Changes are coming to the ailing Pirates bullpen.
In a bit of a surprising move, the team announced that they have designated reliever Josh Fleming for assignment. In his place, Pittsburgh will bring up Ryder Ryan from Triple-A Indianapolis.
Ryder Ryan started the season with the Pirates bullpen, pitching in 12.0 innings and recording a 3.00 ERA. After other arms got healthy again, Ryan was the odd man out and sent back to Triple-A. He was pitching a 3.86 ERA in Indianapolis in 7.0 innings.
In a separate move, the Pirates are expected to recall Carmen Mlodzinski tomorrow and have him in Milwaukee. Mlodzinski was a dominant reliever with the Pirates last season, recording a 2.25 ERA in 36.0 innings pitched, but has suffered mightily in Triple-A so far, with a 6.43 ERA in 14.0 innings.
That number is down tremendously from the double digit atrocity it was a few days ago, so it should be interesting to see if Mlodzinski can regain form in the majors.
But back to Fleming, whose future is now up in the air just a few days shy of his 28th birthday. He leaves the Pirates (temporarily at least) with a 5.68 ERA and 1.68 WHIP in 19.0 innings.
He came to the organization very late in the offseason, signing with them on Valentine’s Day and just a few weeks before spring training games began. He wax coming off a 2023 season that saw him pitch 4.70 ERA in 51.2 innings pitched.
When he signed the team, it was his first experience in baseball as a professional outside of the Tampa Bay Rays organization.
He started out the season very well, as one of the team’s most reliable and trusted relievers, but he has since fallen entirely out of favor with the major league system.
But in doing a scroll on Pirates Twitter, I saw an opinion taken by several people that I didn’t really expect to see: the Pirates did Josh Fleming wrong, and he deserved better.
So I began to ask myself how true this idea was. Here’s what I have:
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