3-24-25 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

This week on Steel City Pirates, you’ll see my 2025 season preview, Michael and Corey are putting together an NL Central season preview and we’ll dig into the roster decisions the team will finalize late this afternoon.

As I sit here to write this one though, we still have one more Grapefruit league game and we await the club’s final, and official moves.

Some of you have noticed, but I’ve taken over Locked On Pirates, so check that out just about every day.

Now, let’s go!

1. First Base, Last Decision

All Spring long the Pirates held firm to their decision to keep Endy Rodriguez behind the dish and away from his second position first base. All Spring long, the Pirates made it look like they were giving temporary first base duties to DJ Stewart.

Dating back to last season, Bryan Reynolds was mentioned as an option at first, only to find out this Spring, the club had no intention to move forward with it.

Spencer Horwitz was acquired to fill the role, at least against right handed pitching and almost immediately was injured, costing him likely the first month or so of the season.

DJ Stewart, Darick Hall, Adam Frazier, Jared Triolo, Nick Yorke, Billy Cook and even Jack Suwinski a late addition to this “mix” have seen time over there and each at one point or another have been rumored to be the defacto starter.

So on the last day of Spring, the Pirates have decided, nah, F all that, Endy IS going to play first base, and back up catcher and we’ll go ahead and have him start over there on the last game of Spring.

The reasoning? Well, supposedly it was not wanting to give Endy more to think about before knowing he’d actually make the roster.

Um… Ok?

Folks, this is THE move that made sense from the time Horwitz came up lame. While I understand functionally why you needed to see what Endy could do in general following his recovery from TJ, I can’t understand how they let it get to the point that he gets one practice game there before camp breaks.

Seems sloppy if nothing else, but if you reason he needed to focus and make the team, well, I’m not looking to break his focus on Regular Season Eve ya know?

Listen, they came to what is probably the right decision here, so am I nitpicking that it took so long, maybe. But it was so painfully obvious this made sense from as early as February, I guess I’m just confused about why they seemed to so desperately want to avoid it all Spring.

2. Borucki is Back

2024 was abysmal for Ryan Borucki. He spent the vast majority of the year on the IL and when he came back he was clearly not in a great place with his game. I don’t know about you, but I was prepared to just move on, he was a waiver claim that really helped in 2023, but like so many before him I was willing to accept that’s all he was, a footnote in Pirates history I’d look back on with fondness but largely just a blip.

Even when they brought him back on a minor league deal with an opt out baked in, I figured it was just extra competition, I mean the Bucs went out and signed 2 new lefties in Caleb Ferguson and Tim Mayza, so long shot right?

Well, all Borucki did is look like the pitcher we had in 2023 and folks, that is an arm this team would have been very foolish to let slip away.

His Spring numbers look a hell of a lot like what he did in 2023. 9 outings, 8.2 innings 5 walks, 12 K’s a 1.154 WHIP and a 1.04 ERA. Yeah, it was like, all the way back to 2023.

A 2023 that had him pitch in 38 games, 40.1 Innings, 4 walks, 33 K’s, a 0.744 WHIP (This is outstanding BTW), and a 2.45 ERA.

That’s a left handed set up man, perfectly capable of getting righties out too, but certainly a tough ask for even the best lefties in the game.

It’s a win to see him return to form, and I’m glad to see the Pirates not sweat wasting money on a guy they’ll have to cut to keep him.

3. Thomas Harrington NOT Making the Cut

Thomas Harrington will not earn a spot in the Pirates rotation to start the 2025 campaign.

I’ve talked this kid up most of the offseason and I probably will again, but for right now, let’s talk expectation for what an immediate call up would mean.

First, let’s talk innings. We all watched the club negotiate 2024 with Paul Skenes and Jared Jones, and we should all remember that controlling their innings was a theme from their debuts on through the end of the season.

That’s because building up a pitcher to handle an innings load is a long term project. It took Mitch Keller almost 5 years to come close to his 200 Inning goal and while Paul Skenes has already put out his own goal of 240 innings for 2025 (he’s not going to get it FYI) it’s the club’s job to be responsible.

