{"id":688241,"date":"2026-05-02T08:11:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T08:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/688241\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T08:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T08:11:11","slug":"pirates-release-ryan-harbin-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/688241\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Release Ryan Harbin &#8211; MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>May 1: As expected, the MLB.com <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/player\/ryan-harbin-689877?stats=career-r-pitching-minors&amp;year=2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">transaction log<\/a> indicates that Harbin has been released. It stands to reason Pittsburgh will try to bring him back on a minor league contract.<\/p>\n<p>April 29: Pirates right-hander <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=harbin000rya&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ryan Harbin<\/a> has been designated for assignment, per a club announcement. His spot on the 40-man roster goes to veteran reliever <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/devench02.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Chris Devenski<\/a>, whose <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2026\/04\/pirates-to-select-chris-devenski.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">previously reported promotion<\/a> to the major league roster is now official. Lefty <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/barcohu01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Hunter Barco<\/a> was optioned to Triple-A to open a 26-man roster spot for Devenski.<\/p>\n<p>Harbin, 24, was the Pirates\u2019 17th-round pick back in 2019. The Bucs added him to the 40-man roster this past November in order to protect him from being selected by another organization in December\u2019s Rule 5 Draft. He was rocked in his first taste of Triple-A last summer but had pitched 50 combined innings between High-A and Double-A prior to that, logging a 2.88 ERA with a massive 36% strikeout rate.<\/p>\n<p>The 6\u20194\u2033, 228-pound Harbin relies primarily on a three-pitch mix: a four-seamer that averaged 97.2 mph last year, a slider that sat 87 mph and a sinker that averaged 96.7 mph. He also mixed in a very occasional cutter (87.8 mph) and splitter (89.8 mph), though his usage rate on both pitches in Triple-A sat just north of 5%.<\/p>\n<p>With a good start to the season in Triple-A, Harbin might have gotten his first big league look this year. Instead, injuries have derailed his season. Harbin suffered a strained teres major during spring training not long after being optioned to minor league camp. The Bucs put him on the 60-day injured list in the minors. He hasn\u2019t pitched yet in 2026, and there\u2019s no clear timetable for his return to the mound. Injured players cannot be placed on outright waivers, so now that he\u2019s been designated for assignment, Harbin will either be traded to another club or released.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May 1: As expected, the MLB.com transaction log indicates that Harbin has been released. It stands to reason&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,58699],"class_list":["post-688241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-ryan-harbin"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116503975258290180","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688241","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=688241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}