Report: Antonio Bastardo going to the Mets

Lefty Antonio Bastardo is in agreement on a two-year, $12 million contract, according to MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez and MLB Networks’ Jon Heyman. 

I found it surprising that the Pirates weren’t more interested in retaining Bastardo (or if they were, they kept it quiet; I personally didn’t hear much of anything going on between them this winter and didn’t see many reports linking the two), especially on that reasonable contract. (Update: The Pirates, we found out tonight, reportedly offered Bastardo $8 million over two years). Bastardo struck out 10 batters per nine innings and had a 129 ERA+ in 66 games, during which he had a 2.98 ERA in 571/3 innings. 

The Pirates don’t have many proven lefty relievers other than Tony Watson. Kyle Lobstein might be in the Class AAA Indianapolis rotation.They like non-roster invitee Robert Zarate but even GM Neal Huntington said recently that he was something of an unknown commodity. Huntington said the team could go with six righties if that was their best bullpen, rather than forcing in a sub-par lefty, but Clint Hurdle is a proponent of at least two lefties, if not three. 

But their approach has always been to get lefties who can pitch to both sides -- they aren’t big on LOOGYs (lefty one-out guys, like Randy Choate). So if they can’t find someone who can do that, they’ll go with the six best guys in addition to Watson.