Pittsburgh Pirates: Two Buy-Low Bullpen Trade Targets

As many know the Pittsburgh Pirates will be active this off-season hunting for starting pitching.  However, the Pirates also could use another bullpen arm or two, and they could find one in a trade.  Here is an opinion on who they should look at:

The Pittsburgh Pirates have had success over the last two seasons mainly because they have put together a strong bullpen.  Even this past season the Bucs had the #10 bullpen in terms of earned run average.  In previous years we saw them have a top five bullpen in the majors.  We also saw the Bucs blow some games late, especially early in the year.  How many times did we watch Caminero and Hughes give up runs in the middle innings to blow a lead?

So this off-season it is very important for the Pittsburgh Pirates to build that bullpen back up.  Yes the tenth ranked bullpen is solid, but if the Bucs want to get back into the playoffs they need to have the best possible bullpen.  This can be done by adding more options, as you can never have to much depth there.  We also saw that this year.  There was a time when pitchers like Curtis Partch, Jorge Rondon, and Kelvin Marte had to pitch for the Bucs.  They are career minor league players.

There is plenty of relief options on the free agent market and likely the trade market.  There always is, and Neal Huntington has proven the ability to find quality relievers.  Like the starting pitching he brings in he also does a great job of bring in bounce-back candidate relievers. We saw this last year with Neftali Feliz.  Now the Bucs do not need to acquire all their bullpen acquisitions via free agency.  The Bucs could also look to buy low on some bullpen options through the trading market.  Here are three relievers that they should target: