Pittsburgh Pirates Make Ivan Nova Signing Official

On Tuesday afternoon, the Pittsburgh Pirates made their new three year contract with starting pitcher Ivan Nova official.

Six days after news broke that the Pittsburgh Pirates had re-signed Ivan Nova, the contract is official. The team officially announced their new three year contract with the right handed starting pitcher early Tuesday afternoon.

Ivan Nova’s new contract is worth 26 million dollars over the course of the next three seasons. Additionally, he can earn up to 2 million dollars in performance based incentives in each of these three seasons.

The Pirates acquired Ivan Nova from the New York Yankees for Minor League players Tito Polo and Stephen Tarpley at the trade deadline last August. In 11 starts with the Pirates Nova posted a 3.06 ERA, 2.62 FIP, and a 3.13 xFIP in 64 2/3 innings pitched. This included Nova throwing three complete games, and owning an incredible 52:3 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Despite the team’s 40-man roster being full, the Pirates have not yet announced a corresponding move for Nova. In order to make room for Nova on the 40-man roster, someone has to come off. There a couple different possibilities here.

First off, the Pirates might just designate someone for assignment. Most likely, this is what will happen. Lisalverto Bonilla, Tyler Webb, and Chris Bostick are all candidates to be designated for assignment.

The other possibility is another move being in the works. This offseason the Pittsburgh Pirates have been included in countless trade rumors. Tony Watson, Anotonio Bastardo, and Josh Harrison are all players that very well could be traded before the end of the offseason.

Furthermore, the Pirates have been tied to Jose Quintana in the past week. The Chicago White Sox seem determined to move him and the Pirates have been one of the teams actively seeking to acquire Quintana. In fact, earlier today it was reported that the Bucs are still aggressively pursuing the White Sox lefty.

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We will have to wait to find out the corresponding roster move. But for now the re-signing of Ivan Nova is official. And the Pirates will look for Nova to play a big role in their 2017 starting rotation in their efforts to return to the postseason.