{"id":121800,"date":"2026-05-13T09:43:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=121800"},"modified":"2026-05-13T09:43:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:43:26","slug":"what-bidois-brings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/05\/13\/what-bidois-brings\/","title":{"rendered":"What Brandan Bidois Is Bringing To The Pirates&#8217; Bullpen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/news\/pirates-promote-brandan-bidois-australian-set-for-mlb-debut\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pittsburgh Pirates recently made a significant call-up<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/04\/14\/easy-way-the-pirates-can-improve-bullpen-urquidy-lawrence\/\" target=\"_self\">improve their bullpen<\/a>. Australian right-handed relief prospect <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=bidois000bra\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brandan Bidois<\/a> is getting the call for his Major League debut. Meanwhile, Cam Sanders will return to Triple-A for the time being. The Pirates added Bidois to the 40-man roster this past offseason to protect him from the Rule 5 draft, but what is he bringing to the Pirates&#8217; depth chart?<\/p>\n<h1>Brandan Bidois brings an intriguing arm to the Pirates&#8217; depth chart.<\/h1>\n<h2>Dominant 2025 campaign<\/h2>\n<p>Bidois earned his 40-man roster spot after a phenomenal 2025 breakout season. The right-hander tossed 61 innings between A-Ball through Triple-A, working to a 0.74 ERA, 2.44 FIP, and 0.80 WHIP. Bidois\u2019 11.7% walk rate was about the only negative on his bottom line. He struck out 30% of opponents and allowed zero home runs. Bidois was next to unhittable down the stretch. From the start of August through the end of the season, he allowed no earned runs and just a single hit over 21.1 frames. Bidois mostly struggled from the time he was signed in September 2019 until the 2025 season with injuries. This was the first season he stayed healthy enough to pitch at least 40 innings in one season. Bidois made a legitimate attempt to make the Pirates&#8217; Opening Day roster. He pitched 2.2 scoreless innings while striking out three. Regardless, <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/lNhO0b1Dxg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the Pirates made the unpopular decision to option him at Triple-A Indianapolis to open 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">At one point in 2025, Pirates prospect Brandan Bidois faced 64 consecutive batters over 18 innings without allowing a hit \ud83d\udc40<\/p>\n<p>Can he rise in the ranks after being added to the 40-man roster?<\/p>\n<p>More details: <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/YzMfXfjjQd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/YzMfXfjjQd<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cdGYd6wElz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/cdGYd6wElz<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Baseball America (@BaseballAmerica) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BaseballAmerica\/status\/2021268144526962700?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 10, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Poor start to 2026<\/h2>\n<figure id=\"attachment_121809\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-121809\" style=\"width: 3748px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2026\/05\/USATSI_28270640.webp\" alt=\"Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Brandan Bidois (77) poses for a photo during media day at Pirate City\" width=\"3748\" height=\"5622\" class=\"size-full wp-image-121809\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2026\/05\/USATSI_28270640.webp 3748w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2026\/05\/USATSI_28270640-768x1152.webp 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 3748px) 100vw, 3748px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-121809\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Feb 18, 2026; Bradenton, FL, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Brandan Bidois (77) poses for a photo during media day at Pirate City. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Unfortunatley, Bidois\u2019 success in 2025 hasn\u2019t fully translated over to 2026. He has allowed a dozen earned runs in just 15 innings of work at Triple-A Indianapolis. The top relief prospect is getting plenty of K\u2019s and swings and misses, with a 32.9% K% and 34.7% whiff percentage. His 12.9% walk rate still isn\u2019t great, but not significantly worse than last year, nor much worse than the International League average of 11.8%. Most of Bidois\u2019 struggles have come from the long ball. He has given up three home runs so far this season. However, an 18.8% HR:FB ratio suggests this is just bad small-sample-size luck.<\/p>\n<h2>Elite stuff<\/h2>\n<p>One thing that is for sure is that Bidois has impressive stuff on the mound. He sits 96-97 MPH with his four-seam fastball and regularly exceeds 20 inches of induced vertical break. Bidois adopted a more kick-change variant of his change-up last year. It\u2019s a hard off-speed pitch, as he has topped out at 94.5 MPH this year with the offering. His go-to breaking pitch is a mid-80s slider that approaches 2800 RPM, and has a 50% whiff rate. He throws all of this from a very high, 73-degree arm angle.<\/p>\n<h2>Where Bidois fits in the Pirates\u2019 bullpen<\/h2>\n<p>The Pirates likely will not throw Bidois in the same sort of low-leverage relief role that Sanders was in prior to his demotion. He is too talented to limit him to just that. The more likely scenario is that Bidois starts his MLB career as middle relief. The Pirates could certainly use some more middle-inning help. While <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/montgma01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mason Montgomery<\/a> and <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sotogr01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gregory Soto<\/a> have performed well as late-inning, high-leverage arms,<a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mattsis01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Isaac Mattson<\/a> and <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/santade01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dennis Santana<\/a> have both had ups and downs this year after being reliable last year. <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/ramiryo01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Yohan Ramirez<\/a> has also had his good and bad moments, and <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lawreju01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Justin Lawrence<\/a> has struggled in anything other than low-leverage situations. Hopefully, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/siskev01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Evan Sisk<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/05\/09\/evan-sisk-high-leverage\/\" target=\"_self\">can also provide some relief<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Bidois could see a handful of innings in the 6th or 7th. That means much less of a chance of Lawrence getting high-leverage work, or Ramirez getting thrusted into extra innings. However, his ceiling is that of a closing pitcher. He recorded both seven saves and seven holds last year, so he isn\u2019t completely unfamiliar with higher-leverage innings, and if he pitches well to start his MLB career, he may eventually take over a set-up role. That is very much a possibility this year, given how many struggles the bullpen has had so far in 2026.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Main Image Credit:<\/strong> <span>Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Pirates recently made a significant call-up to improve their bullpen. Australian right-handed relief prospect Brandan Bidois is getting the call for his Major League debut. Meanwhile, Cam Sanders will return to Triple-A for the time being. The Pirates added Bidois to the 40-man roster this past offseason to protect him from the Rule [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5765,"featured_media":121810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1071,26],"tags":[29286,6372],"class_list":["post-121800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-mlb","category-pirates","tag-brandan-bidois","tag-pittsburg-pirates"],"modified_by":"Matthew Nethercott, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5765"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121800"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121811,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121800\/revisions\/121811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}