Pirates designate veteran lefty for assignment

The Pittsburgh Pirates have designated left-handed reliever Ryan Borucki for assignment, manager Don Kelly announced to reporters prior to this afternoon’s game (link via Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). Pittsburgh also recalled righty Colin Holderman and lefty Evan Sisk from Triple-A Indianapolis and optioned righty Cam Sanders.

The 31-year-old Borucki has had a second straight rough season with the Bucs. Back in 2023, he turned in a sharp 2.45 ERA with a 21.7% strikeout rate and superlative 2.6% walk rate through 40 1/3 frames. He’s since turned in successive ERAs of 7.36 and 5.28 over a combined 41 2/3 frames while navigating multiple injuries. Borucki was out for more than a month due to a lower back injury earlier this summer, and a triceps injury limited him to just 11 innings in 2024.

Even with that rough stretch, Borucki still carries a career 4.38 ERA in 252 big league innings. He’s set down 19.6% of his career opponents on strikes and walked 8.7% of them. Neither is a plus mark, but neither is too far from league average. Borucki’s career 48.3% ground-ball rate (55% in 2025) is several percentage points north of average.

Borucki’s minor league deal with the Pirates contained a $1.15M base salary that locked in when he was added to the big league roster. Any team that claims him off waivers — he obviously cannot be traded now that the deadline has passed — would be responsible for the prorated remainder of that sum, about $272K through season’s end. Since Borucki has more than five years of big league service, it doesn’t make much of a difference whether he’s placed on outright waivers or release waivers. He has the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency and still retain the remainder of his guaranteed money.

For the Pirates, it’s an understandable decision to move on. Borucki allowed three runs in his most recent outing and has struggled for much of the season when healthy. He’d have been a free agent at season’s end, so they’ll instead give his innings to younger arms who can be controlled beyond the current season. If a team claims the remaining $272K that’s on his contract, it’s all the better, but either way his departure will allow the Pirates more opportunity to evaluate potential future pieces in the ’pen.