Unheralded Pirates prospect could become one of team’s best relievers

After trading closer David Bednar and veteran southpaw Caleb Ferguson at last year’s trade deadline, the Pittsburgh Pirates have reinvested into their bullpen this offseason, signing Gregory Soto at the winter meetings and acquiring Mason Montgomery in the three-team trade that also netted Pittsburgh Brandon Lowe and Jake Mangum.

General manager Ben Cherington recently said that he’d like to further add to the bullpen before the offseason concludes. While that would be a wise investment, it’s possible that the most impactful addition the Pirates can make to the bullpen is already in-house, in the form of a little-known prospect who’s coming off of one of the best relief seasons in minor league history.

There can’t be many pitchers in all of professional baseball whose development progressed and accelerated quite like that of the Pirates’ Brandan Bidois in 2025. The 24-year-old right-hander from Brisbane, Australia, pitched at four different levels last season, climbing all the way from Low-A Bradenton to Triple-A Indianapolis.

The standard, back-of-the-baseball-card numbers were absurd. In 40 games, Bidois went 8-0 with a 0.74 ERA, 0.80 WHIP, and 10.2 K/9 in 61 innings. But most incredible was that he limited opposing hitters to just a .108 batting average for the entire season. That can largely be attributed to his modern minor league record hitless streak.

Bidois went over a month––18 innings––without allowing a hit. The streak spanned his last five games at Double-A Altoona and his first six games at Triple-A. It's not hard to see how a pitcher who put up video game numbers like that could see his success translate to the MLB level.

Brandan Bidois could be one of the Pirates' best relief pitchers in 2026 and beyond

Bidois' success starts with his delivery, which makes him a tough at-bat for hitters without even factoring in the quality of his stuff. As soon as he throws his first MLB pitch, he will own one of the highest release points in the league. According to Prospect Savant, his average arm angle at release is 61 degrees.

That has a significant impact on how his pitches (in particular, his fastball) move. High-release fastballs generate tons of induced vertical break, almost creating the illusion that the pitch is rising on its way to home plate and making it very difficult to square up. Bidois relies heavily on his 96-MPH heater, throwing it over half the time to hitters from either side of the plate.

Bidois' high-IVB fastball is almost identical—in terms of movement, shape, and release—to that of another pitcher who experienced a meteoric rise in 2025, Toronto's Trey Yesavage. His fastball is a big reason why he started his season at Low-A and ended his season coming out of the bullpen in Game 7 of the World Series (after delivering one of the best rookie postseason performances in MLB history as the Game 5 starter). Bidois' fastball is almost exactly the same pitch, but about a tick faster on average.

Fangraphs' midseason prospect update saw Bidois finally appear as a ranked prospect (albeit at No. 49 in the Pirates' system), but most notably, he received elite marks on his slider, with the pitch being graded as a 70 on the 20-80 scale. The movement profile of his slider is comparable to that of Carlos Rodon, whose slider was among the 10 best in MLB by Run Value in 2025.

The most recent addition to Bidois' arsenal, and now his go-to secondary pitch against lefties, is a kick-change, which involves spiking the middle finger on the ball as a way to increase both horizontal and vertical movement without sacrificing speed or changing arm slot. He picked the pitch up during the season, and it has now become a real weapon.

It looks like Bidois has the stuff to stick in the back of a big league bullpen, and he probably has the personality and demeanor for the role as well. He's a self-described "high energy bulldog on the mound," which falls perfectly in line with some of his Aussie predecessors, Grant Balfour (after whom he models his game) and Liam Hendriks, who combined for four All-Star appearances and 200 saves in their careers.

Bidois was added to Pittsburgh's 40-man roster early in the offseason to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft. That alone implies that the Pirates believe he's not far away from being able to contribute at the major league level. But arriving to spring training already on the 40-man roster gives him a leg up for a bullpen spot against guys who are in camp as non-roster invitees.

There are a handful of Pirates pitchers who are virtual locks for bullpen spots—Dennis Santana, Gregory Soto, Justin Lawrence, Isaac Mattson, Mason Montgomery, and Carmen Mlodzinski (if another starting pitcher is added). That leaves room for a competition for a spot or two, with the possibility of an external addition there as well.

Even if he doesn't break camp with the team, Bidois made such strides in 2025 that fans shouldn't have to wait very long to see him on an MLB mound. If his breakout was legitimate—and the stuff suggests that it was—then he may not only be pitching in the major leagues soon, but serving as a high-leverage reliever on a team that's also looking to take a leap in 2026.