Five Pirates Thoughts at Five – 76-86 is a Significant Improvement, Time to Add

10-2-23 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

That’s 14 more wins than they recorded in 2022 and in this game that doesn’t happen every year. Teams improve or fall back every year, but for a club that willingly fell to the depths of losing that they have to finally have the talent base built to the point it brought them to this level, it’s important, instructive and for a fan base that hasn’t been burned it probably means boundless optimism for 2024.

Pirates fans though, well, we might as well be in Missouri, cause every single one of us wants to be shown now.

1. A Nice Step, but the Path Didn’t Change

The thing is, there’s no way for a fake media type like me to reference past predictions without sounding like I’m begging for a pat on the back. It’s not about the correctness of some arbitrary number chosen correctly based on some napkin math and guesses, it’s about the entire trajectory since this started in 2020.

The Pirates aren’t where fans want them. Of course right? I’m sure the Pirates would like to have a better record too, but this has been a fairly logical progression.

In other words, being “right” isn’t important, but knowing the Pirates have followed a path that makes sense kinda is.

Nothing that has happened up until this point has required much of anything to make Bob Nutting even squirm a bit. The payroll hasn’t really risen, yet. Oh, he’s allowed for an extension here and there, but nothing too scary on an average annual value basis.

Point is, this offseason, the payroll will increase. Some players will be rewarded in arbitration, probably looking at another extension or two and yes, they’ll have to add payroll either in free agency or via trades but even given all of that, the payroll in 2024 probably won’t require Nutting to reach deeper into his pockets than he has in the past.

Part of the tearing down process is in fact designed to get to this point. A roster full of young players, the hope being they all have plenty of room to improve, even while knowing they won’t all do so. Most of them on entry level deals and scheduled to stay there for a couple seasons. This means the Pirates can spend money they normally wouldn’t feel capable of on the market, and yes, until you see it of course you have every right to not trust it’ll happen.

As the offseason progresses, we’ll of course talk about what is needed (as though you can’t see for yourself) and ways that they can get it.

This team finished 8 wins out of the playoff field with 2/5 of a starting rotation and no Oneil Cruz. You take that however you like, I’ll take it as encouraging. I’ll full throated say right now, playoffs have to be the target in 2024, and for once the team says the same thing.

2. Steps Backward

There have been injuries and unexpected things all year, but I’m talking promising players who took big steps back in 2023.

Luis Ortiz – Looked great in his cameo back in 2022 and then showed up in 2023 in less than optimal shape and seemingly less fastball command then when he was considered a raw talent. Toward the end of the season, Luis took some positive steps toward figuring things out, at least to the point where he can be considered capable of helping in 2024 in some tangible way.

Roansy Contreras – If it worked, it stopped working in 2023. Big velocity, gone. Untouchable curveball, rendered useless without the velocity. More than anything, not the player, not the team, not the outside help they looked for, nobody knows what the hell happened to him. The timing couldn’t have been worse, he has no options remaining, meaning he has to make the 26-man out of camp next year or be placed on waivers in an attempt to hold onto him in the system. Because of how poorly the season went, he now simply can’t be counted on in 2024. He either comes back looking like the 2022 pitcher we all fell in love with and projected to be a top rotation piece, or he’s a footnote in Pirates history.

They aren’t the only players who had poor seasons, but they are the two I believe we all expected to at least see contributions from.

I could probably toss in Rodolfo Castro, but the Pirates have already moved on from him so no use in kicking the dead.

As an overall team, most of the players who fell out of favor found their way off the roster and did little damage to the club on their way out. Not much was expected of the Underwood, Crowe, DeJong, types and for the most part you can expect rookies to rookie.

All that said, there were very few youngsters who really jumped off the page too. Carmen Mlodzinski, and Jared Triolo probably represent the couple who looked the most ready to contribute, with some promising efforts from others too of course.

3. Shakeups in Hitting Instruction

News broke shortly after the conclusion of Sunday’s final game of the season that the Pirates were making changes to their hitting instruction hierarchy. Jon Nunnally from AA Altoona and Ruben Gotay from High A Greensboro were both dismissed.

Now, gut reaction on this subject is 99% about Jon Nunnally and just about equally negative. Before I begin, I’ve been a big fan of Nunnally, not based on my own experience although I’ve talked to the man a couple times, but from the players he’s coached who largely have glowed about him.

And before we go any farther, let’s also be very honest about something, almost none of you have heard of Ruben Gotay, and had the story about Jon Nunnally helping Hayes not come to light, most of you wouldn’t know him either.

I don’t say that to chastise you for being uninformed, I say it because in the greater scheme of things, these moves aren’t what you’d consider seismic.

Alex Stumpf over at DK Pittsburgh Sports reports “Nunnally was linked to Ke’Bryan Hayes in August for some work he did before a Hayes hot stretch, but I’ve heard afterwards that Nunnally’s influence was overstated and that the relationship had been just a handful of texts.”

Take from that what you like. This could be a player or the organization covering their tracks a bit, or it could be that someone was fed one side of the story initially and there was simply more, or in this case less, to it.

I also don’t think this, while keeping Andy Haines is going to go smoothly. You don’t need me to remind you of my feelings on him do you?

Now, one other angle here, and I’ll admit, it’s thin.

This team has major problems on boarding players from the minors to the majors. I’ve pointed this out, and many of you will boil it down to “they can’t develop”, which has merit, but bluntly most of us don’t know what happens really.

Bottom line, I have a hard time telling this team anyone in their development system is untouchable, if only because they aren’t developing many players who are.

Again, that doesn’t mean everyone they kept is great, or dropping these two is wise, it just means at least for me, knowing how to classify these moves is out of my depth.

4. Henry Back to Catching?

Hey, maybe.

When asked on 93.7 the Fan “We think that’s important, nothing has changed in our belief that he can do that. He’s got the smarts, the work ethic. He just needs training and reps. He’s got the chance to do that now.”

All that might very well be true, but if so, he certainly hasn’t shown it yet.

Injury got in the way this year and bluntly, so did his bat. The Pirates needed his bat worse than they needed to train him to be something they already saw they had in Endy Rodriguez.

This might be the eventual path, but Henry’s bat tells me it isn’t ultimately going to be enough to placate usage for him. If indeed this is what they want for Henry, we could see them ultimately hold him back in AAA to work on it as the primary starting catcher.

This could also just be lip service. The kid wants it, and the team isn’t interested in telling him no at the moment.

This could also be a mistake if ultimately the Pirates have to stick him somewhere else.

It’s going to be interesting to see how they play this, something tells me if it’s about placating the kid, Spring Training won’t be enough. If it’s about wanting to play both of these kids, something tells me one will still be far superior and the other will wind up starting elsewhere.

Maybe he winds up pushing Endy to another spot, maybe this is a waste of time, maybe they run this whole thing like a well oiled machine. I’ve just never seen this idea really work. I’ve seen two quality catchers, just never two you believed needed 550 games. Can’t wait to see how this will progress.

5. Important Dates

Free agency – 5 Days after the World Series

Options – Up to 5 Days after the World Series

60Day Remittals to the 40-man – Up to 5 Days after the World Series

Non-tender – Nov. 17

There are many many more of course, but these are the first ones up and the ones we’ll be writing about in the near term.

The season doesn’t end as much as it just turns to the next.

6. Bonus: Pirates Fest is Back!

That’s right, we all complained enough and the Pirates are bringing it back, this iteration will be at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center on January 6th.

Nothing to hate here, I know many of you wanted to see it again at PNC Park but for whatever reason the Pirates felt it needed to be moved.