Thomas had 127.1 innings pitched for 2 different teams in 2023, and he followed that up with 117.1 across 3 teams including a short term IL stint in 2024.

Reasonable progression puts him right around the 150 inning mark, not unlike what the Bucs did with Skenes and Jones.

That’s not enough for a full season, UNLESS you start monitoring and limiting him from the beginning, or, don’t start him from the beginning and tramp down his innings load in the minors early on.

He’s also not as stretched out as you’d prefer for a starter to enter the season with. Meaning, there’s a very real possibility he starts the season going 4, maybe 5 innings and someone like Caleb Ferguson would have to step in to help take the outing to the back end guys.

Another way you could go is to just assume he’ll get his innings, come hell what may and know you have options for other starters to step in and finish the race, like Bubba Chandler, Mike Burrows, Braxton Ashcraft or even Johan Oviedo once he gets healthy and starts ramping back up.

2 things have to happen for this to matter.

First, he has to be good enough that you feel the need to have him part of the mix all year, and second, he has to stay healthy.

Big things to look for, man, that slider/sweeper and his pinpoint command. This is one I’ve been excited about and I’m a little sad I’ll have to wait to see it. That said, they could simply be playing a roster game in which they’d prefer to start with a deeper bullpen and they’ll call him up when they need a 5th starter, or, perhaps since he isn’t stretched out all that far, sounds like they’ll just go with Carmen Mlodzinski for a while and let it play out from there.

We could see them reverse course by the time the Pirates come home, or, it could indicate the team has their eye on a starter from somewhere else.

Reportedly, they won’t make the final roster announcements until Wednesday.

4. What Changes Would Not Making .500 Bring to the Pirates?

Well, it kind of depends on how the season goes.

Let’s say for instance the moves the Pirates made to open the season, you know, going with IKF at SS, or rostering Adam Frazier, signing Tommy Pham, not starting Harrington from the jump, blow up in their faces and as the season plays on the youngsters start making it and the team turns it around even as they fall short of that .500 mark.

To me, a scenario like this would put Cherington and Shelton in trouble.

In just about any other scenario, it’s Shelton, all day.

In fact, I see almost nothing short of a playoff run saving this job for Shelton.

Look, you’re never going to see a winning record from Shelton. He’s lost too much and he’d have to coach a good team here for 10 years to climb out of the dungeon he and this club have carved out for him. So it’s not like that part of his story is getting a facelift no matter what in 2025.

That said, the club thought they had a .500 plus team last year, and they didn’t get there. They think they do again, zero chance he gets a third with even more weapons.

5. Handedness Handicapping Position Groups?

The Pirates figure to open the season with 5 traditional OF players, and only 2 of them hit right handed, one of them is a switch hitter. The Pirates also figure to open with 6 infield options, two of which bat left handed, one of whom is a switch hitter.

So when the Pirates want to match up against a righty, they’ll be fine in the outfield, and not so much in the infield. Vice versa against lefties.

One of those options is Endy Rodriguez and when he plays 1B, chances are it would be the best time to have him start at catcher too. When Oneil Cruz needs to sit, you’d ideally have it be against a tough lefty, unfortunately his backups are Jack Suwinski and potentially Ji Hwan Bae, you know, both lefties.

From a pure roster construction standpoint, they have to use a swing guy like Jared Triolo potentially in CF as a backup here and there to try to make this work, but it’s not ideal.

Thing is, just about every hitter who didn’t make it is right handed and the thing is they’ll have to be strategic with it all year.

We could also see less traditional platooning, if for no other reason than they simply don’t have a lot of them that make sense.

This is nitpicking, but it could turn out to be frustrating as the season drags on.

3-17-25 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

It’s St. Patty’s Day, and aside from being my cat’s birthday, a fun holiday that tends to bring everyone not on the set of Boondock Saints together.

It’s also got a theme of luck running through the entire premise, and honestly, the Pirates could use some.

It’s one thing to have your 1:1 stud pitcher come to the league and act as such, it’s another thing entirely to have some dude you picked up in the 5th round make it and thrive. That takes some luck.

