Pittsburgh Pirates News: Chad Kuhl Non-Tendered

A busy two days of roster moves continued for the Pittsburgh Pirates on Tuesday night when right-handed pitcher Chad Kuhl was non-tendered, making him a free agent

Due to Major League Baseball’s CBA being set to expire at 11:59 PM EST on Wednesday night, the non-tendered deadline was recently moved up from this upcoming Thursday to Tuesday at 8:00 PM EST. This led to the Pittsburgh Pirates making moves with their arbitration eligible players a few days earlier than they otherwise may have.

Monday saw the Pittsburgh Pirates trade Jacob Stallings while designating Steven Brault and Colin Moran for assignment. Also on Monday, the Pirates and Ben Gamel agreed to a $1.8 million contract for the 2022 season.

Following these moves the Pirates entered Tuesday’s deadline with four arbitration eligible players still left to make a decision on. These four players were pitchers Chad Kuhl and Chris Stratton, shortstop Kevin Newman and outfielder Bryan Reynolds.

In a move that did not come as a surprise the Pirates decided to non-tender Kuhl. This brings the six-year career of the previously longest tenured Pirate to an end in Pittsburgh, making Kuhl a free agent.

In addition to non-tendering Kuhl, the Pirates agreed to a contract with Newman for the 2022 season to avoid arbitration. This will put the 2021 Gold Glove Award finalist, who is now the longest tenured Pirate, in position to be the Opening Day shortstop for a third consecutive season. While Stratton and Reynolds were obviously tendered contracts, it appears that whenever the lockout is over arbitration hearings will need to held with those two players.

Kuhl’s career with the Pirates comes to an end with him having pitched 439.2 innings in 100 games, 88 starts, with the Bucs. Kuhl posted a 4.44 ERA, 4.61 FIP, and a 3.5 fWAR across these 100 outings.

Kuhl broke into the Major Leagues by defeating Clayton Kershaw and the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday Night Baseball in 2016. Despite possessing a power fastball that could touch triple digits in addition to a slider and curveball that both had plus potential, Kuhl was never able to put it all together in Pittsburgh. Although, a big factor in this could have been a Tommy John surgery that cost him the entire 2019 season and limited him to just 27 outings combined between 2018 and 2020.