2024 MLB Season Preview: Pittsburgh Pirates
It’s generally not too much fun to be a Pirates fan, at least not if you care about winning baseball. The franchise dates all the way back to 1882 (which is the same year that Robert Ford assassinated Jesse James), and has made just 17 playoff appearances in its history. Six of those have come from 1990-on, and those six were part of two three-season-long stretches, the most recent of which was 2013-2015. In that sense, continued struggles with no end in sight are nothing new for the Buccos... but this year, with a weak division and an expanded playoff field, things might be somewhat more interesting.
Where were they in 2023?
The Pirates waged a 76-86 campaign in 2023, avoiding a last-place finish for the second consecutive year. They actually had an amazing start, going 20-9 through the end of April, before snapping back to reality with an 8-18 May. They wouldn’t play above-.500 ball again until September, when they went 15-13 to finish out the season.
What the Pirates managed over the course of the year was, commensurate with their record, avoiding complete hopelessness on the field. They finished 23rd in both position player and pitching fWAR, and outperformed their WAR-wins, run differential and BaseRuns records by a bit. They had a mix of decent (Ke’Bryan Hayes, Jack Suwinski, Bryan Reynolds) and below-average-but-not-awful contributors on the position player side, saw Mitch Keller find another gear at the top of their rotation, and enjoyed David Bednar’s elite relief season (albeit one with a giant FIP-xFIP gap in his favor).
But, at the same time, they were still the Pirates. Ji Hwan Bae, Rodolfo Castro, Tucupita Marcano, and big-time prospect Henry Davis were all horrible across decent chunks of playing time. They used 10 different starters (not counting openers), of whom only Keller managed an above-average xFIP- in a starting role.
What did they do in the off-season?
It’s tempting to write, “Because it’s the Pirates, essentially nothing,” but that’s only somewhat true. In perhaps uncharacteristic fashion, Pittsburgh went on a mini-spending spree with owner Bob Nutting’s money, signing major league veterans Yasmani Grandal, Josh Fleming, Aroldis Chapman, Martin Perez, and Andrew McCutchen to one-year deals. Sure, the combined outlay for those guys is short of $30 million, but considering the Pirates ran an Opening Day payroll of just $55 million in 2022, it’s at least something.
They also acquired outfielders Edward Olivares and Billy McKinney, as well as starter Marco Gonzales in minor deals to continue adding players-that-are-hopefully-above-replacement-level-maybe to the roster.
Probably the biggest move the team made was extending Keller with a five-year, $77 million contract that buys out three of his would-be free agent seasons. Between Keller, Hayes, Reynolds, as well as the team-controlled Suwinski and Oneil Cruz, the Pirates have assembled a core for the next half-decade; the key questions now are a mix of: (1) can they develop other top prospects to supplement the core; (2) will Nutting actually help, rather than hinder, his Front Office; and (3) can they actually get their organizational stuff together enough to make a real go of it in the NL Central?
Where are they hoping to go?
For once, we have a direct-from-the-horse’s-mouth quote in this regard. Here’s Nutting, back in January:
“I’m not gonna pick a number of games or wins, but for the first time in what feels like a decade and maybe on the calendar is 6-7 years, we’re within striking distance of a good team. We’re short of that still, but the progression is clearly going in the right direction. My expectation is we take another meaningful step forward [in 2024]. With the current playoff system, another step forward means we can be in contention throughout the season. That’s a minimum expectation we should have and one we should be building on.”
Look, I’m not going to make too much hay of Nutting saying the quiet part out loud by referencing the “current playoff system” as a justification for the fact that it’s possible for the Pirates to hang around playoff relevancy despite fielding what is, on paper, a roster closer to the bad kind of pants than the good kind of pants, but as Dr. Ian Malcolm would say, well, there it is.
The good news for the Pirates is because the NL Central is the 19th century Ottoman Empire of MLB divisions, they have playoff odds (via FanGraphs) of around 18 percent despite a projected 77-84 record and last-place finish. The other good news is that because of the expanded playoffs, those are actually their highest preseason playoff odds since the start of the 2016 season, which came on the heels of three consecutive Pirates playoff appearances.
The bad news is that, well, this still doesn’t look like a decent roster, much less a good one. Bob Nutting isn’t wrong that this team can be in contention throughout the season, but that’s probably going to be an artifact of there being a smorgasbord of playoff spots and other half-hearted efforts in the NL Central. Sure, the Pirates are outside the bottom five in terms of projected position player production (woo?) and outside the bottom ten in terms of projected pitching production (woo?!), but that’s really about it.
They project to be among the league’s worst at first base, second base, right field, designated hitter, and in the rotation, largely counterbalanced only by Reynolds and the one-two punch of Bednar and Chapman in the bullpen. In particular, they are going to need to get way more than projections expect out of a Tellez-Connor Joe platoon at first base, prospect Liover Peguero at second, and elder statesman McCutchen, who is coming off a partial Achilles tendon tear.
Still, it should be an interesting season in Pittsburgh for the first time in a while, even if that interest is largely due to circumstances outside of the club’s direct control that all work in its favor.
