Five Pirates Thoughts at Five – Decision Time Looms

3-18-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

This week I’m going to write up a nice story about my trip to Bradenton. I have a bunch of pictures I took with my big lens, and stories to tell about the experience, but for this edition of 5 thoughts, let’s just keep it about some of the very real choices this team has to make and soon.

Lets Go!

1. Jared Jones is for Real

Most of you who read my stuff know how much I thought of Jared Jones long before this offseason even began. To be completely blunt, I thought he could have and maybe should have debuted last year. Hindsight is always 20/20 and none of us could know exactly how far the training staff had deemed Jared should push things in 2023.

He topped out at 126.1 innings for the campaign spread between Altoona and Indianapolis. The year before he only threw 122.2 in Greensboro and his first year in Bradenton he tossed 66.

Ideally you’d like to see more progression than an addition of roughly 4 innings from year to year, but again, we don’t know everything involved there. What I can say is that’s an average innings per outing that comes up just shy of 5 innings.

These are two things we can expect to see from Jared this year. For starters, you can go ahead and assume his innings target for the season will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 150. A 25 inning jump at this stage is appropriate, and yes, I leave room for the team to decide he could go farther, not unlike last year with Johan Oviedo. That said, Johan Oviedo might also serve as a cautionary tale to both the team, and maybe, just maybe, some fans who simply aren’t going to want to hear what I say next.

Jared Jones won’t spend all year on the MLB club.

I specifically say it that way because, the time he spends off the MLB roster doesn’t have to be right at the beginning of the season.

See, that innings restriction, that’s the alpha in this totem pole of importance. He can start the season up here and they can allow him to throw 4-5 innings and build up, ultimately getting to the 6th and 7th, but at some point they’ll have to play games, dare I say, manipulate his innings count. And yes, it will also help serve their service time wishes.

All of this assumes he looks the part too. There won’t be any need for finding a way to create a valley in his throwing in the middle of the season like they did with Roansy a few years back if he isn’t performing. The alternative to a mid season slow down is to just flatly shut him off sometime in August or September.

The crappy thing as a fan here is that his innings restriction is going to line up perfectly with this team achieving service time victories, but just because an action creates a selfish outcome, you can’t discount the very real need to serve both masters here.

In other words, the Pirates might very well manipulate his service time, but it’ll coincide with controlling his innings count. There are options, such as they could move him to the pen or even start him there, I just feel they’ll want to keep developing him as a starter and that requires learning to deal with the schedule a starter lives with, the ups and downs, the in between throwing program, all of the side stuff we don’t think about that’s different for a starter vs a pen arm.

To me, he’s earned a shot this year, and if I’m the Pirates, I take the hot hand I know I’m going to use eventually this season and see how far he rides it, you can always send him down, in fact, the way I see it, you’ll have to at some point regardless.

I know this player is going to be encircled in hot takes all season long, but I hope this at least serves as a bit of the reason behind the obvious. The Pirates have one pitcher you can expect to throw close to 200 Innings in 2024 and his name is Mitch, that’s the list. Raising this kid is in fact going to take a village.

I could say 99% of this for Paul Skenes. Maybe a few more innings could be in his plan, but trust me, he won’t touch 200.

2. Bryan Reynolds…Starting Right Fielder?

Sure looks like that’s where they’re headed.

As recently as December of 2023, Derek Shelton told the Athletic they weren’t even considering moving Bryan to Right Field, and now that they’ve signed Michael Taylor it sounds like they plan to deploy Jack in Left when Michael is in Center, which of course moves Reynolds to right.

Reynolds doesn’t seem to mind…

“I don’t feel like it’s too different from left,” said Reynolds. “Don’t have to cover as much ground at PNC. Today I got some balls in the gap I kinda under-ran, so I just gotta get used to the flight of the ball over there, but I felt good.”

“I don’t think it’s a major thing like going center to a corner. It’s just a corner to a corner,” Reynolds said. “The spin of the ball is gonna be a little different coming from righties and stuff, but just need BP reps and game reps.”

Derek Shelton said this was now part of the plan this season, which took me by surprise given he had just denied the assertion a couple months ago.

“We had talked to Bryan about it at the beginning of camp that there was a chance there may be some times he would play right,” Derek Shelton said. “It’s funny that we actually signed Michael because Bryan was scheduled to play right today regardless.” 

It makes some sense, the Pirates felt Jack Suwinski was their best defensive outfielder, hence being the starting center fielder, so when they bring in a superior center fielder, it stands to reason in PNC Park you would want your next best in left field and Bryan arguably has a superior arm so putting him in Right isn’t insane.

I wouldn’t recommend moving a guy like Bryan around from one side to the other game after game, so in my mind, I’d prepare for him to at least play the majority at one of them. If I had to guess right now, I think we’re looking at some bouncing in 2024.

3. Second Base is Heating Up

I’m not changing everything here, and I’m not declaring a “winner” for the starting gig. What I am ready to declare is that Jared Triolo will have a spot.

Ji-hwan Bae who I truly didn’t count in this battle is injured, so he’s out. That leaves Nick Gonzales and Liover Peguero battling it out for a spot and I don’t think they can keep both, in fact, I’d think the one who doesn’t make it will be the nailed on starter in AAA.

Nick has had 35 PA, hit .242 and his OPS is .710.
Liover has had 27 PA, hit .292 and his OPS is .829.

