Hey guys, welcome to the Pirates podcast and be named later here on DK Pittsburgh Sports.

My name is Chris Halleck.

Joining me as always is Jose Negron.

We are here to talk about Pirates baseball and the happenings that are, well, happening

with this club.

And unfortunately for a lot of fans, after a lot of talk about how much the pirates are going to be spending

and all the stuff.

It's been pretty uneventful.

There's been one thing, one thing, and we'll get into that here in a second.

Actually, just get into it right now.

Gregory Soto here on a one year, $7.75 million contract, lefty reliever.

How did this come about?

Why was this one of the first moves Ben Charington was really making to upgrade the roster

for the 26th season?

Yeah, I mean, it was pretty much a given that they wanted to upgrade in terms of their left-handed pitching. I mean, before they signed Soto, they had two left-handed pitchers on their 40-man roster, one being Evan Sisk and the other one being Hunter Barco. So you got a rookie who has a little bit more experience in Sisk, and then you have another guy in Barko who I think had two appearances at

the end of the season in that last series the last two series of the year against Cincinnati

and against Atlanta so they they have a guy in Gregory Soto who has experience is reliable

in terms of availability which is, especially for a bullpen.

I think four straight years in which he's made 60 plus appearances.

And he's a guy who's pitched in some big games.

Lefty on lefty is a huge thing for them.

I know Ben Charington said that that was something that they really wanted to approach

...