The Pittsburgh Pirates took what their fan base viewed as another salary dump for prospects at the MLB trade deadline and what general manager Ben Cherington defended as “an important step” toward next season.
After dealing Gold Glove third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes to the Cincinnati Reds and left-handed reliever Caleb Ferguson to the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday, the Pirates traded two-time All-Star closer David Bednar to the New York Yankees and left-handed starting pitcher Bailey Falter to the Kansas City Royals, then flipped newly acquired lefty reliever Taylor Rogers to the Chicago Cubs.
In return, the Pirates received Triple-A catcher/first baseman Rafael Flores and five Class A prospects. More important, they shed Ferguson’s expiring contract, the $32.2 million remaining on the final four years of Hayes’ eight-year contract and the salaries of Bednar and Falter that were likely to increase through arbitration next year.
Cherington put his own spin on the deadline dealing, saying the Pirates wanted to accomplish three objectives: add more talent to the system, create opportunities for pitchers and players who fit into the 2026 team plans and “create some maneuverability” to reallocate payroll into other parts of the team, namely to improve baseball’s worst offense.
“I think we took an important step,” Cherington said Thursday night on a video conference call. “We’re certainly not finished.”
Dealing Bednar to the Yankees was the biggest move, as the 30-year-old right-hander was one of the most coveted closers on the trade market because of his controllable year beyond this season. He’s making $5.9 million, with one year of arbitration eligibility remaining.
Surprisingly, the Pirates didn’t trade three players who are on expiring contracts in left-handed starter Andrew Heaney, shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa and left fielder Tommy Pham. They also didn’t entertain trading right-hander Mitch Keller, who was considered one of the most desirable starters on the trade market because of his controllable contract through 2028.
“We’re not going to make a trade just to make one,” Cherington said. “We were open to trading more if the return was the right return and just didn’t find those opportunities.”
The Pirates, however, didn’t resist dealing Bednar even though the return couldn’t compare to the top-100 prospects the Minnesota Twins got for Jhoan Duran or the Athletics got for Mason Miller.
A Mars alum who loved playing for his hometown team, Bednar became one of the Pirates’ most popular players because of his performance on the mound — he had 101 saves in five seasons, earning All-Star selections in 2022 (39 saves) and ’23 (23 saves) — and for his charity work that received three Roberto Clemente Award nominations.
After struggling and losing his closer role last season, Bednar bounced back from an April demotion to Triple-A Indianapolis by posting a 1.70 ERA with 50 strikeouts and eight walks in 39 appearances since April 19. For the season, he is 2-5 with a 2.37 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and 17 saves in as many opportunities this season.
“There may not be a single player that I’ve been around in my career who checked all three of the following boxes: Perform on the field, perform off the field and in the community, and be from the city. Pretty special combination,” Cherington said. “He was a great Pirate. There’s no question about it. I have great admiration for him. He’s going to do well going forward. So that made this a very difficult one for us.”
Flores, who turns 25 in November, was the Yankees’ No. 8 prospect. The 6-foot-4, 220-pounder batted .287/.346/.496 with 23 doubles, 15 home runs and 56 RBIs in 87 games at Double-A Somerset and was leading the Eastern League in extra-base hits (39) and total bases (166) and ranked second in hits (96) and RBIs before a July 19 promotion. In 10 games at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, he batted .211 with a .289 slugging percentage. Flores will report to Triple-A Indianapolis.
The Pirates also received 19-year-old catcher Edgleen Perez and 21-year-old outfielder Brian Sanchez from Low-A Tampa. Sanchez, ranked the Yankees’ No. 24 prospect by Baseball America, was batting .281/.373/.438 with 16 doubles, five triples, four homers and 36 RBIs. Perez was batting .209/.368/.236 with eight doubles and 26 RBIs.
Flores was named the Yankees’ minor league player of the year by Baseball America in 2024, when he batted .279 with 31 doubles, 21 homers and 68 RBIs in a season split between High-A Hudson Valley and Somerset.
“Flores is the headliner for a number of reasons,” Cherington said. “He’s already in Triple-A at a premium position. This is a player who we really believe can be a strong defensive and offensive catcher.”
