The Royals have acquired left-handed starter Bailey Falter from the Pirates, with lefty Evan Sisk and minor league first baseman Callan Moss headed back to Pittsburgh in return. Both teams have announced the trade.
Falter, 28, settled in as a capable back-end starter for the Pirates over the past two seasons. From 2024-25, he has made 50 starts, averaging just over five innings per game. He has a 4.12 ERA and a 4.99 SIERA in that time. Neither a strikeout pitcher nor a groundball pitcher, none of Falter’s pitches stand out as especially dangerous, but he survives thanks to average control and elite extension. He will offer the Royals some much-needed rotation depth, with Kris Bubic out for the season and Cole Ragans, Michael Lorenzen, and Alex Marsh also on the IL. Falter might not be the kind of pitcher the Royals want starting in a postseason series, but he can help them in the uphill climb they’re facing to get to the playoffs. He is making $2.22MM this year and will be under team control through arbitration for another three seasons.
Sisk, now 28, was drafted by the Cardinals in 2018 and traded to the Twins in 2021 as part of a package for J.A. Happ. A year and a half later, the Twins flipped him to the Royals as part of the deal that brought Michael A. Taylor to Minnesota. Almost seven years after he was drafted, Sisk made his MLB debut for KC earlier this year. He threw a total of 5 1/3 innings in two separate stints with the big league club, giving up just one earned run and striking out 11. He also pitched to a 3.77 ERA and 3.83 FIP in 28.2 innings with the Triple-A Omaha Storm Chasers. Sisk has never been a top prospect, in no small part due to questions about his ability to retire right-handed hitters at the highest level. That helps explain why he has pitched at Triple-A with two different organizations in parts of four separate seasons, and he’s only managed to earn five big league appearances.
Moss, now 21, signed with the Royals as an undrafted free agent last summer. While he is not a highly-regarded prospect, the righty batter crushed the baseball last year at Single-A (177 wRC+ in 22 games) and has continued to hit well this year at High-A (123 wRC+ in 92 games). He’s also added a total of 17 stolen bases in 24 attempts.
Jon Heyman of The New York Post was the first to report that Falter was heading to Pittsburgh, while Alex Stumpf of MLB.com was first on the return of Sisk and Moss.