{"id":335905,"date":"2025-12-10T02:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T02:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/335905\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T02:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T02:56:07","slug":"pirates-to-sign-gregory-soto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/335905\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates To Sign Gregory Soto"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pirates are expected to sign reliever Gregory Soto<\/a>, reports Jorge Castillo of ESPN<\/a>. It\u2019s a one-year, $7.75MM deal. The team has yet to announce the move.<\/p>\n

Soto made 70 appearances between the Orioles and Mets last season. A solid first half in Baltimore led to a swap with New York around the trade deadline. Soto began his Mets tenure with nine straight scoreless outings, but stumbled down the stretch. The veteran lefty posted a 7.94 ERA in September as New York fell short of a playoff spot.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh will be Soto\u2019s fifth team in the past five seasons. He debuted for Detroit in 2019 and soon became a crucial part of the team\u2019s late-inning mix. Soto emerged as the Tigers closer by 2021, finishing with 18 saves and an All-Star nod. He racked up 30 saves the following season, earning a return trip to the Midsummer Classic. Detroit shipped him to Philadelphia following the 2022 campaign for a package headlined by Matt Vierling<\/a>. After a season and a half with a mid-4.00s ERA, Soto was dealt to Baltimore at the 2024 trade deadline.<\/p>\n

The Pirates\u2019 bullpen ranked 18th in SIERA and 22nd in xFIP last season. The unit lost longtime closer David Bednar<\/a> and top lefty Caleb Ferguson<\/a> at the trade deadline. Dennis Santana<\/a> performed well in multiple stints as the closer and will likely retain the role in 2026. Pittsburgh has minimal proven options behind him, particularly from the left side. Evan Sisk<\/a> was the only southpaw penciled into the bullpen prior to the Soto addition.<\/p>\n

Soto struggled mightily with free passes while in Detroit, posting a walk rate above 12% in all four seasons with the team. He\u2019s cleaned up those control issues in recent years and recorded a career-low 8.6% walk rate last season. Soto\u2019s upper-90s sinker has typically led to healthy ground ball rates, though he finished with a league-average GB% this past season. The sinker velocity has ticked down in each of the past three years. Opponents hit .314 against Soto\u2019s sinker last season. Most of the damage came during his time with the Mets, and a hefty .392 BABIP is likely to blame. Soto\u2019s slider still got whiffs at an excellent rate, so he can still be effective if the sinker bounces back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pirates are expected to sign reliever Gregory Soto, reports Jorge Castillo of ESPN. It\u2019s a one-year, $7.75MM…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,12418,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-335905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-gregory-soto","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}