Five Pirates Thoughts at Five – Where is the Winning?

7-24-23 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

All season long, well, after the initial shot out the gate anyway, the Pirates have struggled on offense.

You’ll see people call for Andy Haines to be fired, and Derek Shelton of course, but you don’t see nearly as much about Oscar Marin. Honestly, this is my order of concern as well. To me, Haines is the priority to move on from, Shelton next and then if you still feel you need more changed, Marin.

Thing is, I just don’t feel the same way about Marin as those other two and then to make this weirder than just that opinion, I can honestly say, I’m far more concerned about the pitching staff in 2024 than I am the offense.

Even in this series that just concluded against the Angels, the Pirates scored some runs. The Pirates young bats provided enough runs to win 3 games and this time were let down by the pitching. That hasn’t been a theme all year, pitching has been ahead of the game, but heading into next season that staff has by far the most questions or holes to answer or fill.

Lets dig in.

1. The Offense Build

One of the benefits of getting to this point in a rebuild is knowing most of the pieces that should be in play come Spring.

Don’t get me wrong, the Pirates will add free agents, but building is all about developing enough internally to hopefully bolt on some pieces and do something.

We know the Pirates will likely head North next April with 13 position players and before we get into free agency, this is what looks to make up those 13.

Henry Davis (C, RF, DH)
Endy Rodriguez (C, OF, 2B, 1B, DH)
Bryan Reynolds (OF)
Jack Suwinski (OF)
Ke’Bryan Hayes (3B)
Jared Triolo (3B, Anywhere)
Nick Gonzales (2B, SS)
Liover Peguero (SS, 2B)
Connor Joe (OF, INF)
Ji-Hwan Bae (CF, INF)
Rodolfo Castro (INF)
Tucupita Marcano (INF, OF)
Alika Williams (INF)
Oneil Cruz (SS, DH)
Canaan Smith-Njigba (OF)
Malcom Nunez (INF)

And, Cutch (DH) this one isn’t in ink, but it’s mighty close.

All of that still leaves holes. 1B, maybe a veteran Catcher, maybe an established corner outfielder.

All told, I listed 17 players whom I all think will be here, under team control, and of course, that’s too many players for a 13 man section of the 26-man.

We’ll all hear “spend money” and I’m certainly not saying there is no room for upgrade, but who from that list are you ready to say shouldn’t start in MLB? Keep in mind, you’ll have the rest of this season to help inform your decision. Maybe the rest of 2023 knocks a name or two off that list. Maybe it strengthens one of them in your eyes.

The rest of this year needs to be geared toward that, so at the deadline the Pirates have some choices to make. Do they hold on to guys like Choi, Santana for their sheer competence, or do they clear the space to start getting more at bats for some of the members of that list?

These players ARE going to be here, and how good the Pirates get in 2024 will largely go through their growth.

To me, the real room for spending on this club is at 1B and the pitching staff, but it’s hard to deny the Pirates middle infield has been unproductive in 2023 as it’s amassed a negative WAR collectively. Those numbers are there, those numbers are true, but they’re also combined numbers from guys like Castro, Marcano, Bae, Mathias, Owings and I’m not sure they reflect on what the Pirates will likely enter Spring thinking of as most likely to break camp. That’s going to look more like Peguero, Gonzales and Cruz. 2 of which of course just got here and one who was conspicuously missing all year.

When we generally look at the overall record and claim no progress has been made, I’m afraid situations like this have been largely ignored.

I think there has been progress, I just think it’s really untested. When the season started, bluntly, it was hard to see where at bats for Marcano, Bae, Castro were all going to come from. We thought we’d see Cruz of course and a carousel at 2B. Note, I didn’t even mention Peggy or Gonzo. Getting them at bats didn’t seem likely to me at all this year.

What could have happened, did, and we got to see all these guys get significant shots, and we’ll see them get more as the season wraps. The hope is this opportunity helps them learn about some of these players in a more complete and well rounded fashion during 2023.

Oh it hurt the record, for sure. It made it at times look like they had no answers. As we enter 2024 I think they’ll be stronger for having gone through it, maybe smarter too about who should and shouldn’t be counted on.

