The Pirates Need Bullpen Help As Soon As Possible
If the Pirates want to make it to the postseason, they'll need to bolster their bullpen. Here are three relievers who could help.
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Over the last few years, the main focus surrounding the Pittsburgh Pirates has routinely been their lack of offense — and it’s been for good reason. With the club routinely ranking near the bottom of the sport in every category like clockwork, it’s easy to understand why this was such a big focal point for the concern surrounding this team.
However, earlier this week, I wrote an article that showed how this has completely changed in 2026. The Pirates are well on pace to break their franchise home run record and finish with historic numbers across the board overall. Though just because their offense is finally capable of driving in numerous runs doesn’t mean that their problems in other areas have also magically subsided.
In fact, their issues have shifted to the bullpen, where the Pirates have routinely imploded in large ways, including some ugly collapses. As one example, the Pirates lost 11-9 to the Phillies on May 15 despite holding a 6-0 lead at one point. This also included the Pirates holding an 8-5 lead at the beginning of the ninth inning.
This has routinely been the case for the Pirates all season long. They simply cannot trust their bullpen to hold leads, no matter the size. With the Pirates currently just 1.5 games out of a playoff spot, it’s not unrealistic to say that even if the team completed a portion of the games they’ve given away, it would hold a wild-card spot in commanding fashion.
With June quickly come to a close, the Pirates have reached a point where they can’t wait any longer to address these concerns. While the best reinforcements won’t be made available until this year’s trade deadline, they need to act now; otherwise, they may slip into a point of no return in the standings.
Stats were taken prior to play on June 23.
The Bullpen’s Atrocious 2026 Performance
Before diving into the struggles of the 2026 Pirates’ bullpen, I want to take you, the reader, through an exercise. Take a look at the image below that features score bugs from three Pirates games this season. Surely the Pirates won all of these games, right?
Unfortunately, if you naturally said yes, you would be incorrect.
Each of these games resulted in a Pirates loss, as these three games were a few of the most brutal losses that stood out as a direct result of the club’s bullpen. Even with a slightly-below-league-average bullpen, these three games likely would have resulted in wins.
The 2026 Pirates bullpen currently boasts an ERA of 4.46, which is ranked 20th in the sport. On top of that, their FIP, collective fWAR, and HR/9 all find themselves in the bottom half of the league. Going one step further, their bullpen’s WHIP of 1.39 ranks 22nd in baseball, which serves as even more salt in the wound.
The bullpen has blown a mind-boggling 15 saves this season, a number so high that only five other teams in baseball have reached or surpassed this threshold.
Of all the negative statistics that jump out, the one metric that truly made me sit back in my chair with my jaw dropped was their left-on-base rate. For reference, FanGraphs defines a 72% left-on-base rate as average, with 65% as poor. Currently, the Pirates bullpen has a 66.4% left-on-base rate, a number that ranks 29th in the sport.
Even if this number already looks alarming, it gets worse.
Actively, only six qualified pitchers in baseball have a left-on-base rate lower than 66.4%, which really shows just how abysmal this mark truly is. In every sense of the expression, it’s unwinnable to allow runners on base to come across at this rate.
Moving to an individual level, the Pirates have only had eight relievers pitch 20 or more innings for them this season, and just three of these arms have posted ERAs below 3.40. In fact, three of these relievers have seen their ERAs check in above 5.20, showing how much this bullpen has struggled to limit runs in any situation.
One of the biggest disappointments of this bunch has been Dennis Santana, the Pirates’ former closer who fully took over the job when David Bednar was dealt during last year’s trade deadline. After pitching to a 2.18 ERA across 70 games in 2025, Santana’s ERA has regressed heavily to 5.23, as he’s been a liability any time he’s stepped onto a big-league mound.
No matter which lens you examine this bullpen through, they’ve undoubtedly become one of the worst groups in the sport. Ranking near the bottom of the league in nearly every single category, with painful regressions along the way, the Pirates have lost a plethora of winnable games this season as a direct result of their horrific bullpen.
Who Could be Some Potential Options?
After seeing how poorly this group has performed, it becomes clear that the Pirates must make some upgrades during this year’s trade deadline if they want to make a competitive run in the second half.
With many potential candidates out there, the question shifts away from whether or not they need to make some moves, and instead it becomes a matter of who is the best fit.
Keaton Winn, RHP, San Francisco Giants
The first name that really stands out as a good fit for the Pirates at this year’s deadline is Giants right-hander Keaton Winn, an arm that has a chance to become one of the biggest bullpen pieces moved at this year’s deadline. With a 3.23 ERA through 30.2 innings pitched this season, Winn is the perfect stable force this group desperately needs.
