Pirates trade rumors: Bucs reportedly tried to deal for Steve Cishek

MLB.com's Joe Frisaro tweets that the Pirates were among the teams that bid for Steve Cishek, who the Marlins ultimately traded to the Cardinals.

Along w/ #Dodgers the #Pirates also make pitch for Cishek. #Marlins decided to pull trigger w/ #STLCards

— Joe Frisaro (@JoeFrisaro) July 24, 2015

This likely at least partially explains the rumors yesterday that the Pirates were working on a trade involving a reliever. I don't know where Cishek would have fit with the Bucs. A reader mentioned the possibility of a Cishek trade yesterday, and I dismissed it -- Cishek has struggled with both his velocity and his results this season. Both have improved somewhat as the year has gone on, but neither are where they were last year. Maybe the Pirates were involved with the negotiations purely to mess with the Cardinals, but I doubt it -- the fact that three savvy teams in the Cardinals, Pirates and Dodgers were involved the negotiations suggests pretty strongly that baseball's smartest evaluators see Cishek as a bounce-back candidate.

Anyway, the Pirates must not have wanted Cishek too badly, since the Cardinals didn't give up much, just a control-challenged minor league reliever (Kyle Barraclough) and a bit of payroll space.