It’s Going to Take a Miracle to Improve this Pirates Team in 2025

4-20-25 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

It’s kind of appropriate as we celebrate Easter that I write a piece about needing a miracle to resurrect this putrid offense. The thing is, I actually think they have enough parts and pieces, used correctly, and enough pitching to at least get back to playing respectable baseball.

I mean, I’m not sure where some of you had your expectations this year, but I thought they should have .500 in the bag, and if they brought in help where they needed it, maybe a wildcard or even a division win in a down year for the NL Central.

I think for the most part, we’ve seen that kind of pitching. I know, you can read me Holderman and Bednar’s early season stats, but for the most part, they’ve done quite well. And they aren’t even at full strength, so, I’d say it’s lived up. Has a really solid chance to wind up better.

The offense, well, I thought they’d struggle to score when I saw the finished product of their offseason, because honestly, in some ways they got worse. Some nice bullpen pieces, Andrew Heaney is looking good, but hell I’d take the early season Connor Joe we kinda got used to instead of Pham. I mean, you could have quite literally just tendered a guy who is sitting on the Padres bench with 4 at bats. Completely unironically, you’d have been better off.

Yes, I’d have still complained. Yes, I’d have still said you didn’t do enough. But I wouldn’t be sitting here telling you that you actually took a step back and paid about 1 or 1.5 million more than you had to in the process.

I don’t have some angst about losing Joe, please don’t take this example too far here, but Chapman out for a buncha dudes, has been effective, and has left the back end kind of in descript.

Anyway…

Lets try to make the most of it. Because honestly, I think there are ways we could be getting more offense just out of what’s here right now, or even on the 40-man.

Here are the things they have to do.

1. Remember Cutch Can Play the Field a Little

That’s all. I’m not asking you to start him every night, I’m just asking you to remember he has the capability, and use him in the field to open up the DH spot for lengthening the lineup.

Again, this doesn’t have to be a lot, just once or twice a week, DH 2 or 3 times. That’s it. Gives you the ability to do a lot of things with this lineup, first and foremost, keeping Cutch’s bat in the lineup.

It may be wrong to see a 38 year old as one of your best bats, but he is, and hey, it’s not my fault. I’m not asking for Cutch to play everyday, I’m just asking that we try to be more flexible with his use in an effort to strengthen the lineup.

2. Recognize Bench Players vs Regulars

Yes, it would be easier to just say they never should have signed, acquired, you get what I’m saying. Let’s just deal with the reality of what is, not what should have been.

Tommy Pham is not a starter. Again, I’m not of the belief that he’s an MLB player anymore, but at the very least, there’s nothing interesting coming here. Even if he catches fire for a week or two at some point, it won’t be worth what you had to go through to get there.

Adam Frazier is an odd fit for this team. He’s played better defense than I thought he would, but the Pirates need to realize he should not be playing 5 or 6 times a week.

Now, if Gonzales were healthy, Frazier is used in a more practical way, I get that. For lack of a better way of putting it, shit happens. I can forgive them that much, but the fact remains, at this stage, we shouldn’t be so easily pushed to Frazier as THE option.

Look, it’s not like I think Alexander Canario, Jack Suwinski, Jared Triolo, or whomever you want to name have proven anything, or should be the starters themselves, but I know Pham and Frazier don’t have futures and their presents don’t look much better.

This is simple. You can have guys like this on your roster. You can’t have guys like this playing 5 or 6 games a week unless of course you’re trying to earn a chance to draft near the top of the board yet again.

3. Manage Underwhelming Players Effectively

If you’re trying to make a good recipe and you find yourself short of some little ingredient like a half cup of buttermilk, you could go to the store, or you could add some vinegar to your milk and mimic the effect.

Well, this team chose not to buy buttermilk, and instead of finding a creative way to replace its place in the recipe, they’ve simply decided to use regular milk and hope it still tastes ok.

It won’t.

This team needs to bunt, run, hit and run, run and hit and in general take advantage of any little crack of light they see to help inferior players contribute.

They made this bed, and frankly, they don’t have the right players to even accomplish this well, but they have to try. It’s what they created.

They have very limited power, so walks need to be punished in some way. They have the MLB stolen base leader on their team, and the league is so unafraid of walking him that he’s in the top 20. Why? Because even if Cruz gets on, gets himself to second base, it’s a solid bet he won’t be worked around the bases.

That needs to change. First, so Cruz sees some pitches worth hitting, but also because teams can’t continue to just play hopscotch through the lineup. There must start being a penalty for pitching around the very few who could do damage, and the only way that changes is if teams start paying for it.

Walk Cruz, well, he needs to score at least 50% of the time the way this team is built. It’s a lot to ask, but if they simply focus on making productive outs when he gets on, it’s entirely doable.

It’s not how an effective offense looks in this league today, but again, you have to use the supplies you brought on the trip, there’s no general store west of the Mississippi you know…

4. Enough with the Ritual Resting of Regulars

I know modern sports value resting players regularly. I get it, I just don’t think this team has the luxury.

Again, they could, if they’d call up their best bets at good ball players, and their bench wasn’t filled with ball players who probably shouldn’t be anymore.

As it stands, Reynolds, Cruz, Bart, Hayes, IKF, they all need to play as much as possible. Can’t just arbitrarily rest them, you certainly can’t do it in some one by one conveyer belt because all that creates is 4 or 5 games in a row where you use less than your best lineup.

There needs to be more situational reasoning to it. If you lose the first two games of a series, well, I’m sorry, if you planned to rest Reynolds on game 3, he should have performed better in games 1 and 2 to earn it.

I’m aware of what I’m asking for here, and yes, it could lead to a group of players with their tongues wagging by August.

Frankly, I don’t care. Winning games with this roster doesn’t leave room for compassion or caution.

5. Bigger Changes

It’s not in the spirit of this piece, but the thing is I don’t feel those changes are on the table with this manager. He’s had 5+ years to try something different, and either he has no will to make changes, or he’s being told what to do.

I honestly don’t care which is true, the result is unequivocable. If the GM is standing in the way, well, bye.

The season is off to a sputter start, a wholly predictable sputter start mind you. If you want to change course, it stands to reason you have to um…Change something.

This team is being coached like the 2021 roster. We might as well be trying out Michael Chavis or Ildemaro Vargas. Hell, Ben Gamel might be better than Pham. Know what, when you look at it like that, it’s entirely understandable why Shelton hasn’t grown as a coach, he’s never been given enough better options to even pretend.

Change is always going to come, no matter what you’re talking about. When you know that to be true, it’s better to be the author of it, than the evidence it’s happening. Loyalty, and stubborn adoption of failed ideas will ultimately be the downfall of both Cherington and Shelton, especially since bluntly it’s been too late for a while already.