Although his performance on the surface is attractive on its own, his underlying numbers make him even more interesting. He has a disgusting, four-pitch mix capable of limiting hard contact (4.8% barrel rate, 27.7% hard-hit rate), and he’s the perfect type of pitcher who could be used in leverage situations if given the chance.
Two of his four offerings have produced a whiff rate above 35%, and opponents have posted an xwOBA above .320 against one of his offerings.
Taking it one step further, the Giants are poised to become one of the bigger sellers at this year’s deadline, and the Pirates have a lot of pitching assets the club may be interested in. Winn won’t be a free agent until 2031, either, which brings the Pirates a lot of security, even if the price tag is higher than some other relievers on the market.
Aroldis Chapman, LHP, Boston Red Sox
Although many of the hot-button trade candidates at this year’s deadline would wear a Pirates uniform for the first time if a move happened, the same cannot be said for Aroldis Chapman. As the club’s closer in 2024, Chapman stabilized the bullpen during Bednar’s first struggles in Pittsburgh, and he could do so yet again in 2026.
Over the last two seasons, Chapman has been arguably one of the three best relievers in the sport. Through these two seasons combined, Chapman has thrown 83 innings of 1.08 ERA baseball while striking out 114 batters and posting a mind-numbing WHIP of 0.77. He’s also completed 46 saves, added another All-Star appearance to his resume, and finished seventh in Cy Young voting.
Chapman’s underlying numbers are just as spectacular. He ranks among the top of the league in strikeout rate, whiff rate, chase rate, and more, returning to a level of dominance we hadn’t seen from him since his prime. Not to mention, Chapman still has his elite velocity, as his fastball regularly hits triple digits and sits at 97.4 mph.
For the Pirates, the two main downsides to trading for Chapman would be a hefty price tag and a lot of competition from other teams around the sport. With Chapman being the best reliever potentially on the market this summer, it’s not unrealistic to say he’d cost the Pirates multiple premium prospects in return, such as Edward Florentino and Wyatt Sanford.
Huascar Brazoban, RHP, New York Mets
The final arm that really jumps out as a potential fit for the Pirates at this year’s trade deadline is Mets right-hander Huascar Brazoban, as he’s currently in the middle of a career-best season in Queens. To this point, Brazoban has pitched to a 1.91 ERA and a 0.96 WHIP across 37.2 innings, picking up 33 strikeouts along the way.
If you take a look at his underlying numbers on Baseball Savant, you’ll see nothing but a sea of red looking back at you. He’s been one of the best arms in baseball at limiting hard contact in 2026, as he’s posted an absurd 2.1% barrel rate (99th percentile) and an even more impressive 21.9% hard-hit rate (100th percentile).
On top of that, the Mets are likely to be sellers at this year’s deadline, and Brazoban is currently in the middle of a one-year deal, making him a prime candidate to be a piece of this incoming fire sale. Granted, it’s also likely that he’s a fairly expensive trade acquisition given the routine demand for relief arms at the deadline, but he’s worth every penny of the price tag.
Which Option Is Most Realistic?
Now that we’ve taken a closer look at how bad the Pirates bullpen has been to this point, and who some of the potential trade candidates are that could help this bullpen, we’re left with one remaining question: Which of these three arms is most realistic?
In my opinion, Brazoban stands out as the most likely option in the group by a wide margin. Despite being one of the best arms in baseball, the fact that he’s in the midst of a one-year deal should lower his price significantly as opposed to the other arms I mentioned.
He’d immediately become the best arm on this club by a wide margin, and he should be someone the Bucs should be after this August, even if the ask remains higher than anticipated.
The next most realistic option seems to be Winn, and this is for multiple reasons. The Giants seemed to be positioning themselves more as sellers than the Red Sox, and acquiring Winn could be a way for the Pirates to take a calculated risk by paying a heftier price without losing a blue-chip prospect. This would signal more of an all-in approach without being too risky.
Naturally, this leaves Chapman as the least-realistic option for the Pirates to trade for at this year’s deadline. Although he’d be the most impactful reliever on the market, his price would be significantly higher than anyone else moved as well.
This would likely cause the Pirates to part with multiple of their higher-end prospects, and this may not be a risk they’re willing to take depending on how close they may be to a wild-card spot on deadline day.
Regardless of which route the Pirates choose to take, addressing the bullpen will undoubtedly be their main priority. This is an issue that cannot go unaddressed if the Pirates wish to play in October, or, at this rate, finish with a record above .500. They need to find some reinforcements before it’s too late, or they risk another disappointing final record.
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Written by
Jay Staph, a huge baseball fan and stat nerd, founded and ran his own baseball writing website, BSBWrites, at just 16-years-old. With focal points around prospects,…