The Pittsburgh Pirates have a little bit of a question mark with this group. Not as solid as the team\u2019s group of starters, this crew is down previous bullpen mainstay David Bednar from the closer\u2019s role, as he was sent off to the New York Yankees last year. That leaves Dennis Santana, who\u2019s been a pleasant surprise since the Bucs claimed him from the Yankees in 2024, as the team\u2019s likely closer. Santana took over the role last season after Bednar was dealt and performed admirably.<\/p>\n
Since becoming a Pirate, Santana has a 5-6 record to go along with a 2.28 ERA, a sparkling 0.890 WHIP, 110 strikeouts in 114 innnings pitched, as well as 17 saves, including 16 last year. The Bucs feel he\u2019s locked in as the full-time closer, but the 29-year-old righty has never before held that role for an entire season. With the team hoping to add to their win totals this year, he\u2019ll have plenty of opportunity to show it.<\/p>\n
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His primary setup man is 31-year-old Greg Soto, who came over as a free agent. He\u2019ll have opportunities for saves, but his primary role is that of a power lefty with a high 90s fastball and swing-and-miss stuff. He had a 4.18 ERA last year, but struck out 70 batters in 60 innings.<\/p>\n
Your middle guys look like righty Caremen Mlodzinski, righty Yohan Ramirez, righty Justin Lawrence, who is a veteran that could also be used as a set up option if he\u2019s finally healthy, righty Kyle Nicolas, and lefty Mason Montogomery, who is one of the few lefties on this roster and should get plenty of opportunity due to that fact alone.<\/p>\n
Other options on the 40-man right now include rightys Cam Sanders, Isaac Mattson, Ryan Harbin, Brandon Bidois and lefty Evan Sisk. Thomas Harrington is a bullpen option if the Bucs want him to get some innings. Obviously, you won\u2019t be seeing all these guys regularly as some of them move up and down, but the organization is high on Bidois, who is a 24-year-old prospect from Australia, and Harbin has an upper 90s fastball, so there is some talent to keep an eye on here.<\/p>\n
But the majority of this unit\u2019s success relies on Santana and Soto. If Santana can pick up where he left off and extrapolate last year\u2019s success into a full season of closing, and if the veteran Soto can show he has some juice left in the tank, this group is in good hands. If they struggle, where do the Bucs turn from there with any confidence?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Pirates have a little bit of a question mark with this group. Not as solid as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402],"tags":[143,47,5,38329,1100,1108,12671,13960,77107,19481,4771,4,62,4377,10,776,64,4297,24919,5824],"class_list":["post-590362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-baltimore","tag-baltimore-orioles","tag-baseball","tag-cam-sanders","tag-david-bednar","tag-dennis-santana","tag-evan-sisk","tag-isaac-mattson","tag-james-a-pittman-imagn","tag-kyle-nicolas","tag-maryland","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-oriole-park-at-camden-yards","tag-pirates","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-pittsburghpirates","tag-the-bucs","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116126315122540031","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590362","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=590362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}