The Pirates’ only non-tenders were the four players they designated for assignment on Tuesday. Moreta spent considerable time in the minors after returning from Tommy John surgery last season, but he had a 3.24 ERA in 16 2/3 innings while in the majors. With his career 29% strikeout rate, there will be a lot of teams interested in him on a minor league deal.

No word on the exact financial terms. The deal presumably extinguishes any possibility that Ramirez will be non-tendered later this week. The 30-year-old righty posted a pedestrian 5.40 ERA, 1.47 WHIP and 45/16 K/BB ratio across 33 1/3 innings over 24 appearances for the Pirates last season.

Suwinski hit .147 (22-for-150) with three homers and seven steals in 59 games last season in the majors. The 27-year-old strikeout-prone outfielder projects as more of a righty-mashing platoon option than an everyday option at this stage of his development.

Murdock represents an interesting gamble for the Pirates since he was a Rule 5 pick by the Athletics last offseason and made 14 underwhelming relief appearances, registering an astronomical 13.24 ERA during that span, before being returned to the Royals by mid-May. The 27-year-old hurler produced a solid 3.16 ERA and 72/41 K/BB ratio over 62 2/3 innings during 46 relief outings in the upper minors after returning to Kansas City.

Mosqueda fortifies Pittsburgh’s left-handed relief depth chart after posting a 4.52 ERA, 1.25 WHIP and 68/31 K/BB ratio across 65 2/3 innings over 55 appearances at the Triple-A level last season.

The move is now official. Devanney is headed overseas to pursue an opportunity with the Hanshin Tigers of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. The 28-year-old infielder got into 14 games last season for the Pirates in his first taste of the majors, batting .139 (5-for-36) with one RBI during that span.

Holderman, Canario, Moreta and Simon have been jettisoned from Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster to make room for an influx of prospects that the organization needed to shield from next month’s Rule 5 Draft. No real surprises here.

Valdez is the clear headliner on the heels of a transcendent Arizona Fall League campaign where he batted .368/.513/.842 with eight round-trippers in 19 games. The 21-year-old slugger’s emergence gives the Pirates another potential high-impact bat to pair with blue-chip prospects Konnor Griffin and Edward Florentino, who will enter next season among the top-ranked talents in baseball. He’s officially protected from selection in next month’s Rule 5 Draft and should enter next spring as one of the more exciting talents for fantasy managers to monitor in the upper minors.

Griffin is the top prospect in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline and many other rankings sites. He’s just 19 years old, but he hit .333/.415/.527 with 21 home runs and 65 steals in his first professional season after Pittsburgh drafted him 9th overall in the 2024 MLB Draft. As Passan notes, the last teenager to debut in the majors was Juan Soto back in 2018, and the Pirates are certainly not a win-now team, so it feels unlikely Griffin will actually open the season as the team’s shortstop, but he may not be that far away.

The 27-year-old Oviedo missed all of 2024 after undergoing Tommy John surgery and then was delayed to start 2025 with a lat strain. However, he posted a 3.57 ERA in nine starts in 2025 while showing off an upper-90s fastball and improved shapes on his two-seam and four-seam fastball. Pair that with a slider that has been a plus pitch for him, and teams see the makings of a solid back-of-the-rotation starter. Rosenthal reports that the Pirates would much rather trade Mitch Keller and his $54.5 million salary over the next three years, but both right-handers are names to watch this offseason.