Are the Pittsburgh Pirates done addressing their bullpen?

With the addition of Daniel Hudson, are the Pittsburgh Pirates done addressing the bullpen this off-season?

Yesterday the Pittsburgh Pirates signed 29-year-old reliever Daniel Hudson to help shore up the team’s bullpen. For a brief rundown on what Hudson brings to the table, check out our post from yesterday. Essentially, Hudson is a reclamation project that is in tune with the kind of pitchers the Pirates typically target in free agency. What we do know is that with Hudson set to make $11 million over the next two seasons, he’s guaranteed to get a spot in the bullpen to start the year.

Right now, the Pirates bullpen looks like this:

• Tony Watson as the closer
• Felipe Rivero as the setup man
• Antonio Bastardo, Juan Nicasio, and Hudson as the primary 7th inning/middle relief options
• Jared Hughes and likely Wade LeBlanc to round out the pen
• A.J. Schugel, Steven Brault, and Trevor Williams as the primary options on the outside-looking-in

Watson, Hughes, Bastardo, Nicasio, and Hudson will all be likely making at least $3 million next season, money that the Pirates won’t be willing to throw away by releasing any of them. Rivero is looked at as a long-term piece in the pen. LeBlanc is the only player in the current pen that the Pirates could considering releasing. But the Pirates did choose to retain him on a one-year, $800,000 deal.

Thus, it’s likely that, unless the Pirates choose to trade someone, the team is done signing free agents for the bullpen. But is this a bullpen the Pirates are confident starting their season with in 2017? Of course, the front office will continue looking for ways to improve the team. And i think they desperately want to move Bastardo’s salary. I could see them flipping Bastardo and moving Schugel back into the pen, thereby clearing some salary and balancing out the left-right-handedness of the pen, which now seems to be a little lefty-heavy.

I don’t think they’d move Watson and not Bastardo. But it is possible, and if they do, that’d leave room with Schugel as well. I think it’s more likely that both are moved. In this scenario, Schugel gets a spot, and I would hope that the team then turns back to the trade or free agent market to fill that last spot while giving Brault and Williams regular starter innings at Triple-A.

The pen as it sits now isn’t terrible. It’s better than it ended last season, with Jeff Locke and Ryan Vogelsong now gone, and with Nicasio set to begin the year in the pen rather than as a starter. Schugel was a pleasant surprise last season, and Bastardo could return to his 2015 form after a full off-season working with Ray Searage. I’m comfortable with how the bullpen looks right now. It won’t be as dominant as it was from 2013-2015, but it won’t be as bad as it was at times in 2016. But don’t expect the Pirates to add any more bullpen arms unless they first choose to trade someone away.

Image Credit – Daniel Decker Photography

Thanks for checking us out here at Pirates Breakdown. Please make sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram and like us on Facebook for the best Pirates coverage all year long!