Pittsburgh Pirates News: Team Announces Opening Day Roster

Fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates now know which 30 players will be on the team’s active roster when they kick off the 2020 regular season on Friday night in St. Louis

In a little over 24 hours, the Pittsburgh Pirates will kick off their 2020 season as Kevin Newman steps into the box to face Jack Flaherty of the St. Louis Cardinals. With the MLB season getting underway later this evening with a pair of games, teams had to finalize their Opening Day rosters by noon EST on Thursday.

Now that rosters are finalized, we now know the 30 players the Pittsburgh Pirates will have on their active roster to start the 2020 season. Some we knew would be there, while some others were surprises.

The entire roster can be seen below:

The biggest surprise is outfielder Jason Martin. Prior to being called to Pittsburgh to serve as a bench player in Wednesday night’s exhibition game against the Cleveland Indians, Martin was working out with other potential taxi squad members in Altoona. But with the team in need of another outfielder with Gregory Polanco starting the season on the injured list due to testing positive for COVID-19, Martin gets the nod.

Many people thought this spot may go to Socrates Brito as he was in Pittsburgh for camp. However, if the team added Brito to the 40-man roster they would have to designate him for assignment and risk losing him if they wanted to remove him from the active roster at any point. The fact Martin can still be optioned off the roster probably played in his favor.

While it became more and more clear that these two players would be on the Opening Day roster, had you told anyone back in the spring, or even the start of summer camp, that Phillip Evans and Nik Turley would be on the Opening Day roster they would have been surprised. Evans had a huge Grapefruit League/exhibition season, hitting for a .333/.405/.636 slash line to go with two home runs and four doubles. Evans may start the season as Colin Moran‘s platoon partner at third base.

As for Turley, he will give Derek Shelton another left-handed option out of the bullpen in addition to Robbie Erlin. Due to injuries and a PED suspension, Turley has not pitched since 2017. Yes, 2017. However, he was out of minor league options and is an intriguing arm the Pittsburgh Pirates are giving an opportunity to.

JT Brubaker is another one that would have been a bit of surprise to make the club when summer camp began. But after having a strong summer, the 2018 Pittsburgh Pirates Minor League Pitcher of the Year has cracked a MLB roster for the first time in his career. This is something that likely would have happened last year had it not been for injuries.

On Thursday, the team also placed utility man JT Riddle on the 10-day injured list with an abdominal strain. Additionally, catcher Luke Maile was transferred to the 60-day IL to help make room on the 40-man roster for players who were previously not on it.

While this is the roster to start the season, it will change. Polanco and Keone Kela will join the roster when they are cleared to rejoin the team after battling COVID-19, and in Polanco’s case it appears that will be sooner rather than later. Additionally, top prospect Ke’Bryan Hayes and highly touted relief prospect Blake Cederlind have both rejoined the players in Altoona after testing positive for COVID-19. Both Hayes and Cederlind will likely join the roster at some point.

Finally, there are the mandatory roster moves. Teams must reduce their rosters to 28 players by 12:00 p.m. ET on August 6, and the must be down to 26 players by 12:00 p.m. ET on August 20.