9-26-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter
When you’re going through a dark time, it’s hard to think about the beacons of light you passed during the journey. This is stuff you look back on when the dust settles, not while the wind is blowing and it feels like chaos and failure are all around you.
Their record isn’t going to impress anyone, and changes are certainly needed, but when I sit back and look at the team, I find myself much happier with the roster than I feel like I should be, and that has a ton to do with some of the performances I’m going to highlight today.
None of this makes the negative go away. It won’t erase the failures, or the payroll issues, or the owner, but when you add them all up, you might just crack a smile about your baseball team.
These are going to be the brightest of bright spots. You could argue for more, but these are guys I’m happy to have watched, and can’t wait to see more from.
So here we go!
Luis Ortiz
Man, what a season it was for Luis Ortiz.
7-6, ERA 3.32, 37 Games, 15 of which were starts, 1 save (his first), 135.2 innings pitched, 107 K’s, 42 Walks and a stellar 1.11 WHIP.
He started the year in the bullpen and when injury started to crop up he moved seamlessly to the rotation. Effective in both spots, Luis quietly contributed to both units when they were at their best, in fact, he might be the only player who can say that.
Completely buried by the introduction of Jared Jones and Paul Skenes. Lumped in with Roansy Contreras as an apparent spare part although his numbers down the stretch in 2023 should have already shown us the foolishness of that thinking.
He did have a super strange home run binge in August where he gave up 8 of his 16 total dingers, but recovered and finished strong.
Heading Into 2025…
Luis has the inside track on securing a spot in the rotation. It won’t come without pressure, he’ll be asked to keep pace with some high quality arms, and to hold off the next wave while he continues to entrench himself as a fixture.
Dennis Santana
This one was a shock. I mean, we couldn’t possibly have known what he would do here, he wasn’t even here back in Spring. A waiver claim, subject to jeers like so many are and in his second outing for the Pirates, he’d do nothing to assuage that assumption.
In Colorado on June 15th he pitched one inning and surrendered 6 Earned Runs. It was awful, and when acquired from the Yankees off waivers he had a 6.26 ERA in 23 appearances.
Including that stinker in Colorado, all he’s done is shove 37 times, 42.1 innings a 0.92 WHIP, 2.34 ERA, and a .195 opponent batting average.
Working his season numbers back to 3.88 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP with 66 K’s and only 20 walks.
Folks, this isn’t in his history. He’s never had an ERA below 4.28.
Incredible performance.
Heading Into 2025…
Fools take a half season performance and write the player’s name in pen for a specific role next season, especially when it’s weighed against nearly 6 years of evidence to the contrary, but he’ll be back, and Dennis Santana will get the opportunity he’s earned to prove it wasn’t a fluke but a revelation.
Bryan Reynolds
Look, the Pirates signed a guy to a lucrative long term deal and he kept doing all the great stuff they saw that convinced them to get the deal done, even if it only happened because this even keel, patient player swallowed a barrage of slaps in the face to force it to the bargaining table.
There are obviously games remaining, but he’s played his typical vast majority of the games, he topped his low water mark of 20 homers, he drove in 85 runs exclusively from the 2 hole. His average of .275 is 2 points below his career average, his OPS is a tic low. An absolute model of consistency, Bryan Reynolds has held down “best player” honors on the Pirates for a solid 5 year stretch now.
Bryan was voted the Roberto Clemente Award winner by the Pittsburgh chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Essentially the Pirates’ Most Valuable Player.
He became the fourth player to win the award three times since its inception in 1972. The other 3 you ask? Oh, just Dave Parker, Andy Van Slyke and Andrew McCutchen.
Heading Into 2025…
There are rumblings of a move to first base, something that will come at some point as the alternative is a lot more DH duty for Bryan. The Pirates will have to face a few things with Reynolds. For one thing, he’s a fine outfielder, but StatCast hates him. Meaning, he’s one of those guys that most fans watch and think he’s great out there (me included) but the numbers underneath are always going to show limited range and inefficiency of routes.
I can buy that those underlying stats don’t matter all that much, but it’s hard on his body, and the Pirates need him to be him for as long as possible, so a move will come of some sort before too long.
Defense is a question, offensively though, he’ll be your number 2 hitter, almost regardless of potential coaching changes and he’ll likely deliver exactly what he always has or better.
Joey Bart
You can call it what you want. Voodoo, Change of scenery, dare I say coaching? LOL, I mean I know nobody wants to hear it, and ultimately, I’ve made my feelings clear it’s not enough, but you have to acknowledge when a player comes here like Joey Bart or Dennis Santana, even our next entry Bailey Falter and they do things they’ve never done before, they certainly didn’t un-coach them right? We give them appropriate crap, let’s be fair about it.
Here’s the thing with Joey though, he’s done very similar to this along his journey.
Check it….
| 2024 | 2022 | |
| Games | 78 | 97 |
| At Bats | 244 | 261 |
| HR | 13 | 11 |
| 2B | 10 | 6 |
| RBI | 44 | 25 |
| OPS | .800 | .660 |
| Strikeouts | 70 | 112 |
| Walks | 22 | 26 |
They’re close, not exact.
He’s done much better with strikeouts and walks this year and he’s hit for more power numbers in general. Fewer games, more production.
Joey’s issue has almost always been health, and playing in the shadow of a modern day legend, along with a general lack of opportunity.
Here in Pittsburgh though, he has been given opportunity, maybe not by the Pirates as much as Henry Davis but opportunity nonetheless.
That said, what happened to 2023? Yeah, injury and not so hot. So I caution, let’s just let arbitration run its course a bit here ok? No need to extend.
