The Pittsburgh Pirates made a move Wednesday that feels all too familiar: they signed veteran right-hander Mike Clevinger to a minor-league deal and invited him to Major League camp as a non-roster invitee. On paper, it’s a no-risk addition - the kind of depth signing that fills out a spring training roster. But in Pittsburgh, context is everything, and this one lands with more weight than it might elsewhere.
Let’s start with the player. Clevinger is 35 now, with 142 big league starts under his belt, a 3.55 career ERA, and a 60-44 record.
He was once a reliable arm in a contending rotation. But that version of Clevinger hasn’t shown up in a while.
Last season, he didn’t make a single start. He pitched exclusively out of the bullpen for the White Sox and struggled to a 7.94 ERA in five early-season relief appearances before being designated for assignment.
Across three separate stints with Chicago since late 2022, he compiled a 9-14 record with a 4.24 ERA in 28 starts and eight relief outings. The durability and effectiveness that once defined him have faded - at least for now.
This is a classic Pirates move: low-cost, low-commitment, and low expectations. If Clevinger finds something in spring training and earns a spot, great.
If not, he’s a name that quietly disappears before Opening Day. No harm done, at least on the surface.
But what makes this signing resonate more deeply is the timing. Just hours before the Clevinger news dropped, reports surfaced that the Pirates were making a push for Framber Valdez - the top remaining pitcher on the free-agent market.
That’s a name that turns heads. Valdez is a legitimate frontline starter, a lefty with playoff experience, innings-eating ability, and the kind of presence that would immediately raise the ceiling of the Pirates’ rotation alongside Paul Skenes.
So when one headline reads “Pirates pursuing Framber Valdez” and the next reads “Pirates sign Mike Clevinger to minor-league deal,” it’s hard not to feel the whiplash. One is a statement of intent.
The other? A shrug.
The team will tell you both things can be true - that signing a veteran on a minor-league deal doesn’t rule out a bigger move. And technically, that’s correct.
But fans in Pittsburgh have seen this script before. Depth signings often evolve into default plans.
What starts as insurance winds up being the centerpiece. And the big swing?
Too often, it never comes.
There’s another layer here, too. Clevinger’s on-field questions are only part of the story.
In early 2023, he was investigated by Major League Baseball over allegations of domestic violence and child abuse involving his partner and their infant daughter. The league ultimately chose not to discipline him, but the situation understandably left a mark.
This isn’t the first time the Pirates have brought in a player with a complicated off-field history. And each time, the organization has treated it as an isolated case - as if the pattern doesn’t matter.
But at a certain point, fans start to ask bigger questions about what kind of decisions the front office is willing to make in pursuit of marginal gains. If you’re going to test the limits of public goodwill, you’d better be delivering something meaningful between the lines.
And right now, Clevinger isn’t that.
To be fair, there’s a version of this story where Clevinger gets healthy, finds a rhythm, and gives the Pirates a few quality starts or long-relief outings. That’s not out of the question.
And on a minor-league deal, it’s a defensible baseball decision. But when it’s paired with yet another offseason filled with missed targets, near-misses, and unrealized potential, the move feels like part of a larger trend - one that Pirates fans know all too well.
If the Pirates do land Valdez, Clevinger becomes a footnote - a depth piece, a maybe. But if they don’t? Then this starts to look like another pivot away from boldness, dressed up as flexibility.
And in Pittsburgh, that’s a story that’s been told too many times.