{"id":508245,"date":"2026-01-06T18:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T18:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/508245\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T18:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T18:08:15","slug":"this-veteran-starter-makes-plenty-of-sense-for-pirates-amid-impressive-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/508245\/","title":{"rendered":"This Veteran Starter Makes Plenty of Sense for Pirates Amid Impressive Offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Pirates don\u2019t need to change their rotation this offseason, but it wouldn\u2019t be the worst idea to bring in another starter, depending on what they do throughout the remainder of the offseason.<\/p>\n<p>Joel Reuter of Bleacher Report predicted that Tyler Anderson would sign with Pittsburgh, which makes a lot of sense if the Pirates continue to do what\u2019s necessary. The organization loves its young arms, and rightfully so, but it also understands that most youngsters have questions, and service time could have an impact on others.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cQuick Thoughts: Braxton Ashcraft, Bubba Chandler and Carmen Mlodzinski are the leading in-house candidates to fill out the Pirates rotation, but considering they have a combined 29 starts in the majors, adding a low-cost veteran to help absorb some innings makes a ton of sense.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Pirates have made a point of targeting veteran lefties on one-year deals in recent years, signing Derek Holland (2020), Tyler Anderson (2021), Jose Quintana (2022), Rich Hill (2023), Martin P\u00e9rez (2024) and Andrew Heaney (2025). A reunion with Anderson or Quintana would keep that trend alive,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/bleacherreport.com\/articles\/25346777-predicting-every-mlb-teams-2026-opening-day-starting-rotation-version-20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:he wrote;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">he wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As Reuter touched on, almost every year, the Pirates have brought in a veteran left-hander, including Anderson in 2021, to eat innings.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>A reunion with Anderson would feel smart if they want that same type of pitcher. He\u2019s already pitched in Pittsburgh, understands his role, and wouldn\u2019t come in with expectations of being an ace.<\/p>\n<p>The Pirates wouldn\u2019t be asking him to do much outside of just giving them good innings while the youngsters continue to develop.<\/p>\n<p>Skenes, Chandler, and Ashcraft are all viewed as long-term aces for this squad.<\/p>\n<p>Throwing them into heavy workloads before they\u2019re ready could do more harm than good, although I\u2019d like to see Chandler really pitch this year. Ashcraft and Skenes have already been given a chance, and I\u2019ve loved what I\u2019ve seen.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>If Anderson ends up back in Pittsburgh, it wouldn\u2019t be exciting, but it\u2019d be a move that helps.<\/p>\n<p>For a team that has made some impressive offensive moves, though the rotation doesn\u2019t need a lot, it wouldn\u2019t be a bad idea to add another veteran arm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Pirates don\u2019t need to change their rotation this offseason, but it wouldn\u2019t be the worst idea&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402],"tags":[765,5,15154,707,981,42621,11774,131,370,4,10,776,64,4297,10334,7527,1998],"class_list":["post-508245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-andrew-heaney","tag-baseball","tag-braxton-ashcraft","tag-bubba-chandler","tag-carmen-mlodzinski","tag-derek-holland","tag-joel-reuter","tag-jose-quintana","tag-martin-perez","tag-mlb","tag-pirates","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-pittsburghpirates","tag-rich-hill","tag-skenes","tag-tyler-anderson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115849494988115887","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}