Pittsburgh Pirates: Three Relievers That Still Could be Traded

Antonio Bastardo

As mentioned on the last slide, the Pittsburgh Pirates currently have a lot of left-handed relief options in their bullpen.  One of those is Antonio Bastardo, who is entering the final year of his two-year contract.  Bastardo was a Pittsburgh Pirate in 2015 and had a lot of success in Pittsburgh.  He then signed a contract with the New York Mets in the 2015 off-season for two years.  The Pittsburgh Pirates acquired Bastardo when they traded struggling starter Jon Niese back to the Mets.  Bastardo had also struggled, and the swap seemed logical to get the players back where they had success.

Bastardo was better in his last few months of the season with the Pittsburgh Pirates, but still not great.  In his 24 appearances with the Bucs, he threw to a 4.14 earned run average, a 2.55 strikeout to walk ratio, and a 1.25 WHIP.  Not great numbers, but much improved compared to his 4.74 ERA, 2.17 K/BB ratio, and 1.42 WHIP with the New York Mets. All around, Bastardo is a hard throwing left-handed pitcher, who in his career has been better against lefties than righties. However, this past season he actually gave up a .253 batting average against left-handed hitters while holding right-handed hitters to a lesser average.  He had quite an odd year, which could make him a question mark for the Pirates next season.