Pirates Returning from Injury in 2025, and What to Expect from Each

1-5-2025 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

We should learn lessons from things we watch. I mean, we certainly would like to expect that the coaches will right?

It just feels like year after year we continue to ignore what losing a season of competition does to guys. Someone had Tommy John done early in the year before, most fans will see their ETA for return in the following year and as regular updates about their progress dry up, you start to see more and more fans stop thinking of them as anything less than a player who essentially time traveled from where they were when they went down to where they’ll be in February.

That’s rarely how this works.

So let’s go through what’s coming back and discuss each of their situations.

Dauri Moreta

Dauri Moreta had his UCL procedure in Spring last year, and I’d imagine the rainbow and unicorn projections for his return will be placed sometime in May or June of 2025.

The first thing I’ll say here is, this would be freakishly fast, but as I understand it, there are degrees of severity when it comes to UCL (AKA Tommy John) and the recovery for those different levels can range anywhere from 12 to even 20 months. Moreta’s case was on the lower level.

So it’s not unreasonable to expect him to pitch again by that timeline, but Dauri isn’t some long tenured veteran arm. The team is going to want to see him perform in the minors at least a little.

Best Case: Moreta returns sometime in late June and gives the club 20-25 appearances out of the pen.

Worst Case: He returns but it takes a bit longer to warm to the task or regain full strength, then you’re looking at late July, early August and maybe 10-15 appearances. Even that is a bit disingenuous, obviously worst case for all of these will be a reoccurrence of the injury.

Bottom line here with Moreta, don’t look at him like some cape wearing returning savior of the bullpen. Look at him as a reinforcement you hope can pitch in as the season plays out, but for sure not someone you leave a spot for while you wait.

Endy Rodriguez

Another UCL recovery guy, and while not a pitcher, let’s just say a guy with no position written in stone and a switch hitter, this is simply not a conventional recovery path.

The established timelines for this procedure are well defined for pitchers, but for position players, much more murky. There are recent examples of just insane returns to action we’ve seen recently in the league, like Bryce Harper or Shohei Ohtani, but there are a couple things there that make them not really relevant to Endy’s situation.

First and easiest, he’s already taken longer than either of those guys so that comp has sailed.

Couple reasons for that. Harper has throughout his career been a notoriously fast healer, and Shohei has already been through the procedure before, so he knew what he could do while recovering in fact while he played all of 2024, he just started throwing in August. If either of these players had been switch hitters (Like Endy), they’d have been limited to only hitting from one side for a while.

Here are Endy’s biggest hurdles to overcome.

• Switch hitting will take time to return, he just started before the season ended.
• He won’t be able to find a spot on this club until he can throw. If it’s at catcher, believe it or not it will require a throwing regiment, not as involved as pitchers go through, but not insignificant either.
• He was never entrenched in MLB, meaning, this isn’t a guy who you’re going to just plop back in MLB to figure it out, he’s going to have to at least show signs of the types of performances that got him called up in the first place.

Best Case: He shows up in Spring swinging the bat well. If the bat shows up, the team will have a much easier time finding a spot. Throwing progression should at least have him ready to throw the ball back to the pitcher 140 times and the ability to uncork some throws to second base.

Worst Case: He sputters offensively. Let’s not forget, he largely struggled in AAA and his brief time in the Majors wasn’t super impressive either.

The truth is, as painful as it sounds, Endy through no fault of his own has been taken from promising rookie back to promising prospect by way of missing a year of action. Anything could happen with him this year, he could show up in camp and just look like a world beater, or, he could simply need us and the team to have some patience.

Johan Oviedo

Johan is a physical freak, this was true before he got here, he’s just built like a horse and he attacked rehab like it was a new hobby he always wanted to try out. That said, his procedure was on the severe side, and this isn’t a recovery that “want to” is going to accelerate by much.

He’s had a role in parts of 4 MLB seasons, both as a reliever and a starter, and for what it’s worth, he’s recovering as a starter would. The difference is like training to be a marathon runner vs a sprinter.

His procedure was performed last winter so his timeline is different than the 70% of UCL examples out there who had theirs in the Spring.

Best Case: Johan really could be ready in Spring. I sincerely doubt that would be to carry a starter’s load. To me, if they ultimately only want to use him as a starter, you’re looking at a month in the minors, maybe more. If you want to use him as a reliever, I could see him filling almost the Luis Ortiz role from early on in 2024, start out in the pen when he’s deemed fully healthy and ready, and work his way back to starting.

Worst Case: He isn’t ready in Spring, then he could be easily looking at more of a May-July return and almost for sure a full on bullpen role for the season.

