With the trade deadline in the rearview mirror, any upgrades or additions that the Pittsburgh Pirates want to make are going to require a bit of creativity or dumb luck. Gone are the days of waiver wire trades, and if we have learned anything from the Pirates' handling of Bubba Chandler, they aren't going to bring up anyone from the minor leagues until they absolutely have to. With Pittsburgh's bullpen somewhat depleted and the Pirates flipping Taylor Rogers, it looks like they chose to take advantage of the Dodgers' roster crunch to add an arm.
The Dodgers are in a weird spot. Yes, they are still one of the better teams in baseball, but they have had a ton of guys get hurt, with their pitching staff getting hit the hardest. Some of those injuries are long-term, but others are starting to come back off the IL which means that they having to trim their 40-man roster regularly as they make other roster moves.
One such move may have given Pittsburgh a gift, as the Pirates claimed Jack Little off of waivers from LA after the Dodgers designated him for assignment a few days ago.
Pirates just made a puzzling waiver claim from the Dodgers in Jack Little
Now that the dust has settled a bit after their bevy of roster moves, the Pirates' bullpen did need some more depth to get through the second half of the season. Investing at the trade deadline in a quality reliever themselves is not in Ben Cherington's DNA, but scooping up Little off the scrap heap is right up their alley.
In Little, Pittsburgh is getting a guy that has a very limited track record in the majors, but who does seem to have the ability to limit hard contact. Little's three innings in the big leagues basically mean nothing, but Little has been very good over the course of his minor league career at keeping the ball in the yard while also possessing a very reasonable 9.1 K/9 during his minor league career.
The bad news is that Little isn't particular good at finding the strike zone consistently with his fastball/slider/splitter mix, as he has 19 walks in 42.2 innings of work down at Triple-A. Hopefully the Pirates can find a way to help him harness his stuff, because if they do, they may have ended up with a steal.