The pitching deal that never happened for the Pirates might be a good thing

Heading into the offseason there was one thing that all fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates agreed on, the team needed to add starting pitching. The good news is the team acknowledged that themselves and did add some pitching this offseason. The bad news is that they did not acquire anyone who is going to really move the needle of the rotation.

The Pirates brought in two Big League starters in Marco Gonzales and Martin Perez. Both are veteran lefties who are looking to bounce back after down 2023s. However, both are exactly that, pitchers who are looking to bounce back, likely backend of the rotation at best types. Not a prominent arm that would no doubt help this rotation and help it potentially in the future. Not a true top half of the rotation starter like they desperately needed to add.

However, there was still reason for optimism. It was reported in late December that the team was looking to make a significant addition to the rotation, even after adding the two veteran lefties. Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette was the one who reported this and General Manager Ben Cherington eluded to this during the Andrew McCutchen press conference.

Time moved along and nothing ever came out for the Pirates regarding a starting pitching addition.

It seemed they were in on a couple of free agent starters but missed out on them. However, there was still a belief they would add a significant arm. The rumored starter that the team was closing in on was Marlins pitcher Edward Cabrera. However, again the deal never happened and the team entered Spring Training with just a couple of other Minor League deals.

Now it is expected for Cabrera to start on the Injured List with an issue with his lat. So did that make the deal fall through? Who knows and we will probably never know. Still, for fans of the Pirates, this was a whole offseason of waiting for the team to add a top end of the rotation type arm and they ended up not doing so. However, the team did the next best thing that they could do and are opening the season with a top 100 prospect in their rotation.

The team announced that Jared Jones will be in the team's rotation with him set as the #3 starter. Jones impressived this Spring pitching over 16 innings and not allowing a run. He did this all the while flashing up to 100 miles per hour on the radar gun. So while the team did not add a starter this offseason, them not manipulating service time and plugging in Jones shows that they likely were serious about adding a top end of the rotation-type arm.