3-8-25 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X
There are camp battles every year. No matter how bad or good your team looks, there’s a solid chance you’ve seen some positions at least intrigue you.
This season is a little different, because even as you acknowledge they don’t have the offense on paper, they also have 5-6 players with MLB experience, or at the very least look like they might be ready for a chance.
So let’s walk through the 5 camp battles that interest me most, and how the dust might settle after the club makes their initial decisions.
Bullpen
A huge category, for obvious reasons. I mean, if you don’t have 5 or 6 guys you think could have made the bullpen out of camp, chances are you are 8-10 arms short of what you’ll ultimately need to manage the season.
Let’s start here, you get to have 13 pitchers max, you can have 12 if you choose to go with an extra position player, and early in the season, perhaps that’s what the Pirates will do, but I personally am going with the assumption they bring 13.
Take out the 5 spots for starters and assume they’ll be Andrew Heaney, Bailey Falter, Paul Skenes, Mitch Keller and Jared Jones.
Easy right?
Well, maybe as a starting point, yeah.
Now the bullpen.
Lets start with the guys they almost have to bring North because of options and expected performance. And in case you stopped math in like 4th grade, remember, we have 8 spots.
This gives you David Bednar, Dennis Santana, Colin Holderman, Caleb Ferguson, Tim Mayza and Justin Lawrence who just got here via waiver claim.
That’s 6 of the 8 and 2 of them are left handed.
Next up we have to look at the guys who have no options, or are NRI’s who likely have opt outs. That list looks like Joey Wentz, Carson Fulmer, Peter Strzelecki and Yohan Ramirez. Of these, Joey Wentz is probably the most interesting. Wentz being a lefty, may not have a spot because the Pirates already have 2 in that group we just spoke to, but he’s also not a guy you’d happily just let walk and sending him down may very well lead to losing him. We’ll have to see how he performs, but he’s in the running. Wentz and Strzelecki are already on the 40-man. On the 40-man with no options or not on the 40-man with no MiLB deal in place is a very uneasy place to be unless you are a lock to make it. None of these guys are.
Now lets move on to guys on the 40-man, with options who are in the running for a spot, but because of their ability to start in AAA, they may lose out to a guy the team just isn’t ready to let go from our last section. Kyle Nicolas, Chase Shugart, Carmen Mlodzinski (who the team is stretching out to start potentially), and I suppose we could toss in Mike Burrows and Braxton Ashcraft.
Of these, you have to believe Nicolas, Shugart and Mlodzinski lead the way as far as opportunity goes.
If I had to guess now, those final two spots come out of these last two sections and I’d probably go with Mlodzinski, and Wentz.
We also have a block of NRI’s… Let’s start with guys who have MiLB deals and could stay even if they don’t make the team, Ryan Borucki, Tanner Rainey, and Burch Smith. The first two should be considered real possibilities. Again, the way they signed though might push them to AAA to start.
Now NRI’s with options, Ryder Ryan, Isaac Mattson, Eddy Yean and Hunter Stratton. I don’t think we’ll see any of these guys break camp, but we could see any or all of them called on at some point.
Catcher
Here’s the good news, the Pirates have 4 catchers who wouldn’t embarrass you if they made the team. Joey Bart, Jason Delay, Henry Davis and Endy Rodriguez.
Of those 4, Jason Delay offers the least with the bat, but he’s a defensive specialist.
This battle is ongoing. Davis, Endy, and Bart are all hitting. Bart is undoubtedly the starter, but Joey has never in his career caught more than 93 games.
In other words, this isn’t a typical starter/backup relationship here. They need a guy who can play 3-4 times a week. If both the back up and Bart hit, one can DH here and there, but it’s important to note, Bart simply has not carried the lion’s share of starts often in his career. Doesn’t mean he can’t take a jump like that in 2025, just means we should probably expect a guy like Delay isn’t just going to play on Sunday’s. And that leads me to believe the real battle for number two is between Henry and Endy.
Before this season ends, I fully expect 3 of these 4 to be on the MLB roster.
Outfield
The way the roster shapes up, it feels like they’re going to have 4 primary outfield players and 1 swing choice who plays a little infield as well.
Tommy Pham, Bryan Reynolds and of course Oneil Cruz will all make it.
Jack Suwinski, and Ji Hwan Bae are both on the 40 man, can both play all 3 outfield positions and are both hitting in Spring. They are both importantly left handed and unless they make a move, it feels to me like this 4th spot is going to go to one of them. Each provide something this team needs and don’t currently have rostered in nearly enough quantity, speed and power.
You get past those guys and you get to Joshua Palacios who is out of options. By now you understand, he makes the team or he is waived. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t retain him for AAA, it just means he’ll be open for the rest of the league, which honestly, if he can’t beat out Bae or Suwinski, who cares right?
The team could see Adam Frazier as a guy they could use to fill in out there too, although I’d advise against it.
Next you have the NRI guys. Players who the team brought in, might even be flirting with them filling in at 1B while Spencer Horwitz is out. That’s your DJ Stewart, Bryce Johnson and Nick Solak. All three have MLB experience, and for a bench role, you could see any of them being plucked out of camp knowing they could last as long as it takes Horwitz to get healthy.
I have to add in Emmanual Valdez here, he does have an option, and he can play the infield or outfield, although he isn’t great at either, he has MLB experience and he has a bit of hitting pedigree.
Then you get into the interesting youngsters, like Billy Cook, and Nick Yorke. It looks like the Pirates have used Yorke primarily in the infield and Billy has played just about everywhere.
I could see a world where both of these guys make the club, but it might come down to wanting to get them at bats.
Of course, they could still get another as they’ve alluded to.
Short Stop
I know this one is supposed to be settled with Isaiah Kiner-Falefa, but man, I just don’t want to believe it. The alternatives to start there are really Nick Gonzales and Jared Triolo. Jared hasn’t hit and the team doesn’t really seem to like him there, while Nick has seen a lot of reps in the 6 hole. IKF likely starts out of camp, but over time, moving Gonzales over might make space for the promotion of Nick Yorke and could move IKF into the Jared Triolo utility role.
Much of the flexibility they have here stems from how healthy Ke’Bryan Hayes is. If he needs to sit 2-3 times a week, I’m not sure I can cut my best 3B not named Hayes, so Triolo might get the gig by default.
I’d like the team to be open to IKF losing this job, I just don’t think they are right now. So I expect this to be a topic in the first month of the season.
It’s very likely 1 or 2 MLB ready players won’t make this club until they make changes here.
Steel City Pirates 