{"id":247257,"date":"2026-07-19T17:35:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T17:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/247257\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T17:35:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T17:35:13","slug":"report-pirates-aggressiveness-leading-up-to-deadline-comes-with-caveat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/247257\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Pirates&#8217; Aggressiveness Leading Up to Deadline Comes With Caveat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img width=\"1120\" height=\"630\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Nutting-1120x630.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium tpd-force-16x9-aspect-ratio wp-post-image\" alt=\"Bob Nutting, Pittsburgh Pirates\" decoding=\"sync\" fetchpriority=\"high\"   loading=\"eager\"\/>Photo provided by Eddie Provident \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yet another bullpen implosion on Saturday night reinforced what has long been known \u2014 the Pirates need bullpen help at the trade deadline. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pittsburgh has now blown 18 of their 37 saves chances this season and has a 4.46 bullpen ERA \u2014 ranked 23rd in MLB and 12th out of 15 National League teams.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Pirates, who are looking to take control of one of three NL wild card spots, have a 51-48 record and are one game behind the St. Louis Cardinals in the race.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the Pirates are going to need to improve the bullpen if they want to be true contenders. General manager Ben Cherington already made one move involving a reliever, when he acquired left-hander Brando Eisert from the White Sox in a three-player swap that also included sending a draft pick to Chicago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Cherington is not done. He wants to \u2014 and needs to \u2014 add more to the bullpen between now and the Aug. 3 deadline. Pittsburgh plans to be aggressive over the next couple weeks, but that aggressiveness might come with a caveat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/mlb\/columnist\/bob-nightengale\/2026\/07\/19\/chicago-cubs-2016-world-series-mlb-trade-deadline\/90970511007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">USA Today\u2019s Bob Nightengale,<\/a> the Pirates plan to be aggressive in looking to buy but don\u2019t want to add to an already-record payroll. Pittsburgh\u2019s payroll is currently just over $102 million, which ranks 23rd in MLB <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spotrac.com\/mlb\/payroll\/_\/year\/2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">per Spotrac<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It should come as no surprise. Owner Bob Nutting finally opened up his wallet more than ever before this past offseason, and the thought of him adding significant dollars to the current payroll always seemed far-fetched despite having a team capable of making the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So unless the Pirates can salary dump someone like Marcell Ozuna, or at least get another team to eat some of his contract, expect their trade targets to be low-cost veterans or players who are still pre-arbitration eligible. <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned in this article: <a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghbaseballnow.com\/tag\/pittsburgh-pirates\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"categories single-categories\">More about:<a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghbaseballnow.com\/pittsburgh-pirates\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pirates<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo provided by Eddie Provident Yet another bullpen implosion on Saturday night reinforced what has long been known&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74,10997],"class_list":["post-247257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-pirates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}