Pirates 'not close' to acquiring Nathan Eovaldi

The Pirates are "not close" to acquiring Marlins starter Nathan Eovaldi, although they'll keep an eye on him, Frank Coonelly said today at PirateFest. The Eovaldi-for-Pedro-Alvarez rumors sounded too good to be true, so this is no surprise.

Some in the comments to the last Eovaldi thread wondered why I was so gung-ho to acquire him, particularly given his rather low strikeout rate (6.4 K/9) and ground ball percentage (44.8%). For me, it's that he's 24, has already approached 200 innings in a season, has very good control ... and can get into the high 90s with his fastball. He's pretty good now and seems like the kind of player who could take a step forward, particularly if he can improve his offspeed stuff. Given his age, that doesn't seem like an unreasonable hope, and he's controlled through his ages 25, 26 and 27 seasons.

Anyway, this appears to be mostly moot for the time being.