a 3.66 ERA with a near-28% strikeout rate over 83 2/3 frames. As with Hartle, he draws praise for his athleticism and control but has subpar velocity. They’re each developmental fliers who have a shot to stick as starters if their stuff comes along.

Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic first reported the Pirates were acquiring Horwitz. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com had the return going to Cleveland. Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet suggested earlier this evening that Horwitz might end up being flipped to Pittsburgh. Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Pirates, Elvis Alvarado Agree To MLB Deal

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The Pirates are in agreement with reliever Elvis Alvarado on a major league split contract, reports Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (X link). The righty gets a 40-man roster spot with the Bucs, a notable development for a minor league free agent.

Alvarado secures a 40-man spot for the first time in his career. The 6’4″ righty has bounced around in minor league free agency. He has appeared in the Nationals, Mariners, Tigers and Marlins systems. Alvarado spent most of the ’24 campaign in Triple-A with Miami. He had a strong season, working to a 2.79 ERA in 48 1/3 innings. He struck out a third of opponents but walked an untenable 18% of batters faced.

The Bucs are clearly intrigued by Alvarado’s swing-and-miss ability. His command remains a serious work in progress. There’s not a ton of downside for Pittsburgh, which has a handful of open 40-man spots. Alvarado has a full slate of minor league options and will probably begin the season at Triple-A Indianapolis. The split deal means he’s paid at differing rates for his MLB and minor league work. He’ll very likely be paid around the MLB minimum for whatever time he spends at PNC Park.

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