Pirates acquire Ivan Nova

The Pirates have acquired starter Ivan Nova from the Yankees, Jon Heyman tweets. The Bucs will send the Yankees a player to be named later; I assume it won't be anyone great.

Again, to repeat some of what I wrote earlier: Nova is a rental who has a 4.90 ERA. It's not that surprising that the Pirates like him at least a little, though, since that high ERA is the byproduct of a very high home run rate that probably won't repeat in Pittsburgh, and since he's a ground-ball pitcher. The Bucs acquired a similarly uninteresting-looking pitcher in J.A. Happ at least year's deadline and that one worked great, so perhaps there's something here. Nova does spare the Pirates the indignity of too many stretch-run starts by Jeff Locke or Ryan Vogelsong, although the Bucs' collection of interesting rookie starters could have done the same thing.

Obviously, I don't find Nova particularly exciting, and I can't blame a Pirates fan for feeling disappointed if it turns out all they did was trade Mark Melancon and deal for Ivan Nova to patch their starting rotation.