Heading Into 2025…
He’ll of course be back, and I’d imagine he’s probably the presumptive starting catcher for the Bucs on opening day. It really doesn’t matter if it’s likely he reproduces what he’s doing right now or not. I firmly believe he’ll be given an opportunity and I don’t see the Pirates likely to want to just hand the keys to Henry again, or Endy who won’t have seen MLB pitching for a year, so it just makes sense to give Joey the lead, hope he performs again, and hope one or both of these kids pushes him for playing time back there.
I don’t wan to turn this into a catching article, we have time for that, but Joey has probably spared us from another 40 year old veteran catcher who smells like Icy Hot and runs like Iron Man with busted hydraulics.
He isn’t the best defender back there, and bluntly, I think that is the most likely reason Endy or Henry will ultimately replace him as the starter, at catcher anyway… again, more to come, I digress. Great season Joey.
Bailey Falter
I mean we’ve all kinda had our moment where we sat back in our seat or on our couch and said kinda quietly to ourselves, “I guess this Falter guy isn’t bad”. You watch him pitch, you can’t understand for the life of you how he’s not getting pounded. You know what’s coming, the hitters know what’s coming, the catcher doesn’t matter, the umpire isn’t important, cause that 93 MPH freight train is coming straight down town, and you won’t see it.
It’s crazy, kinda like what Arron Civale does to the Pirates but like nobody else. Bailey Falter is already a tremendous return for Rodolfo Castro, Probably Ben Cherington’s most successful 1 for 1 trade so far, reserving judgement on Billy Cook or Nick Yorke for now and acknowledging had Colin Holderman not struggled so mightily in the second half he for Daniel Vogelbach would be close.
It’s hard to imagine him losing his starting role. He’s the only lefty, at least for now in the picture. He’s done well, 4.26 ERA in 27 starts, 139.1 innings 1.26 WHIP and an 8-9 record for a 5th or 6th starter, yeah, I mean, I remember Jeff Locke and Randy Tomlin, Neal Heaton types, that’s kinda what this is. He’s not great, but he’s pretty damn good. Yet for some reason you can’t quite escape the feeling it can’t last, even as it keeps lasting.
Heading Into 2025…
The Pirates claim they’ll allow competition to dictate the rotation, and I’m inclined to believe them, after all, they just allowed Jared Jones to really come out of nowhere, blow everyone’s socks off and start the season with the big club.
I also have to believe Bailey gets a shot to secure his spot too, although I’m not sure a repeat of what he did last Spring would achieve that. I have spent more time doubting Bailey Falter than I have appreciating him, and that’s on me. Because of that, I didn’t allow myself to watch a guy with his ball club, identify a niche of a niche that he was elite with and exploit it for everything it was worth.
If Bailey heads north with the club next Spring, I don’t think we’ll hear nearly as many questions as to why.
Paul Skenes
What’s to say that hasn’t been said? The presumptive Rookie of the Year didn’t just get his feet wet or have an impressive rookie showing, he stepped right in to the very best baseball league in the world a calendar year past pitching in college and immediately claimed his place at the top of the sport.
I could type you up the resume, but again, you’ve seen.
I mean, right now the betting odds for Cy Young in the National League, not Rookie of the Year, the friggin’ Cy Young, Paul is 3rd at +4,000.
The names in front of him? Chris Sale, Zack Wheeler. The names below him? Logan Webb, Dylan Cease.
Paul Skenes is a legitimate star, and hopefully he’s only getting started.
Heading Into 2025…
He may not be handed the opening day starting role, but they probably should. Just like it made sense to give it to Sidney Crosby when he was still a teenager, it makes sense for Paul to just take the formalities of staff leader on too. He started the All Star Game, I think he’ll handle another start in Florida. Frankly, Mitch Keller didn’t earn those stripes this year, so coming back next year and handing the reigns right back to him would be little more than blatant propping up of a guy who knows he needs to be better.
As long as he’s healthy, there really is no limit to what he can do, pardon me, I have to clean up some drool real quick…
Oneil Cruz
It’s been a season full of ups and downs for Oneil Cruz. He was recovering from a rather major injury and hadn’t seen MLB pitching in a year. On top of that, he still had yet to participate in a full season. Bottom line, he had a lot going on.
He struggled defensively at SS, he struggled early on with lefties and he also struggled with the balance between striking out too much and trying to hit for power.
Overall though, he finished a full season, he’ll head into the offseason with that under his belt. He’s moved from SS to CF, so we’ve eliminated growing pains and introduced them somewhere else, potentially in a place where his athleticism alone will allow him to shine.
He conquered facing lefties, to the point we’ve seen teams avoid bringing on in to face him more than a few times in the last month.
Oneil Cruz is the Pirates best shot at a 30/30 guy and they simply have to have it, or this whole thing goes nowhere.
All in all, positive season for a kid who really needs to take a step next year again. Some of the mental lapses need cleaned up, but the question is no longer will he be good, it’s will he be a good player or a superstar. The latter will never come until or if he finds a way to stay focused for 9 innings day after day.
Heading Into 2025…
Center field starter on opening day with little doubt. The ankle being tender needs to not be nearly as much of a thing in 2025 and it would be good if he found a balance between hitting the ball 116 MPH and getting it in the air a bit.
All in all though, Cruz still has more tantalizing potential than anyone else on the team or for that matter in the system.
It’s funny, because it’s that very potential that also makes him the easiest player on the roster to criticize because he simply has more capability than anyone else. More is expected of him because it’s very clearly in there and we’ve watched him take over games or series only to turn around and have a 3 error, 0 for 4 performance the next day.
There’s no denying, this dude is in many ways the pivot point for this whole thing. He either turns into the offensive player they’ll never buy but always need, or, he’s just a contributor to a team that needs way more.
Steel City Pirates 