The NL Central this year is muddy. The Cubs on paper should win, the Brewers now own the Devil magic the Cardinals used to have sole possession of. The Reds brought in a legendary coach, and the Pirates, well, they decided largely to just keep growing at their own pace.

Bucs have the best rotation on paper, Cubs have the best offense, but all in all, we could see a spread of 10 games from top to bottom if everyone competes to their ability.

The Pirates need luck, and I don’t mean like how the ball bounces, although that never hurts, but they need to get unexpected offense from unexpected sources. They need a guy like Jack to hit 25 bombs after being almost completely written out of the plan. They need a guy like Henry to look a lot more like a 1:1 and tap into some of his own power.

Let’s dig in today as we start winding down Spring Training and ramp up into the 2025 campaign.

1. Weak to Strong?

The Pirates have done what they do.

They brought in low level free agents, either looking for a bounce back, or to keep the performance right where it’s been. Guys who will prevent younger players from making the team, but unless they severely change course, guys who are almost set up to provide weak resistance to said youngsters catching and passing them as the season goes on.

In my mind, this team regardless of any theoretical deals at the deadline will get stronger as the year goes on.

I see guys like Bubba Chandler, Braxton Ashcraft, Thomas Harrington, Nick Yorke, Billy Cook, Ji Hwan Bae, and more, starting in AAA. Maybe I missed one here, someone like Bae could certainly earn his shot out of Spring, but my assumption is that the team largely takes the chalk route and there are very few if any controversial choices.

As the season plays out, my hope would be we see guys like Adam Frazier, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Tommy Pham, Andrew Heaney, get surpassed and add these names to the block. That would mean both that they played well enough to have value, and that the kids played well enough to still push them aside.

That’s best case scenario of course. Injury could create opportunity, so could overt sucking. Regardless, the better talent being held back, can’t last and this team should be stronger in August than they are in April.

Health of course assumed.

2. Can We Stop Creating a “Problem”?

Since it became clear that Endy Rodriguez and Henry Davis were both catchers and both had interesting bats, fans have tried their damnedest to make this the existential question of what’s coming.

Then they went ahead and added Joey Bart who decided he was going to hit like the top prospect he used to be back when people were asking what they’d do with Buster and Bart together.

Since 2023 I’ve said the same thing. When it’s a legitimate problem, I’ll spend time thinking about it.

Last year, Henry collapsed offensively and Endy missed the entire season with TJ surgery. Bart came in and excelled offensively.

This year, it looks like all 3 could contribute offensively, but it’s still not an in your face issue. Bart has done more than enough to be the opening day starter. Henry has taken some positive steps, but he’s still unproven. Endy is recovered, but has very few at bats under his belt to assume he’ll jump right back to MLB.

If there is a point where all 3 are in the league together, one or two of them will play somewhere else. Bart could DH, Endy could DH, play 1B or maybe even outfield.

I’d just like to pause here. Think about what it would mean for this team to have 2 bats you know you aren’t counting on suddenly show up and look indispensable. Think about what these 3 being bats you have to have in the lineup would do to this lineup.

Yeah, you have to push aside where they play. They won’t all catch. But, if this happens, folks, it’s anything but a problem.

This isn’t a problem until this team is so stacked, so filled to the gills with hitters, so stocked at every position these guys could conceivably play that you’re forced to either let one rot or trade them to loosen things up.

Even then, Joey Bart is 28 years old. He has 2 more years of arbitration. Meaning, unless the Pirates were to extend Bart, he likely has 1 or 2 more years here in Pittsburgh.

Which also means you might need Henry and Endy just for catcher right?

This is all a theoretical “battle”, it’s like doing particle research in a beamline. You know what you think you could see, but the likelihood of actually seeing that result, well, let’s just say it’s a finding you just hope you actually have one day.

Let it play out. And call me when it’s an actual problem, cause right now, it just isn’t.

3. First Base, Last Choice

The Pirates have the guy they see as the starting first baseman in 2025 in Spencer Horwitz. He’s hurt, but he’ll likely get in some games late in Spring and then head out to rehab the rest of the way in AAA.