2. The Pitching Build

This is in my eyes the place this team will have no choice but to spend to fill. If the intension is to win in 2024, and by win I mean good faith press for a playoff spot and the division, I see no way to avoid a major investment.

Pitching staffs are always formed almost as much by what is available as what is under team control. Every year guys go down with season ending injuries, and every year guys come back from them and that is where we’ll see the 2024 Pittsburgh Pirates start their journey.

In camp, Mitch Keller, Johan Oviedo, Luis Ortiz, hopefully Roansy Contreras, Max Kranick, Quinn Priester and Jared Jones could all feasibly be in contention for rotation spots.

A team like this that knows 2024 is go time for competing needs to make sure they have real depth. Again, I see no way short of trading for it, or signing it. I think they need 2, and I think that allows for some more kids to enter the conversation as the season plays out.

Paul Skenes will be in this mix too of course, but even so, that’s a lot of youth, too much I’d argue for a team who is supposed to be challenging for the division.

It’s funny again, they haven’t hit most of the year, and yet moving forward, I’m much more concerned about this aspect of the club.

Maybe that’s because I just don’t trust them to spend, maybe it’s because I don’t like the field of free agents too. Either way, they can feasibly enter the 2024 campaign with no offensive upgrades and “sell” that there is optimism and improvement baked into the unit they’ll push forward. They can’t do the same on the mound. They must acquire proven talent and not in solely a placeholder fashion.

We haven’t seen Ben Cherington make one move, aside from Joe maybe, where the acquisition was both meant for MLB right now and there was an eye toward that player being part of this thing beyond that upcoming trade deadline.

Time for that to change, specifically in this area.

If they don’t, a whole lot of people who didn’t believe this thing was on track will assuredly be proven correct.

3. Dime a Dozen, Bednar is Not

I hate the phrase “Closers are a Dime a Dozen”. Don’t get me wrong, no matter how bad your team is they’ll have someone who you deem your best reliever and they’ll pitch the 9th, but truly good closers, well they my friends are a differnt animal.

David Bednar is a truly good closer, and no, they don’t just grow on trees.

They also don’t last most of the time.

You aren’t going to like this, but under team control through 2026, David Bednar is kinda right in that gray area. I wouldn’t be super comfortable extending him much beyond 2028, and yet if they don’t you’d have to think moving him in 2026 would have to be on the table.

Ideally you have a Brewers situation where you have the next guy groomed and can easily move on, but you can’t get locked in on a huge contract to a guy who could literally fall off the table at any moment.

The Pirates will listen on Bednar because desperation makes teams offer and do stupid things, but this team isn’t’ in position to sell an answer and not get one back.

Let me firmly state this, I don’t think there is much chance Bednar is moved at this deadline. The Pirates don’t have answers to even sniff replacing him and they also need him next year. Making a trade make sense for the Bucs this year would entail getting MLB ready talent in exchange. A starting pitcher, a first baseman, a power hitting corner outfielder, things like that.

Now, what team that is in the hunt has that laying around?

I think it’s a tough marriage to try to arrange this year. Mainly because the Pirates can’t just take 2 highly touted prospects with ETA’s of 2026 and 2027, they need a return that would effect this team now or at the latest 2024.

And even that discounts that now you have another hole opened up that this team I already said I don’t trust to spend has to open the wallet for.

Can they find a Jason Grilli from the waiver wire and turn him into a closer? Sure. Can it work? Has in the past. That said, Jason Grilli wasn’t brought here to close, nor was Evan Meek, nor was Mark Melancon, nor was Richard Rodriguez.

I don’t think this team will ultimately get a return that sways them here, not this year, but you sure as hell have to make a decision on Bednar. Extend him a couple years to keep the value up, or use him hard in 24 and 25 then look to move him to restock the stores.

For every long term closer like Rivera, Hader, Hoffmann, there are 35 who were fire for 4 years and burned out. That’s the nature of the beast, and the position.

Bednar being a hometown kid is going to make this painful, probably regardless of how it’s handled.

History tells me though, this probably isn’t Teke.

4. The Record Can’t Change What’s Next

This team has blown a historic run at the starting gate. It’s over. 20-8 was fun, and they could have done some things internally to steady the ship a bit earlier, but what’s done is done.

