Pittsburgh Pirates Rebuild: From Evolution to Revolution

8-1-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

You know those drawings of the evolution of man? Like this one…

That got me thinking about the evolution of this team.

I’ve been “covering” this team, or whatever you want to call what I do, since 2019, so it’s fair to say I’ve watched them develop this thing from the very spark of life if you will. The very primordial ooze that at the time still could have spawned more than just Bryan Reynolds and Mitch Keller but they are the only players who remain from my very first writings and I just went back and read some of it to recall where I was on this whole thing.

Turns out I wasn’t even sure if they’d move Josh Bell, Joe Musgrove or Adam Fraizer. I wasn’t sure how deep the cuts would go because frankly, they never told us. It became clear shortly after that, we’d be going into a full blown reconstruction. I mean I thought they’d sell off, but trying to be fair, I figured, let’s just allow them to tell the story of how they went.

So let’s have some fun, and let’s create the Pirates rebuild as if it were an installation in a History Museum.

Paleolithic -2020

The Genesis – Land of Confusion – 2020
The Pirates began this era by trading off Starling Marte who had no stomach for what he saw as a clearly close to entering rebuild franchise, for two prospects who have yet to impact the MLB level, but the team itself entering the 2020 season was wild. There were veterans held over from the last regime, and there was some belief that they might be able to just add to them. They also had some youngsters who either just started, or were about to. Hanging over everything was the realization that there was little help coming in the minors, at least not quickly.

The Darkness – Chaos
A year that was to be all about evaluation rather than rash judgement was completely removed from Ben Cherington. A full season of evaluating his club, deciding who might help long term and who might need upgraded, condensed to a 60 game sprint with rosters changing daily for precautionary reasons. The minor league schedule, completely shut down. It probably wasn’t a fair evaluation, and first move it spawned was the Josh Bell trade to Washington for two guys, one who ate some innings for a season or so.

Dawn – Mass Extinction
Taking the very little they learned from 2020 the Pirates had to decide if they’d hold onto some guys, or move on and get the system a jump start, in theory anyway. This really began with the Jameson Taillon move to the Yankees that returned 4 players, 3 of which were considered close to the league, all three are no longer with the Pirates. In January they’d also move Joe Musgrove in a 3 team deal that in part returned Endy Rodriguez and David Bednar.

Paleolithic – Team Overview
The Pirates were thin, they had Bryan Reynolds who looked like an All Star in his rookie season, Ke’Bryan Hayes who looked like a world beater in his 2020 debut. Mitch Keller was a talented question mark. There was little you could openly claim as locks to be part of this thing when it mattered. Draft selections like Travis Swaggerty, Quinn Priester and Nick Gonzales, Jared Jones, Carmen Mlodzinski offered some hope for the future.

Neolithic -2021

The Primitive – The Great Extinction 2
The Pirates played much as you’d expect them to based on where we left off in our study. And it led Ben Cherington to take arguably his biggest steps to finish the job of tearing down the team he inherited. Including moving Adam Frazier at the deadline, and they’d move on from the holdover players from the Gerrit Cole deal. It was a year of development, last chances and placeholders but they did start to solidify more spots even as they lost the majority of the season to injury for Ke’Bryan Hayes.

Neolithic – Team Overview
The team slowly built onto their unit like a limestone stalactite, Bryan Reynolds bounced back for an All Star season, his future still remained unclear as a Pirate. Mitch Keller had a brutal season but finished better than he started, still, he was anything but a sure thing to stick. Hayes missed most of the season to injury. David Bednar came on the scene and took the closer role. Kevin Newman was still living off his 2019 numbers and defensive ability. Roansy Contreras debuted. More draft selections were added, including number one overall selection Henry Davis, and Bubba Chandler. Maybe biggest of all, Oneil Cruz debuted at the end of the season.

Chalcolithic -2022

Copper Age – Hunting and Gathering
The roster was still critically thin, sure there was more young talent close to making an impact like Oneil Cruz, Nick Gonzales, Roansy Contreras, Jack Suwinski and Ji Hwan Bae. They hoped to get repeated good results from Brian Reynolds, David Bednar and steps forward from Mitch Keller and JT Brubaker. They signed some free agents to short term contracts. During this period they also sent out their gold glove winning catcher Jacob Stallings, he had played well, but he returned Zach Thompson who they’d use to start this season, Connor Scott a young outfielder and a name to bookmark for later, Kyle Nicolas. In April of this year the Pirates gave us the first indication that they planned to keep some of their talent by extending Ke’Bryan Hayes with an 8-year deal. Daniel Vogelbach was moved out for Colin Holderman.

