In our daily Wake-Up Call, we get you ready for the day with a complete look at all things Pittsburgh Pirates.
The team announced plenty of moves yesterday, all but setting the Opening Day roster for Thursday’s opener in Detroit.
We outlined the early moves yesterday which saw Jose Osuna and Kyle Crick being optioned to Triple-A along with Kevin Siegrist being assigned to minor-league camp.
Throw in the fact that Jordan Milbrath was also placed on waivers and that leaves your 25-man roster set for Opening Day.
The Bucs will carry eight relievers to Detroit as Dovydas Neverauskas, Edgar Santana and Josh Smoker join Felipe Rivero, George Kontos, Michael Feliz, Tyler Glasnow and Steven Brault in the Pirates bullpen.
That means the bench will be light with only four bench players.
Elias Diaz is the backup catcher and Sean Rodriguez, Adam Frazier and David Freese form the rest of the bench. Clint Hurdle has some flexibility as Frazier and Rodriguez can play all over the place.
While fans may be outraged that Osuna didn’t earn a spot on the active roster, opening up in an American League park, it actually makes sense to carry the extra reliever to start since the designated hitter will be in play.
The Pirates won’t have an eight-man bullpen for long, at least I wouldn’t think so, as Osuna, Max Moroff, or someone else could be promoted the second or third week of the season you would think.
Of course with the moves it leaves three open spots on the 40-man roster so I would expect Neal Huntington to add a couple of bodies once teams try and sneak players through waivers today or tomorrow.
The 25-man roster on paper now may not be the same 25-man roster we see to open the season, but for now this is what it looks like.
In other minor moves, Bryce Brentz, who was in competition for the final roster spot, was claimed by the New York Mets.
To get the roster down to 25, the Bucs reassigned outfielder Daniel Nava, catcher Ryan Lavarnway and pitcher Bo Schultz to minor league camp.
One interesting thing was the fact that the Pirates also waived Jack Leathersich. They had plenty of room on the 40-man to place Leathersich in the minors for left-handed relief depth, but elected to place him on waivers instead.
It will be interesting the next two days to see if Huntington makes a couple of roster moves from the outside.
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