It also doesn’t’ effect what this team is going to try to do in 2024. Regardless of who you compare this team to, the fact is they’ll expect this core of players to largely return, improve and contribute to a winning club next year.

Baltimore draws a ton of comparisons, and rightly so, they tore it down to the studs, arguably more than the Pirates who stubbornly held on to Reynolds, Keller and Hayes. They could have bottomed out even further. Even so, in year four of their widely panned and praised rebuild they lost 110 games, which this Pirates team won’t do, even in the most dire of predictions.

The Bucs get compared to last year, 2 games ahead of last year at this time I believe currently. But that honestly doesn’t matter either.

This team is on a path, it may not work, I made several arguments for what they need to do to get there in last week’s 5 Thoughts, but in their minds, onboarding a ton of rookies wasn’t going to net them a playoff berth in 2023. They expected to improve, but not dramatically.

This offseason they will have to address the holes I laid out up there in points 1 and 2, but more than anything, they need some of these kids to come to camp net year looking like more than kids.

I stand firm, by the end of this season you’ll like the team much more than you did in April, and I say that knowing full well it’s highly unlikely they end with a 20-8 flurry.

When we talk about filling holes and getting this roster in order for go time, they can’t ignore that coaching has been a big issue. Getting kids acclimated to the league is hard, allowing them to blossom and become the best they can be has to happen every day in the dugout, I don’t believe that to be happening often enough under this group.

This isn’t 2021, we aren’t waiting on 10 kids from Greensboro anymore. The first wave is all here and once you get to that point, the game changes. Moves are for now, decisions are for now, signings are for now. Free agents aren’t acquired to be beaten out, they’re acquired to contribute.

Different conversations than most Pirates fans have been having, and for some (including national media) it’ll take a minute to sink in. This team will still trade players, but they won’t do it with their eyes trained on a system and the hope that one day in the next 4 years that player helps while the MLB team suffers.

A market like this does a rebuild in this fashion for expressly this reason. To build depth, depth you can move to augment the MLB product and cast a wide enough net to be good in the first place.

It may not work, but that’s the idea. Spend the offseason ignoring it and you’ll not understand a damn thing they do this Winter. Return this coaching staff intact and I won’t either.

5. NL Central at the Deadline

Pirates: Ji-man Choi, Carlos Santana, Rich Hill and if you find someone who is actively on a peyote trip Austin Hedges. These are the Pirates most realistic moves at the deadline. Outside shot at Bednar, but again, I don’t see it.

Cubs: The Cubs are interesting. I could see them moving some relievers, Marcus Stroman, Cody Bellinger, Kyle Hendricks, Yan Gomes, maybe even Drew Smyly. They seem to recognize they aren’t where they want to be and some of these are realsy use them or lose them situations.

Brewers: They should win the division, so looking at who they have on expiring contracts is probably misleading. That said, I could see them moving Jesse Winker, Victor Caratini, Julio Teheran. A real shock would be Burnes or Woodruff, but they’d be shooting themselves in the foot for this year, and the only reason to do it would be realizing they aren’t going anywhere in the playoffs. Probably not where they are mentally.

Reds: The Reds don’t have to do anything, in fact, if I were a fan that’s what I’d do. they’re early and they probably know it. Still, they have some smaller vet pieces I could see them parting with. Curt Casali, Luke Weaver, Nick Senzel, Buck Farmer, Luke Maile, and if he gets healthy, Kevin Newman. Nothing earth shattering. They could go hard at it, but man, I wouldn’t, they’re poised to have a cheap, young and exciting base to bolt onto, I’d play the long game here, but hey, Cincy gonna Cincy.

Cardinals: This could look like chaos in St. Louis. A team that is always bolting on at the deadline are clearly sellers for the first time in quite a while. Jordan Montgomery, Jack Flaherty, Tyler O’Neill, Chris Stratton, Jordan Hicks, Dakota Hudson, Paul DeJong, I mean, if they want to really make a splash and don’t think next year will be much better they could even move Goldschmidt who will be a free agent in 2025.

Different teams in different stages of rebuild. Some expected fully to be sellers, others surely thought they’d be adding, but the truth is, the Pirates probably have the most boring deadline pieces in the division this year.