Caleb Ferguson is now officially Pittsburgh property, and while I don't expect that to sell

a single ticket across the scope of the 2025 schedule, I do think it sets a clear path for where this bullpen's headed.

Good morning to you. Good Friday morning. I'm Dan Kovachievich of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports.

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Ferguson's 28 years old.

He's a lefty.

I could probably stop with the scouting assessment by just saying that he's a lefty.

The pirates don't have that.

And they're probably going to have to manufacture it out of pitchers who don't make the starting rotation.

Now, also yesterday, several players reached predictable agreements with the pirates on arbitration deals, most notable

among them David Bednar at 5.9 million.

Bailey Falter was in there.

And with a lot of respect to a pretty cool dude, it's easy to forget he's around, you know, because he's

kind of always been that guy who's living on the fringe. He can start, he could relieve,

he could just be a lefty who hangs around until he's a good lefty and you know how lefties

are in that regard. But along with this signing of Ferguson came word from inside 115 federal that Ferguson's going to get a chance to start in spring training.

He's going to get stretched out as if he's in a starting competition.

Now, for those of you who don't follow spring training all that closely, that doesn't mean too much.

Stretched out in the spring can mean you get out to two, three innings and then about halfway through the Grapefruit League schedule,

they'll pull the plug on you and tell you to just focus on relief

or they'll tell you that they're setting you up for long relief.

...