So, when the Pirates make their choice for who is going to get the lion’s share of first base reps, there’s a very solid chance they want it to be someone they can move on from. They didn’t bring Horwitz in here to ride the pine for DJ Stewart for instance.

They have options. Nick Yorke, Billy Cook, Jared Triolo, Matt Gorski, don’t shoot the messenger but Adam Frazier, Jack Suwinski apparently, and yes, DJ Stewart.

Jack is a stretch to me, I’m not sure I see a move like this making sense unless his bat proves it has to be in the lineup. Frazier isn’t a good fit there, but he can and has played the position. Nick and Billy are right handed, and I’m not sure they’d see the at bats you’d like them to.

I’m leaning DJ Stewart. First, he’s seen a lot of playing time this Spring over there, he’d need a 40-man spot and if they want to move on as soon as Horwitz is ready, you’re out essentially an NRI. If he actually hits, hey, he can play OF too. Maybe even a left handed DH.

I’d take a shot here, long shot as it is.

I’d hate to use Yorke or Cook there and demote them to bring on Horwitz, it seems like it would almost set him up for angry fans who somehow can see Cook (26) as a prospect but Horwitz (27) as qualifying for AARP.

The Pirates need a patch here. So use a player perfectly suited to be one.

4. David Bednar….Reliever

I’m told that David Bednar will start the season as the closer of this team, but the leash will be much shorter this year.

That’s not to say David is the closer or he gets cut, it’s to say David will start as the closer and if he is shaky, the team will make a switch regardless of how apparent an alternative is.

Dennis Santana, Colin Holderman or maybe even newcomer Justin Lawrence have a shot to step in. I make no claim as to how successful they’d be, but there is a very real possibility that David Bednar winds up being a reliever they use like any other in which case 2025 is assuredly his last in Pittsburgh as there’s no chance they’ll give him another raise in arbitration.

Of course, he could also return to form and then it’ll be another tough decision. Do you take him to arb 3 or do you trade him off and get something back for him? I can’t see extending him, not at this point, maybe if he got here with far fewer hiccups, but not now.

Bednar will make 5.9 million this year. I’d just like to say, if the Pirates signed a reliever who has 84 career saves spanning a 5-6 year career and pay him 5.9 million to either close or simply add to bullpen depth, we’re probably pretty happy. So I’m not going to scrutinize what he makes, or assume it means he has to be a certain role on this club. It’s 6 million for a veteran reliever, one who has a lot of attractive career stats.

That’s the story.

Hometown guy stopped mattering when he became a guy you’d be foolish to extend. Yeah, it’s still there, but it won’t keep him in a role, or on this team longer term. As part of the bullpen mix, he’s welcome. As the locked on closer all season long regardless of what he does, yeah, I’m out.

Sounds like the Pirates agree.

5. Another Way to Augment…

There is something that happens when a franchise feels they’re getting close to being competitive we rarely discuss.

We rarely discuss it, because it’s rarely on the table.

Infusing top prospects into your effort.

Now, I’m not talking about the Bubba Chandler or Thomas Harrington types, those guys have already gone through the levels to get themselves on the doorstep and ready to contribute at some point this year. That stuff happens as course.

I’m talking more about recognizing what your team does and doesn’t have and taking away some of the norms on some of your more exciting youngsters regardless of where they are currently.

Impact bats and arms matter, and when your team is in a dogfight and trading for what you need is unappealing for one reason or another, you might see them consider pushing the gas on guys like Termarr Johnson, or Konnor Griffin.

Konnor making MLB this year is an insane idea, I get that, but that doesn’t mean the urgency to let him rise at his own pace should be dismissed. If he doesn’t need half a year in Bradenton, get him to Greensboro. If Greensboro doesn’t pose a challenge, see if you can get him to AA this year. From there, he’s a step away and you accelerate drastically his arrival.

Convention tells you to be careful with an 18 year old, and everyone’s Spidey sense would be going off like crazy, but to hold him back artificially is to cut into how long, if at all, he and Paul Skenes can be on the same team.

