{"id":835404,"date":"2026-05-31T21:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T21:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/835404\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T21:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T21:40:13","slug":"pirates-place-carmen-mlodzinski-on-restricted-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/835404\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Place Carmen Mlodzinski On Restricted List"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an unexpected move, the Pirates placed right-hander Carmen Mlodzinski<\/a><\/strong> on the team\u2019s restricted list today.\u00a0 Righty Cam Sanders<\/a><\/strong> was called up from Triple-A Indianapolis to take Mlodzinski\u2019s spot on the active roster, and Pittsburgh now has an open spot on its 40-man roster.<\/p>\n

As a reminder, players aren\u2019t paid for any time spent on the restricted list, nor do they receive any MLB service time.\u00a0 Clubs usually use the restricted list for players who are suspended, or are dealing with a personal issue that keeps them away from the team for an undetermined period of time.\u00a0 Colin Beazley of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/a> reports that Mlodzinski is expected to be available on Tuesday, so it will be just a short absence for the righty.<\/p>\n

The reasons for the placement were revealed today by Pirates GM Ben Cherington, who told Beazley and other reporters that Mlodzinski \u201cwasn\u2019t ready to\u201d pitch on Sunday.\u00a0 \u201cGoing into the weekend, we understood and communicated with Carmen that at some point this weekend we were going to need him to be ready or we\u2019d have to replace him on the team in fairness to the team, so that\u2019s what happened today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue seems to stem from the Pirates\u2019 decision to remove Mlodzinski from the rotation when Jared Jones<\/a><\/strong> made his return from the 60-day injured list on Friday.\u00a0 Jones joins Paul Skenes<\/a><\/strong>, Braxton Ashcraft<\/a><\/strong>, Mitch Keller<\/a><\/strong>, and Bubba Chandler<\/a><\/strong> in the starting five, leaving Mlodzinski as the odd man out.\u00a0 As Beazley noted, Mlodzinski was open about his disappointment while speaking with the media on Thursday, and Mlodzinski has been vocal in the past about preferring to work as a starting pitcher.<\/p>\n

Mlodzinski said Thursday that he is \u201cstill communicating with the organization and the people in my corner, whether that\u2019s my family or my agency, about what is next,\u201d but Cherington said today that the right-hander hadn\u2019t requested a trade.\u00a0 The Pirates control Mlodzinski through the 2029 season, as the right-hander won\u2019t reach arbitration eligibility until the coming offseason.<\/p>\n

Over 55 innings this season, Mlodzinski has posted a 3.76 ERA in 11 games \u2014 nine proper starts and two bulk-pitcher outings working behind an opener.\u00a0 Mlodzinski\u2019s 8.4% walk rate is around league average but he isn\u2019t missing many bats and he is allowing a ton of hard contact.\u00a0 The right-hander\u2019s 50.9% hard-hit ball rate sits only in the second percentile of all pitchers.\u00a0 Still, Mlodzinski\u2019s SIERA is only 4.21, as he has done a good job of limiting the damage of all that hard contact by allowing only three home runs.<\/p>\n

A case can be made that Mlodzinski could\u2019ve or should\u2019ve retained a rotation spot over Bubba Chandler, as Chandler has struggled badly with his control while posting a 4.85 ERA across 52 innings.\u00a0 Since Mlodzinski has more experience as a swingman or long reliever, however, the Pirates opted to use that flexibility by moving him into a relief role, with the knowledge that Mlodzinski would likely have an easier time than Chandler in shifting back to a starting gig down the road.<\/p>\n

It is understandable why Mlodzinski isn\u2019t happy with the move, but his impending return on Tuesday probably means there aren\u2019t too many hard feelings.\u00a0 Without much leverage in trade demands, Mlodzinski may simply have to move forward as a reliever for the time being, though obviously any number of circumstances (injuries, more struggles from Chandler, etc.) could open up a rotation spot in the future.\u00a0 Having a de facto sixth starter on the roster is also a good way for the Pirates to help keep the entire rotation fresh for what the team hopes will be a push towards a playoff spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an unexpected move, the Pirates placed right-hander Carmen Mlodzinski on the team\u2019s restricted list today.\u00a0 Righty Cam…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":835405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[10],"tags":[342500,298681,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-835404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cam-sanders","tag-carmen-mlodzinski","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116671363790037816","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}