Pirates in Agreement with Lefty Pitcher Caleb Ferguson

1-9-2025 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

The Pirates inked Caleb Furguson to a 1 year pact worth 3 million dollars.

The 27 year old lefty came up in the Dodgers system and last year split time between the Yankees and Astros with mixed results.

42 outings in New York produced numbers that simply don’t reflect the pitcher he’s been in the league, a trend he reverted when he moved on to Houston.

Career numbers are actually fairly impressive, a 3.68 ERA in 263 games, 14 of which were starts. Walks a few more than you’d like, but Strikes out 3 times as many hitters as he walks.

According to Alex Stumpf from MLB.com the Pirates plan to stretch him out to start games in Spring, but this could be as simple as promising an opportunity to a guy who required one to sign the dotted line.

I’m sure he’ll get a chance to stretch out and even start in Spring Training, but in all likelihood, he winds up in the bullpen. If he did beat someone out for a spot, chances are it would be Bailey Falter, in which case, the Pirates would still get a lefty arm for the pen out of this whole deal.

This isn’t completely a whacky idea either. For one thing, Caleb being in the Dodgers system showed too much good to allow him to just toil in the minors, but the Dodgers simply saw his quickest path to the bigs through the bullpen, so they made the switch somewhere in the middle of 2018. So it makes sense that the Yankees or Astros would have no time to play with stretching him back out, he’d done fine as a reliever after all, but now that free agency is his, he’s simply telling his agent he wants a shot to start. The Pirates are in position to offer him a shot, even if it’s thin.

Ferguson possesses a 4 pitch mix, 5 if you want to pretend his Sweeper is used or developed but reality dictates his “sweepers” were just mis-identified cutters with a ton of spin or a slurve that stayed on plane. In fact as he’s continued to evolve as a reliever, he’s really narrowed this mix down to a 4Seam heater and a cutter with a slurve mixed in to keep people honest.

The heater is real, 80th percentile, the Barrel% is elite clocking in at the 97th percentile.

I wouldn’t get too hung up on the starting thing.

First, I’m sure we’ll see him try, I’m sure they’ll give him a shot, but this is a multi-inning guy anyway, so it’s not like he fails at starting and then has to learn how to pitch out of the pen.

Also, I’d just like to say a ton of pitchers want a shot at starting. Colin Holderman when he was first acquired was intended to start. Carmen Mlodzinski was supposed to start. Hell, they even mentioned Aroldis Chapman last year as having starting experience in the minors and that was truly laughable.

Bottom line, they added a lefty who’s had some decent runs in this league. They need more of these, so don’t get hung up on roles, not yet anyway. He’ll have a role, this isn’t a non-roster invite type, this is an MLB pitcher, how valuable, well that remains to be seen but contenders wanted his services last year didn’t they?