The Pirates announced that veteran right-hander Mike Clevinger will be in camp as a non-roster invitee. The ACES client signed a minor league deal this afternoon.
Clevinger spent most of the 2025 season in Triple-A with the White Sox. He had a decent year, allowing a 4.20 ERA with league average strikeout (21.9%) and walk (8.5%) marks. The 34-year-old had actually broken camp with Chicago in a bullpen role, but he was taken off the roster after giving up five runs with eight walks across his first 5 2/3 innings. He built back up as a starter in the minors but never got another look from the big league club.
That was the ninth season in which Clevinger logged some MLB action. He was an above-average starter for Cleveland early in his career. His stuff dropped off following a 2020 Tommy John surgery. Clevinger managed decent run prevention marks in 2022-23 but didn’t have anywhere near the same strikeout ability as he showed before the elbow injury. He was limited to four starts in 2024 by a neck injury that required surgery and hasn’t been much of a factor at the MLB level over the past two years.
Pittsburgh has plenty of upside in the rotation. They’ve subtracted from the depth behind Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller by trading away Mike Burrows and Johan Oviedo for offensive help. Bubba Chandler and Braxton Ashcraft are entering their first full MLB seasons. With Jared Jones still recovering from last year’s UCL surgery, the fifth starter job would be up for grabs among Hunter Barco, Thomas Harrington and Carmen Mlodzinski. Any Spring Training injuries would seriously test the depth.
It’s likely the Pirates still have at least one big league rotation pickup coming. They’ve even jumped into the mix on Framber Valdez, improbable as that kind of splash seems based on Pittsburgh’s usual spending habits. There are a number of mid-rotation or back-end arms still available if Valdez ends up elsewhere. A minor league deal for Clevinger shouldn’t have an impact on those pursuits. They’ll need a couple veteran arms at Triple-A Indianapolis to avoid pushing too many prospects as injuries necessitate during the season.