The Pirates pulled a surprise by sending Bailey Falter to the Royals for 28-year-old lefty reliever Evan Sisk and first baseman Callan Moss minutes before the 6 p.m. deadline.
Falter, who is making $2.2 million this season, is 7-5 with a 3.73 ERA and 1.18 WHIP in 113 1/3 innings over 22 starts with seven quality starts this season – and has posted a 2.93 ERA over his last 16 starts. Acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies at the 2023 trade deadline, Falter was 17-16 with 4.32 ERA in 60 games (57 starts) over two-plus seasons with the Pirates.
The 28-year-old Falter is making $2.2 million this season and has three years of arbitration eligibility remaining.
Sisk, 28, had a 1.69 ERA in 5 1/3 innings over five appearances for the Royals in April and May. He has spent the majority of the season at Triple-A Omaha, going 0-2 with a 3.77 ERA, 1.60 WHIP and four saves in 28 2/3 innings over 31 appearances.
Sisk was an International League All-Star in 2024, when he had a 1.57 ERA, 15 saves, 81 strikeouts and a .166 batting average in 58 appearances for Omaha.
The 21-year-old Moss is a 6-foot-3, 225-pounder who batted .270/.372/.418 with 22 doubles, three triples, seven home runs and 70 RBIs in 92 games at High-A Quad Cities this season.
“We liked the players we got for Bailey,” Cherington said. “As we looked forward towards 2026, it was really looking toward, ‘OK, what starting pitchers in the organization have the best chance to be part of that rotation in 2026, and how do we give those guys the best chance to be ready for that?’”
After acquiring Rogers, Cherington warned him to sit tight. The Pirates dealt him to the Cubs for 22-year-old Ivan Brethowr, a 6-6, 250-pound outfielder who batted .208/.371/.298 with 11 doubles, six homers and 33 RBIs at High-A South Bend. The Pirates also acquired 19-year-old right-handed starter Jeter Martinez from the Mariners for Ferguson.
Cherington contended that trading Hayes, a 2023 NL Gold Glove winner who leads the majors with 16 defensive runs saved this season, was as much about freeing up playing time for 2024 NL Gold Glove utility fielder Jared Triolo as it was clearing space for future payroll.
The Pirates made Hayes a cornerstone in their rebuild when they signed him a to a franchise-record seven-year, $80 million contract in April 2022. But they grew weary of his inconsistency at the plate, as he was hitting .236 with an MLB-worst .569 OPS and only 14 extra-base hits and 36 RBIs in 100 games this season.
“It’s an important question and certainly one that we’ve really wrestled with,” Cherington said. “We can look back and think about the moment that we did the contract, and I certainly haven’t forgotten what I said at the time and we believe that that contract made sense and certainly believed in Ke’ at that time and Ke’s done a lot of good things on the baseball field for us in a Pirates uniform. … We’ve learned a lot during that period of time since the contract was done. We’ve learned a lot about other players in the organization, we’ve learned a lot about Ke’ and, again, as we thought clearly about what gives us the best chance to build a team in 2026 that’s better and wins more games, we got to a point where we decided that the combination of the talent we get for Key, the opportunity that opens up for other players and the opportunity that it gives us this offseason to reallocate some of those dollars into other parts of the team added up to making sense.”
Cherington made it clear that his work isn’t complete. The Pirates are expecting to have an active offseason in acquiring offensive help, whether through trades or free agency, so he wasn’t about to argue with critics who look at their trade deadline deals designed to improve the team for next season with a sense of skepticism.
“Well, they’re right that we haven’t yet. Certainly, we have not built a good enough offense yet, so that’s accurate,” Cherington said. “I believe we can and will and just need to — and doing that in Pittsburgh is going to be a combination of taking chances, making bets on young players who are unproven, and we’ve got to continue to do that and be right more often than we’re not right on those.”
Kevin Gorman is a TribLive reporter covering the Pirates. A Baldwin native and Penn State graduate, he joined the Trib in 1999 and has covered high school sports, Pitt football and basketball and was a sports columnist for 10 years. He can be reached at kgorman@triblive.com.
