The Pirates hold a 38-38 record heading into tonight’s game against the Rockies, and Pittsburgh sits two games out of a wild card in the tight NL race. Since the Buccos haven’t had a winning season since 2018 and haven’t reached the playoffs since 2015, the team is looking to end both droughts with more trade pressure.
According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the Pirates are “open to trading” a Competitive Balance Round pick for the upcoming roster, as well as in their minor league program. The Pirates are listed in the CBR-A this year, so their additional pick would be 34th overall.
Competitive Balance Rounds are the two bonus rounds that fall, respectively, after the first and second rounds of the draft. The 15 teams that rank (according to a formula determined by the league) among the bottom 10 teams in the league by revenue or market size each receive an additional draft pick, and these are the only picks that can be traded.
Since prospect development is an even more important part of building a small-market team’s roster, there is a natural benefit to using CBR’s pick to bring an additional young player into the system. However, we’ve seen several deals involving these CBR picks over the years, as clubs in win mode now use these picks as bargaining chips to acquire more proven talent. Of the 15 picks over two Competitive Balance Rounds in the 2026 draft, five were traded.
Pittsburgh could make it to the sixth spot if a viable offer comes in between now and the draft on July 11. Rosenthal writes that the Pirates are looking at all options in a trade, though a shaky relief team is the club’s obvious weak link.
Nearby Gregory Soto and the left hand Evan Sisk they were the only reliable relievers in the Pirates’ bullpen, and Pittsburgh’s 4.46 ERA ranked 20th out of 30 teams. The bullpen also threw the ninth most innings (292 2/3) of any relief team in baseball, and adding more depth is especially important since most of the Pirates’ starters have yet to complete a full Major League season.
When the Pirates got it Hunter Stratton from the Braves yesterday, the most prominent replacement for a relief pitcher may not come until much closer to July 11, if the CBR-A pick does indeed become part of Pittsburgh’s trade plans. The Pirates will need more weeks to test the ever-changing bull market, and there are only a few teams in a clear selling position here on June 20. If the Bucs are going to stop the 34-game winning streak in an effort to find a reliever, the team will likely target providers with more contractual control, so hire like the Rock. Antonio Senzatela (naming one obvious trade candidate to a rebuilding team) is unlikely to qualify for such a deal.
As Rosenthal notes, we’ve seen teams include CBR picks in free agency trades just before each of the last two drafts. However, the wide variation in the results of those games underscores the Pirates’ vulnerability. The radiation came down Bryan Baker from the Orioles with the 37th overall pick last July and Baker has enjoyed a great 2026 season as Tampa’s closer. Conversely, the Royals sent the 39th pick and an infield prospect Cayden Wallace at Nationals for Hunter Harvey just before the 2024 draft, and Harvey then pitched just 16 1/3 innings over parts of two marred seasons in Kansas City.
