Pittsburgh Pirates Rumors: David Bednar, Other Relievers Drawing Interest

The Pittsburgh Pirates are expected to make at least another trade or two before Friday’s deadline.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have been one of the most active teams leading up to this year’s trade deadline. The team has already made three trades and likely will be making more. Many are wondering when we will see the next move.

For sometime now it’s been speculated that the Pittsburgh Pirates would trade closer Richard Rodriguez. Also, over the past few days, Chris Stratton’s name has come up more and more in trade rumors. So are the Pittsburgh Pirates actually looking to move them?

Well, according to Ken Rosenthal of the athletic, the Pittsburgh Pirates are indeed listening on both relievers. However, in his most recent column, he also notes another reliever that has drawn trade interest. According to Rosenthal, teams have asked a Pittsburgh Pirates about reliever David Bednar. Rosenthal of course is one of the best insiders of all sports, and likely has enough evidence to report this, or he would not:

"Among those being discussed, non-Kimbrel division (this is by no means a complete list):… the Twins’ Alex Colomé and Hansel Robles; the Pirates’ Richard Rodríguez, Chris Stratton and David Bednar;"

They should come as no surprise. Then our appears to be the Pittsburgh pirates feature closer. He has years of control laughed and is already showing the power stuff you want at the back of the bullpen. Any team in baseball would love to have David Bednar on the roster.

With that being said, it’s highly unlikely that Pittsburgh pirates would consider moving him. Just because Ken Rosenthal listed Bednar in discussions does not mean the Pittsburgh pirates are actually open to making a trade. This could simply be other teams and see what the Pittsburgh Pirates have and are trying to make an aggressive offer or to at least gauge where the pirate stinking is at.

There is some entry, you never know if there’s a team that’s really willing to overpay. At this time of the year teams sometimes are willing to overpay to get their guy. Ben Cherington has always said that he will always pick up the phone, so yes discussions have probably taken place about Bednar. However, the asking price is likely so high that those “discussions” didn’t go very far. Still, he is a reliever and could net a quality return.  It will be interesting to see if there is anything more on this going forward.