{"id":94694,"date":"2025-01-27T23:22:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T04:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=94694"},"modified":"2025-01-27T23:22:11","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T04:22:11","slug":"pirates-sign-tim-mayza-one-year-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/01\/27\/pirates-sign-tim-mayza-one-year-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Bolster Bullpen by Signing Lefty Tim Mayza"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Pirates have reached a one-year, $1.15 million agreement with left-handed relief pitcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mayzati01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tim Mayza<\/a>. Alex Stumpf of mlb.com was the first to break the news. The deal is pending a physical.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Source: deal is for one year, $1.15 million <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/j3Lyqfr9q5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/j3Lyqfr9q5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Alex Stumpf (@AlexJStumpf) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AlexJStumpf\/status\/1884049680788775287?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 28, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Pirates Bolster Bullpen by Signing Tim Mayza<\/h2>\n<p>It\u2019s become a recurring theme. Once again, Pirates general manager Ben Cherington has signed a familiar face he would have known from his time as Toronto Blue Jays vice president of baseball operations from 2016-18. Mayza pitched for Toronto from 2017 until he was <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/06\/29\/toronto-blue-jays-designate-tim-mayza\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">released<\/a> and signed by the New York Yankees last July. Last year was an off-year for the 33-year-old, to say the least. He was 0-2 with a 6.33 ERA and 1.617 WHIP, although his 4.50 FIP indicates he may have been the victim of bad luck or poor support afield. Opponents hit .309\/.359\/.486 against him.<\/p>\n<p>However, Mayza is only one year removed from his best season, when he had a 1.52 ERA and 1.219 WHIP for the Jays. His numbers from 2021-23 indicate a reliable relief arm. Over that period, he had a 2.67 ERA and 1.103 WHIP.<\/p>\n<p>Mayza primarily relies on a sinker that he throws 71.8 percent of the time and averages 92.5 mph. Otherwise, he uses a slider that averages 87.1 mph. With just four career saves, he\u2019s been used mainly as a left-handed specialist. Last year, left-handed batters hit .244\/.298\/.314 against him. However, for his career, left-handed swingers have hit .215\/.266\/.307. From the right-handed box, opponents have hit .281\/.349\/.471 during his career and an ugly .371\/.416\/.652 in 2024.<\/p>\n<h3>Three&#8217;s Company<\/h3>\n<p>The Pirates entered this offseason needing bullpen help, especially from the left side. The only returning left-handed reliever is late-season pickup <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wentzjo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joey Wentz<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/chapmar01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aroldis Chapman<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/12\/03\/aroldis-chapman-signs-with-boston-red-sox\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">signed<\/a> with the Boston Red Sox. The Pirates appear to have no interest in bringing back trade deadline acquisition <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/beeksja02.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jalen Beeks<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/borucry01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ryan Borucki<\/a>, who spent a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/11\/13\/pirates-ryan-borucki-free-agent\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">frustrating year<\/a> battling injuries. Mayza now joins Wentz and another <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/01\/09\/caleb-ferguson-signs-one-year-contract\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">free agent signee<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/ferguca01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-27_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Caleb Ferguson<\/a>, to give the Pirates three left-handers in the pen.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a signing that\u2019s unlikely to appease an increasingly impatient, ornery fan base dismayed over the offseason\u2019s inactivity on the Pirates&#8217; end. Yet, Mayza is a reasonable chance for the Pirates to take, given the cost, especially if used correctly.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 John Jones-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Pirates have reached a one-year, $1.15 million agreement with left-handed relief pitcher Tim Mayza. Alex Stumpf of mlb.com was the first to break the news. The deal is pending a physical. Source: deal is for one year, $1.15 million https:\/\/t.co\/j3Lyqfr9q5 \u2014 Alex Stumpf (@AlexJStumpf) January 28, 2025 Pirates Bolster Bullpen by Signing Tim [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5010,"featured_media":94702,"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":[26,1071,35],"tags":[209,2146,1306,953,5901],"class_list":["post-94694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pirates","category-mlb","category-news","tag-aroldis-chapman","tag-jalen-beeks","tag-joey-wentz","tag-ryan-borucki","tag-tim-mayza"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94694","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\/5010"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94694"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94703,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94694\/revisions\/94703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}