The Oakland Athletics and Pittsburgh Pirates agreed to a trade on Thursday afternoon, with the Bay Area squad acquiring lefty reliever Nik Turley in exchange for $60,000 cash.
The A’s have long been adept at finding unheralded arms and turning them into important bullpen pieces, and this appears to be their aim in what is a low-risk deal with the rebuilding squad.
Turley, who is 31 years old, made his Big League debut with the Twins in 2017 and then missed the next two seasons after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
He returned to the mound in 2020 with the Pirates and posted a 4.98 ERA in 25 appearances, mostly as a lefty specialist. Turley struggled with walks and hit batters as well, but he did strike out 20 batters in only 21.2 innings of work.
Turley looks to be a candidate to fill a spot in the A’s bullpen heading into the season, but will likely face competition from other lefty arms like Jake Diekman and AJ Puk for a prominent role.
The California native returns to his home state and will still be under team control for the next six seasons, setting up the A’s to potentially have an important piece in their staff for years to come if Turley can polish up his control.