We’ve seen this already. The Pirates moved Henry Davis through the ranks partially because he was unchallenged, and partially because this team desperately needed a hitter. You can argue it hurt him and his development, but maybe that would have happened anyway, it’s not like AAA challenges him now either you know?

Bubba Chandler and Thomas Harrington themselves have flown through the system and put themselves in this position.

Ben Cherington is going to have to make a decision. Is it better to get what you can here as soon as possible, or is it better to hold some talent back, and hope they take the ball from this group and advance it forward.

Anyone in this organization that wants to look like they can help this club, in my mind, get out of the way and let them.

Again, this is a very difficult ask. Griffin is talented as hell, does not have the body or mind of an 18 year old, but he’s still got a lot of work to do, I’m just asking if it looks like he isn’t being challenged, challenge him. The standard marching orders that this needs to take 4-5 years to MLB ready an 18 year old should be challenged.

If the Pirates are waiting on Termarr Johnson to become a perfect player, well, don’t. Wait for a bat that you could use, challenge him, and don’t hesitate to add him to the mix if it makes sense.

The Pirates have for my entire life neglected to add significantly in free agency, they’ve also failed to make meaningful trades more than a handful of times. So what I’m asking is, you can’t buy power, can we allow it to make it up here to help when it shows itself?

Jack Brannigan is another interesting player. He’ll start in AA Altoona this year. He’s a slick fielding 3B who has hit for power since being drafted. The Pirates have Ke’Bryan Hayes who’s health is an issue. Jared Triolo who thus far can field the position but the bat has not warmed to the task.

I’d suggest if Hayes goes down again, Brannigan should be considered, even while they have Triolo. A team like this can’t settle for getting underwhelming offense in exchange for a solid glove.

I guess what I’m really saying here is, let the player tell you when he’s ready, not the timeline you went in with.

Again, we’ve seen this on the pitching side, and it’s time to have more urgency about getting more hitters here to match up with them.

3-10-25 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

Spring Training takes a turn this week.

Just about every week of Spring Training represents a different level of competition. A different mindset for entering these games.

While most of the time leading up to now has been cloaked in the specter of “they’re working on something” or, “pitchers are way ahead of hitters” or, pick your cliche for the early Spring contests, now it shifts to playing closer to full games. Starters trying to reach the 5th or 6th inning. Hitters seeing said pitcher 2 or 3 times.

It also starts to at least create conversations when that NRI gets a start now. We’ve seen a ton of DJ Stewart this Spring, and if it continues from here on out, well, you won’t have to guess how seriously they’re considering him as a first base patch.

If a player is still in camp at this point, and they’re playing, solid chance they’re in the running. Cuts matter now, they’re no longer the easy let’s get this guy over to MiLB camp before he gets hurt and starts accruing MLB service time cuts.

Bottom line, it starts getting real now.

That’s not to say nothing was gained by anyone in the first few weeks, or that nothing you saw before this week mattered, it’s just to say as the Spring progresses you require less and less filtering to know what you’re seeing.

1. The Opening Day Roster isn’t Final

Whatever roster the Pirates land on after the last pitch of Spring Training is not the roster they’ll finish the season with.

Now, that is painfully obvious, but it needs said because so many people expend boatloads of energy actively fighting about the last few spots.

Often, the anger is a direct player comparison. Let’s say Adam Frazier makes the team, a very good bet since they went out and signed him. Now he’s going to be directly compared to a guy like Nick Yorke. Is Nick a better player right now? I mean, I personally think so. But it isn’t always about that. The team may see Frazier getting like 10 at bats a week as a fill in, and for Adam, that’s fine, for Nick, not so much. As the season plays out, decisions like this will almost entirely be forgotten. In fact, this is the single biggest misconception fans have.

Very rarely is your 26-man your best 26 players.

Early on, there could be decisions made in the bullpen spawned by options. When you start to amass the group that’s going to form the bulk of your bullpen innings, you very often make the assumption you’ll need innings from almost all of them, and you know some of them are disposable.

Meaning, you take a guy North because he has no options, you think he’ll provide you some valuable innings and if you choose to DFA him now, those valuable innings are going to come from someone else, but you’ve likely lost those 20, 30, 40 innings you hoped to get from that fella.