Both have limited strikeouts. Both have played 2B and SS.

It’s closer than people think but I gave Peguero the edge before camp, and I think he has it by that edge at this point. That said, Gonzales has performed better than the bust tag he’s already been bestowed by many fans.

Feels to me like this position played out much as we expected, but importantly, the battle has shown us that while one of these guys is ultimately going to become depth, it isn’t failed depth that you cross your fingers as you force them into action. Whichever direction they go, the other player will not be more than an exceptional or poor couple weeks from seeing the team pull a switcharoo.

Whoever wins this position probably watched Cheng and Johnson in the prospect showcase the other day and installed rear view mirrors on their sunglasses anyway.

Short Stop is an important factor here too, because while I feel Oneil is healthy, I’d be shocked if he played 130 games in the field. No, I’m not angling to have Alika Williams on the bench, but suffice to say, I think they’ll need the “loser” of this battle as the season plays out.

Last year the second base position did this in relation to the rest of the league.

27th in Average – .226
28th in Hits – 124
26th in Doubles – 24
23rd in Home Runs – 12
26th in OPS – .644

Seems like I’m being negative…
6th in Strikeouts – 161
12th in Walks – 55 (Thanks Andy!)

Look, they simply have to get better production from this spot on the diamond and frankly, it shouldn’t be too much to ask based on these figures. Even for a trio of virtual rookies.

4. They’ve Left Themselves Vulnerable

There are some really good things we’ve seen this team do as it comes to fortifying their depth. Some of it looks like what I just described for second base, some of it looks more like bringing in a bunch of options for the outfield and ultimately deciding they needed another with more of an established floor.

The starting rotation isn’t loaded with confidence, but there are a lot of options there too, taking into account all the moving parts I described talking about Jared Jones up there.

I’m most concerned with first base. There’s a lot of eggs in the basket of Rowdy Tellez and honestly, he’s more of a shot than a sure thing. After him you move on to Connor Joe, Jared Triolo, maybe even Jake Lamb.

Point is it gets thin quick and before you know it we’ll see some unfortunate usages take place.

I can get behind hoping Rowdy rebounds, but I still don’t see enough backing here to help feel more steady about it.

It’s not that I see zero chance it works out ok, it’s just that I see a much more than zero percent chance it fails and honestly I don’t like what becomes of everything else if it does. The middle infield depth is pretty good, so long as Jared Triolo doesn’t have to play 1B 50 times. And if Connor Joe has to man the position a lot, you probably wind up feeling short on outfield help.

Unlike the other positions, there isn’t a list of prospects who might matter, at least not this year, not at first base.

Catcher has gotten a jump start because Henry Davis has looked simply fantastic in Spring. An unknown has started looking like it has an answer. First base is easily the least fortified position, despite how you feel about the rotation, at least there are things to try there.

5. Ten Days To Go

Things will move quickly from here. Cuts will be made, players will be released, or allowed to opt out, be reassigned, designated, you know the list. Players you believed had a shot will be discarded like they never had one to begin with.

New players you hadn’t factored into any thought whatsoever will suddenly become important.

More than anything, I can honestly say whatever they start with won’t be what they finish with, in fact, they may make choices early on to avoid a guy like Chase Anderson asking the team for his unconditional release on the 23rd like his deal says. They may want his innings early on and while this isn’t the just bring the best 26 north, it’s also a bit of a simplification.

Baseball is rarely that cut and dried.

Oh, it’s easy to see that Jared Jones and Paul Skenes are on their way to being better players than a bunch of the Pirates pitching options, but like I described earlier a baseball franchise simply can’t have it be that simple.

They have to factor in building and retaining depth. They have to factor in being sure before they jettison talent both from a depth perspective and simply not missing any nuggets because they’re using too course a screen for sifting.

Some guys might just find that end and really soon. Baseball is built to force teams to progress prospects or let them go elsewhere so they get a shot. Service time, options, all of that becomes important. Roansy Contreras undeniably has stuff, and letting him go now would be hard. Not only because it sure would be nice if he panned out, but because should another team find the code that unlocks him, this pitching hungry franchise would yet again have egg on their face.

When you don’t expect your team to win anything of consequence in a given year, you might let your testing ground stretch into the MLB season. When you expect to compete, you might have to just deal with the fact you exhausted his options, gave it as much time as you could and wish him well should he get picked up by someone else.

Every decision with the roster effects the players around them. Every opened spot is a closed door for another.

As you sit here 10 days out from the beginning of the season, kinda struggling to know what they’ll do with the fringes of the roster, just know, all this stuff counts, and sometimes it counts more than which player is better or will be better. Sometimes it’s as simple as wanting to get 35-40 innings out of a veteran in April so your rookie has gas left in the tank come September.

When your team has this many options, and rely on this many youngsters, the likelihood you’re going to start the season looking like how you finish is very low. Have an open mind, think through these decisions, I promise you, even if they’re wrong, they are.

6. Also….Oneil Cruz is a Video Game Creation

He’s hitting a homerun like every 5 at bats this Spring. He’s hitting them far, and hard as hell. He’s hitting them off lefties and righties, experienced pitchers and kids. With and against the wind, pulled and oppo.

He’s quite simply looking every bit the beast this team needs him to be.

I’m officially all the way over the moon excited to watch this kid play for an entire season.