Now, he could still have a very successful season, can even still be a major part of this team and rotation moving forward, but for this year, there will be no way he doesn’t have inning restrictions. And I’d think after what some called recklessly piling innings on him at the end of 2023, we’re likely looking at a very careful use here.

Truthfully, that’s what would be best for the player if you ask me.

Note, I’m not saying that’s what has to be best for the team. I think Johan would be best used as a leverage reliever this year. To me, with innings restrictions, I’d rather let this kid cut it loose and help that bullpen out. After this year, say he’s thrown 50-60 innings, send him into the offseason looking to build back up and compete for 2026.

There’s no way to avoid the reality that some of these “elite” starting prospects are going to wind up as bullpen arms. Johan isn’t exempt from that reality, just because he had a really nice season starting for the Bucs.

This year, much like 2023, Johan could fill a role in a unit that really needs him. Then it was as a starter, now it might be as a shut down bullpen arm who can give you 2 or 3 innings.

Hunter Stratton

It was a brutal injury to a system success story that had been unfolding all season long. This is a guy taken in the 16th round back in 2017, and he had finally started to look like something really useful.

36 appearances and a 3.58 ERA with a penchant for not walking guys and getting his share of strike outs too.

Exactly the kind of “system wins” a team like Pittsburgh needs to get a lot more of. Not every player that makes the league and contributes has to be taken in the first 3 or 4 rounds you know. Maybe you don’t, we almost never see it play out here after all.

It’s one thing when Carmen Mlodzinski does this, he was supposed to as a Comp pick and virtual first rounder. When the organization produces a Hunter Stratton who the team brought back on a minor league deal as he continues to recover, that’s an unexpected victory.

Sorry, that’s a bit of a tangent from the subject at hand.

Best Case: He recovers normally and maybe pitches for the big club sometime in July. That’s the very top end of his 7-10 month recovery timeline. Technically it’s June, but I’m padding it by a month.

Worst Case: His recovery looks more like the back side of that timeline and he’s then a long shot for September which would set up a weird decision for both player and team as to how to proceed in 2026.

I’d love to see him scratch and claw his way back here. It’s selfish, but he’s a good kid who’s really worked his ass off to become an MLB player. He can help this team in an area of need.

Ke’Bryan Hayes

There is arguably none more important.

Now, I personally have adjusted my expectations for Hayes. I’ll no longer be looking for 20 homeruns, and I’ll no longer be considering him a middle of the order bat.

He can prove me wrong, it’s not like the skills aren’t in there, I’m just done expecting it.

I now expect a defensive stalwart, 7 to 10 homeruns and a decent on base 6 or 7 hitter type.

That’s me, not what I think the Pirates will expect or do with him. The back has been an issue for seasons now. Not admitting what it was doing to his at bats or finding a way to address it has created an uncomfortable situation to say the least.

Best Case: Hayes and the team have both discovered a treatment and path forward and everyone involved embraces it fully. The very best thing that could happen is Ke’Bryan Hayes is healthy, and plays excellent defense while contributing offensively even a little over league average. That’s what 7 million a year looks like on the open market, that’s what makes it an ok signing as opposed to one you’re stuck with.

Worst Case: The back is still an issue, both sides grow more frustrated with how each are handling it and it leads to having him play through it and it looks a lot like 2024 over at 3B. He doesn’t make enough to call this an albatross, even here, but if he winds up playing to such a level that he’s un-tradable, chances are you don’t want him to be on your roster either.

This is a big year for Hayes and the Pirates. I don’t think the defense if played as it was in 2024 is enough to just call him your starter, regardless of the paycheck. Especially if the offense looks just as effected by the back issues.

There really is no option but to see what happens here. I haven’t liked the team’s comments on the subject really. I mean, they say the right things, but you still come out of it with the same shoulder shrug I’m giving you right here. They simply have to see. The saving grace is they have at least some interesting options and some are even proven out defensively to be near his equal.

If the Pirates have to prepare for life without Hayes, hey, they almost have 2 full seasons of it under their belts due to his IL stints. What nobody can prepare for is the Hayes trying to play through something purgatory we had to endure before they finally pulled the plug.

This one is going to not feel good all year. Every slump will have people questioning the back, but he’s just going to be a guy who slumps, like everyone else regardless. Trust comes hard for a guy with an injury prone label, especially if what they do isn’t elite when they are healthy.

There are other guys recovering from bumps and bruises or just getting past something by another offseason, but none that warrant individual attention. It’s a safe assumption that guys like Bednar, Cruz, Cutch, Falter, Jones, Mlodzinski and on and on, will all show up to camp in “the best shape of their lives”.