Do a ton of that, deal with injuries and poor performances and well, come July you’ll be scouring the waiver wire hoping to find a non-corpse to help you out for a series.

Reality dictates you’ll wind up doing some of that anyway, so you make a decision early on to take the lesser player North, hope he does better than you assumed but get that set of innings out of him before ultimately switching to one of those other options. Maybe you use them to eat junk innings in blowouts, maybe you use him early before hitters get their timing all the way back, maybe it explodes and you cut the guy in 2 weeks. All possible outcomes you know about going into it.

Now, does that mean say Joey Wentz “beat out” Kyle Nicolas? I mean, technically, but lets just say it’s not a side by side comparison of which one will do more in their remaining career, or even who likely contributes more this season. It just means they want to make sure they get the 25-30 innings for sure they wanted and needed to get out of Wentz. Well, try to.

This doesn’t mean you have to like every decision they make. Some players don’t deserve even that level of grace, and most of the time, the team will make that clear by who they do wind up cutting, see Yohan Ramirez…

Don’t get me wrong, some of these decisions blow up in a team’s face and sometimes teams hang on too long trying to be right, or valuing that 5-10 more innings they hoped they’d see before pulling the rip cord.

I’m just saying, it’s not always this guy is better than that guy, in fact depending on the position I’d almost say it rarely is.

2. Last Year’s Stats

The perception of a player is very often dictated by their stats the year before. When you’re talking about young players, man, that can really be deceiving.

Let’s say you have a guy like Nick Gonzales. Fairly solid rookie campaign by most accounts, but he only managed a mid .600’s OPS, which is a below average place to be. He handled second base well, dealt with an injury, fought for opportunity and ultimately put together something that he and the team felt pretty good about.

But those stats don’t account for pitchers not having a book on him early on, or his struggles once they did, or his pushback on the new form of attack or his ability to put his bat on the ball in a big situation for a productive out.

Sure, all that stuff contributes to his overall stats, but when you’re trying to predict what you’re going to get out of him in 2025, well, it’s insufficient.

He’ll enter this year with a “book”, but that book will already be outdated because pitchers don’t know what he worked on in the offseason. He’s got a baseline laid from 2024, a low water mark he now has to best, because what was good for a rookie, is likely not good enough for a 2nd year player. Interesting is no longer good enough.

If he’s made an adjustment to stop getting beat on a slider away, pitchers will adjust and bust him up and in, is he ready for it?

It’s nice to know his stats from last year, it gives you a look at what could be, but it also doesn’t start becoming predictive until he’s laid down 3-4, even 5 years of stats, like Bryan Reynolds where you now expect his performance.

The way baseball works, by the time you get there, people are already worried about you being traded, extended, or if it took you long enough to get there, you could be in danger of aging out before you even finish arbitration.

Similarly, reading off the cumulative stats of minor league players is silly on it’s face. To just call it misleading is selling it far short. Take a guy like Billy Cook, he’s 26 years old and he’s spent 4 years in the minors. Struggling at times, having some results in others and finally looking a lot more like a player in 2024 especially at the AAA level both for Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

His cumulative stats are rather uninspiring, his 2024 numbers are exciting.

Neither on their own are close to the whole story, but when a guy takes a step like Cook did, you almost have to find out where that heel turn happened, and really examine the player he became, rather than accounting for the entire journey. Like, you take a trip in your car to the beach and you wash your car when you get there to get all the bugs and tar chips off your vehicle. You’re looking for a fresh start, you aren’t looking to relive every cicada you smashed on I-95 or every Racoon you accidentally re-killed on the berm of the highway. Some of those bugs for minor leaguers live in High A or Double A.

This works the other way too. Just because a guy had great numbers in AA somewhere doesn’t mean he gets 3 more to replicate them at a higher level.

3. Should We Worry About Heaney?

I mean, no, not yet.

He has an extremely translatable record of providing innings, limiting walks, eating innings and, well, being average. This isn’t the type of guy who is going to hold off a charging kid, but he’s a guy with a skill set this team lacks, starting pitchers who have thrown 160+ innings in MLB while keeping his stats in the average to slightly above area.

