Pittsburgh Pirates: 3 Potential Left-Handed Relief Targets

The Pittsburgh Pirates have gotten hot in July and have crawled back into the wild-card race.  Neal Huntington and company could look to make some slight upgrades to the bullpen at the deadline.

The Pittsburgh Pirates sit at 52-49 and 4.0 games back of the Philadelphia Phillies for the second wild-card spot in the National League, and just 4.5 of the Milwaukee Brewers for the top spot.  This isn’t a team that should go completely in, more of looking at avenues to improve the club in order to reward the play of the team after stepping up to the challenge.  If a controllable starter comes along, that would make sense, but not a rental that would cost an enormous prospect package.

The club has 16.3 percent playoff odds according to Fangraphs, nothing exuberantly high, but enough to make additions.  The easiest way to add marginal upgrades is in the bullpen, a place the Pirates could use some help, especially of the left-handed variety.

The Pirates bullpen ranks 19th in ERA, though their 3.59 FIP ranks seventh.  But the biggest upgrade could be with a left-handed reliever, despite even at the best the club acquiring 25-30 innings over the next two months.