Carmen Mlodzinski

Mlodzinski built up his volume during spring training and was a backend member of the Pirates' rotation on the Opening Day roster. He started in each of his first nine outings of 2025 but was nothing more than a placeholder, eventually moving to a long-relief role out of the bullpen after Mike Burrows was called up from Triple-A. Mlodzinski finished the 2025 season with a 5-8 record with a 3.55 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, three holds and a 102:39 K:BB across 99 innings. Even with Burrows traded to the Astros during the offseason, Mlodzinski figures to reprise his relief role in 2026 given the call ups of Bubba Chandler, Thomas Harrington and Hunter Barco toward the tail end of last season. Mlodzinski's below-average strikeout rate of 21.2 percent is balanced out somewhat by his BB rate (6.4 percent) and GB rate (48.5 percent), and given his projected role out of Pittsburgh's bullpen, that gives him some potential value in leagues that reward holds. Read Past Outlooks