That’s why he’s here. Not because they think he’s better than Bubba. Not because they can now trade someone else. He’s here because aside from Mitch Keller, they simply don’t have guys who have thrown a ton of innings. Doesn’t mean Paul Skenes won’t take a huge jump this year or Jared Jones will give you more than he did, just means those are maybes and hopes, this guy has and if given the ball enough, will again.

I wouldn’t worry about him at all, especially as he continually tells you he’s just getting it dialed in after a late start to Spring.

This is a guy who is going to go out there and sometimes give you 4 innings and leave with a 6 run deficit, other times he’ll give you 6 and have only given up 2 runs. He’ll give up hits, he’ll rarely walk you, and more than anything, he’ll leave you in a position to compete for the outcome of the game.

Truthfully, he’s a guy with so much history, it’s very hard to assume he’ll be much more or less than he’s ever been. That’s going to be a guy who competes, and gets you results more often than he doesn’t.

A very nice to have low water mark for a stable of youngsters itching to get their career started.

Hear Andrew tell you himself about how Spring goes for him….

https://streamable.com/m/andrew-heaney-discusses-his-spring-outing?partnerId=web_video-playback-page_video-share

4. Tsung-Che Cheng Makes His Mark

Cheng was added to the 40-man in December of 2023 following a successful burst through Greensboro and finishing in Altoona. As with many international signings, the clock for protection from the Rule 5 expired before his journey to MLB was realized.

Signed in 2019, the Taiwanese youngster is now 23 years old, coming off a season that saw him struggle in Altoona and thrive in his end of the season promotion to AAA Indianapolis.

He has tools as evidenced by his scouting grades, Hit: 50 | Power: 45 | Run: 60 | Field: 55 | Arm: 55 and he’s coming into his own at the right time for a team that simply doesn’t have a lot of potentials to fill the SS position on this club, especially close to making it.

Of course he has competition, Liover Peguero is still around, but he’s struggled to make the jump himself and his time on the 40-man has to start providing something for the big club or passing him by won’t be much more than a blink.

Cheng is exciting. He’s fast, he has a really good contact skill and his swing is simplified almost to the point of looking casual. He can field the position, improving one of his more glaring issues toward the end of last year which was moving to his right with range. Aside from hitting the baseball I’m not sure you could ask for a more positive aspect of his game to improve.

I’m encouraged by the Spring he’s had so far, and he’s absolutely going to get more time in AAA to keep making his case, but Tsung-Che Cheng could be a missing piece most fans have long since stopped paying attention to.

5. Jack and Bae

Unless the Pirates go out and get another outfielder, it’s really starting to feel like Jack Suwinski or Ji-hwan Bae are going to make this club. Is this the 4th OF spot, or the starter with Pham moving to the bench? Who knows.

Both of these players have had more than a shot to win a spot or keep one more accurately, but they both have skills that this team is really short on.

Jack obviously is power. Bae, speed.

Jack’s power is sapped by lack of contact. Bae’s speed is sapped by his poor jumps and not being on base enough to begin with.

That said, both of these guys have really shown up this Spring. All the grain of salt stuff I talked about earlier applies, but you can only perform in the situations you’re put in and both of these guys have looked different.

Each is sporting a swing change, each has altered their approach at the dish, both can play all 3 outfield spots. Bae can play a little 2B, Jack is working on adding 1B to his bag of tricks.

I’m confident we’ll see both of them in Pittsburgh as we play this season out.

Regardless of your feelings before the season, it’s hard to deny how different each of them look.

Recently it was reported that the Pirates offered Alex Verdugo 8 million to play in Pittsburgh this year. He didn’t take it and kept flirting so the Pirates pulled the trigger on Tommy Pham and this has left the door cracked for a lefty to make the club.

One of these guys should probably make the club out of camp. The power need to me is bigger than the speed, so if all things are equal, I’d lean Jack, but these are two guys many fans have pronounced dead, so either resurrecting their career in 2025 would be a huge bonus.

All we can hope is that final cuts are very hard for this franchise.