Eneolithic – The Transitional Purge
The season went exactly as you’d expect so trading off veterans was an obvious given and they made one move here that really made an impression at the deadline, sending Jose Quintana and Chris Stratton to St. Louis for Malcom Nunez and Johan Oviedo. Oneil Cruz looked like he got a foothold, Reynolds struggled and his future with the club seemed to be growing more tenuous which really began looking like a crossroads situation. Sign Reynolds and maybe get somewhere by 2024, don’t and maybe push the whole thing back another year or even 2. The team was taking shape around him though. Jack Suwinski had issues but man could he put a charge in the ball, Hayes looked like a mainstay and his contract agreed. Bednar was unhittable, Keller took a step that felt more consequential after a trip to the bullpen. JT Brubaker felt like he had potential to be a part of the rotation for a while and Ji Hwan Bae showed some September flash. There was a bit of hope, but little more than a foundation was laid.

Bronze Age – 2023

Civilization – The Next Step
The Pirates had a question hanging over their entire off season. Would they extend Bryan Reynolds or would they move him and set the whole thing back? There would be a player demand to be traded and the entire offseason would play out before we’d find out. The Bucs traded for Connor Joe and shipped Kevin Newman in exchange for Dauri Moreta. Free agents of a bit better quality were brought in, Carlos Santana, Ji-man Choi, Andrew McCutchen, Jarlin Garcia, Vince Velasquez, and they found themselves a guy in the minor league Rule 5 Draft named Josh Palacios. Finally, late in April the Pirates extended Reynolds with an 8 year deal following a torrid start.

Cultivation – Trading Routes
A hot start showed the promise of the largely young squad and the city loved having their hero of the last run back in the form of Cutch but injury and the lack of will to build on something they didn’t believe in stunted the growth. Key injuries like JT Brubaker, Mike Burrows and Oneil Cruz were too much to truly overcome. Still, the team took a step. The regulars were starting to take hold, but the pitching looked to be in critical shape, even as they cobbled together a solid finish to the season with bullpen starts and some surprise additions like Luis Ortiz. Roansy Contreras backslid, Johan Oviedo took a big step, both of their stories would continue on. Bryan Reynolds, Ke’Bryan Hayes, an Oneil Cruz who had shown us something incredible but his injury left us wondering how he’d return. Mitch Keller, Luis Ortiz and Johan Oviedo all looked like pieces. David Bednar, Colin Holderman, Carmen Mlodzinski, Dauri Moreta, Andrew McCutchen, Henry Davis debuted and at least hit a little. Things were shaping up, and they had this Paul Skenes guy they drafted too.

Iron Age – 2024

Gallo-Roman – Construction
The fans were convinced they’d seen enough in the previous season to suggest adding to the roster was ready to build on. The team continued to show they wanted to hold onto some of what they’d built so they extended Mitch Keller. Pitching staff looked very good in the bullpen, short in the rotation especially with Johan Oviedo going down in the offseason to UCL surgery, but as the Spring and season played out, Jared Jones, Mitch Keller, Paul Skenes, Luis Ortiz, Bailey Falter and newcomers Marco Gonzales, Martin Perez would prove to be more than enough, so much so that the Pirates dealt one more to make room than to gain prospects.

Present Day – 2024

The Pirates story is still being written.

They have very few players who the team lacks team control, they have a bunch of players who are young and on their way to proving what they are. Of course they just made some moves to fortify the roster further and strengthen the prospect pool at the top of the AAA level, specifically on the offensive side.

We’ll have to wait to see how this entry looks, but when you cut out all the moves that didn’t work, and picks who didn’t pan out and scratch out all the panning for prospect type moves they made along the way, it’s a lot easier to see the slow and steady progression.

Would I have done things differently? Probably. Would I have signed some bigger names along the way to make the trades coming back net more, probably.

But I’m not dealing with an owner so hell bent on his budget not changing despite new evidence that his GM literally, according to two sources, finalize some of his deals at the deadline until he had moved some salary off the books.

The living history of this franchise and this team is still being written, and at least for now, the future doesn’t look nearly as far away as it used to, which was the goal all along, even if it took longer than some of us believed it would.