Perhaps you’ve noticed, but the financial commitments the Pirates have made via major league free agency this offseason have been minimal.
They’ve spent $10,675,000 on Adam Frazier, Andrew McCutchen, Tim Mayza and Caleb Ferguson. That figure trails 155 individual player salaries in Major League Baseball this season.
It’s not great. It’s also not my primary point.
If you step back and consider where the organization resides within a larger scope — Year 2 of Paul Skenes, Year 6 of the current regime — the Pirates are hedging some sizable bets despite the dollars involved falling well below league average.
Put another way: This better work.
While the external focus recently has been on the Pirates’ inactivity, they’ve also told us how they plan to operate. Right or wrong, whether you agree or not, it’s very similar to the Guardians or Rays — only those teams have done a better job when it comes to essential small-market practices such as drafting well, developing players, winning trades and obtaining talent internationally.
Those teams win because they check those boxes. They also spend wisely, spur internal improvement and play solid, fundamental baseball. The Pirates haven’t done enough of that lately, and I don’t blame fans for doubting it will suddenly start in 2025.
However, that seems to be how the Pirates plan to continue with this regime, which faces a crossroads when it comes to general manager Ben Cherington, manager Derek Shelton and much of what they’ve done.
After five seasons where the Pirates have produced a .415 winning percentage — the equivalent of 67-95 when extrapolated over 162 games — better results must arrive in 2025 to prevent changes. That sense of urgency only increases when you consider failure could mean wasting a second year of Skenes and having potentially the best pitcher in baseball for less than $1 million.
Here’s more of what I mean:
• They’re betting on good health for Ke’Bryan Hayes, a tall task considering the recurring and serious issues he’s experienced in the L5-S1 disc in his lower back. Hayes has played 476 MLB games and routinely battled injuries. When healthy, yeah, he’s been excellent, as evidenced by the .874 OPS over his final 49 games of 2023, a 1.124 OPS in 24 games in ’20.
But this past season, when Hayes’ back was a mess, he had the sixth-worst OPS (.573) among MLB position players with at least 300 plate appearances.
• Spencer Horwitz represents another gamble. The Pirates gave up too much to get him: Luis Ortiz and top-30 pitching prospects Josh Hartle and Michael Kennedy. They made it because they like what Horwitz has done at the plate, as well as his years of club control and small salary.
I’ve tried to view this trade with an open mind despite a fundamental disagreement with giving up so much young pitching. If you believe baseball stats to be accurate, there’s a case to be made that Horwitz might actually be good.
His OPS+ of 125 last season was the same as Matt Chapman of the Giants (125), better than Trea Turner (124) of the Phillies (124) and free agent Pete Alonso (123) and didn’t trail National League Rookie of the Year runner-up Jackson Merrill (127) of the Padres by much.
Horwitz also played 97 games — enough to know some, but certainly not all about a player. Is Horwitz really a 125 OPS+ guy, or was he a rookie enjoying a hot stretch? We’re about to find out.
• Those are hardly the only bets here. How about the idea that Andrew McCutchen, at age 38, can produce another 20-homer season? Or that the past 80 games of Joey Bart’s MLB career (2.2 bWAR) are the new normal compared to the first 162 (0.7 bWAR)?
• There are also bullpen wagers. A lot of them. David Bednar is the most notable after the Pirates’ closer went from two-time All-Star with a 2.25 ERA from 2021-23 to someone who had a 5.77 mark in 2024. Whether it was injuries, pitch-tipping or both, the Pirates are counting on much to change.
It’s the same for Mayza, who had a 2.67 ERA from 2021-23 but watched that figure balloon to 6.33 with the Blue Jays and Yankees last season. Ferguson struggled with the Yankees (5.13 ERA) last year before rebounding some with Houston. Colin Holderman was either dominant or unusable for the Pirates in 2024. Which is real will determine a lot.
• Think we’re done? Hardly. There’s a world where I could see Oneil Cruz doubling his bWAR (2.5) from last season, an outcome tied to a 30-30 or 40-40 season and Cruz conquering some of what has plagued him in the past: off-speed pitches and left-on-left matchups.
Cruz grew in both areas last season and has an otherworldly amount of talent. But we’ve also seen plenty of peaks and valleys with the 6-foot-7 Cruz, who oh-by-the-way is still fewer than 200 innings into his center field career.
• There are even gambles in the starting rotation. As much as I’ve grown to respect Mitch Keller, he has a 5.62 ERA in the second half of the past two seasons compared to a mark of 3.38 in the first half. Which is it? It’s not a ton different for Bailey Falter, who had a 4.76 ERA through the first three seasons (and 198 1/3 innings) of his MLB career before slicing that to 3.87 over his first 19 starts last season. Again, which one of those is real?
• As prolific as Skenes was in 2024, there are also unavoidable realities when it comes to young pitching. Essentially that Skenes is the outlier for a reason. I really like Jared Jones, Bubba Chandler, Mike Burrows and the Pirates’ other young arms. But it’s unfair to expect immediate dominance.
There’s no greater area of uncertainty — why they haven’t addressed this more via free agency is beyond me — than lengthening the Pirates’ lineup and their belief that such a thing can be done internally.
While reasonably priced corner outfielders have found new homes, the Pirates are seemingly convinced Jack Suwinski is more the guy who hit 26 homers with a .793 OPS in ‘23 than someone who batted .182 with nine homers and a .588 OPS in ’24.
It’s a lot to ask of Matt Hague, the Pirates’ first-year hitting coach, the task list only growing when you consider varying degrees of improvement still required out of Nick Gonzales, Jared Triolo, Liover Peguero and Ji Hwan Bae.
Not to mention, of course, the Pirates’ last 1.01 pick prior to Skenes, Henry Davis, who has hit .191 with a .590 OPS in 99 MLB games ... but also the guy who was shoehorned into right field, improved a bunch behind the plate and has a couple of homers off someone named Shohei Ohtani.
Is Davis a No. 1 overall pick who’s simply due a breakthrough, or a player incapable of producing at this level? I still think it’s the first one. Davis is also a microcosm of where the Pirates find themselves as an organization.
Patience has run thin. Even if dollars remain low, chips have been pushed to the middle of the table.
The outcome of these bets will not only determine wins and jobs, but also the success or failure of yet another five-year plan.
First Published: January 31, 2025, 4:08 p.m.
Updated: January 31, 2025, 9:11 p.m.
