Talking about the 2024 Pittsburgh Pirates
Talking about 10 thoughts and predictions for the 2024 Pittsburgh Pirates.
Let me just start off with this. Go back in time five years to when the Pittsburgh Pirates introduced Ben Cherington as their newest general manager. Pretend at that introductory press conference that somebody tapped you on the shoulder and said, “five years from now his team will be 218-328 and you will be cautiously optimistic that they might — MIGHT — win 80 games in year five. You good with that?”
I would probably not have been good with that.
The Pirates should not have been good with that, either.
But I think that is where we are right now. And I am not trying to start this off overly negative on opening day, because there are a lot of elements about the 2024 Pirates that I like. Perhaps a lot. The reality, however, is that there are a lot of “ifs” and “hopes” associated with the potential success of this team, and the more “ifs” and “hopes” you add into an equation, the more likely it is that some of them are not going to go your way. Things rarely go perfectly in sports. Not everything is going to go as you want it to go.
What makes it even more frustrating is that this should have been the year. Not only because year five of a new front office and rebuild is when teams generally plan to be good, but also because the National League Central completely and totally sucks. It might only take 88 wins to win it.
The reigning division champion Milwaukee Brewers traded their best pitcher.
The Cubs spend like they are a mid-market team.
The Cardinals have become the very definition of “mid.”
The Reds spent a little this offseason and added some names to their young core, but I’m not sure they are any good. At least not good enough to run away with the division.
It was right there for the taking and I feel like the Pirates missed what could have been a big opportunity this offseason and are entering the season with — again — one of the smallest payrolls in baseball. Even if it would have required them to dramatically overpay — like insanely, laughably overpay — they could have tried to make a big splash in free agency and given themselves a real chance to win and still had a bottom-10 payroll. It is just a frustrating offseason. It was a buyer’s market and the Pirates did what they did every year — stop-gap, lower-tier options that might get traded for another team’s 14th best prospect at the trade deadline.
So with that out of the way, let’s get into what this team actually is, what it actually has and what it might be able to do.
1. Never trust a bullpen
One of the biggest reasons for optimism with this team is the belief that it should have an outstanding bullpen, which would be a big improvement from the way it ended the 2023 season. On paper, that does seem to check out. But I think this is one of the things that gives me so much cause for concern for the ceiling of this team.
The bullpen shouldn’t be your biggest strength and it shouldn’t be one of the first things you point to for optimism.
For one, I have a hard time trusting bullpens from one year to the next because relief pitchers can be highly volatile.
You also have to be in a position to be winning for your bullpen to really matter.
Plus, I think there are still some questions within it.
As long as he is healthy I think David Bednar is one of the relievers you can trust from one year to the next. Colin Holderman has been up-and-down at times (especially when overworked), but he should be good. I like the idea of Aroldis Chapman (even if I don’t like Aroldis Chapman) and what he could mean as an eighth-inning guy. But he’s also 36 and has been a little hit-and-miss over the past couple of years.
Beyond that, I just feel like everybody else is a wild card.
I am not saying the bullpen won’t be good.
It might even be as good as everybody is expecting it to be.
I just don’t know how much I trust it on March 28 to give me major optimism about the season. I need to see it to believe it. And again, even if it is good … will it even matter if the starting rotation stinks (more on that in a bit)?
2. Oneil Cruz and Henry Davis need to hit
Honestly, nothing else with this team matters as much as these two players. These are the two X-factors, and the two guys that need to be difference-makers.
The good news? They have the potential to do just that!
The bad news? They are also two of the biggest “ifs” and “hopes” on the roster.
Losing Oneil Cruz for almost all of the 2023 season was a crushing blow to the lineup and cost him a major year of his development. Especially when he was off to an encouraging start with his approach to the plate and his patience. He was taking walks. He was not chasing. He looked like he was on track to be the player the Pirates want and need him to be.
But the injury means that he enters 2024 as a 25-year-old with only 372 big league at-bats and nobody really knowing how good he actually is.
He is also trying to work his way back from a brutal ankle injury, which always carries some risk. Will they turn him loose to run? Will the power come all the way back?
The upside here is a 30/30 player. He is the type of guy you can dream on and create some wild expectations in your mind.
His spring training performance was highly encouraging because he was absolutely crushing the ball. That just needs to translate over to real games against consistent Major League pitching.
If it does, that completely changes the outlook for everything regarding this team. That is the star you need. That is the franchise player they are desperate to have.
It is a similar story with Davis, the No. 1 overall pick from the 2021 MLB Draft. When you get a No. 1 pick, you hope to get, at minimum, an All-Star level player. The question with Davis was always going to be what position he ultimately played (Catcher? First base? Outfield?), but that he had enough of a bat to reasonably stick anywhere. Well, the Pirates still do not seem to know what position he is going to play and we are left hoping that he actually does hit.
His debut in 2023 produced a mix bag of results, but like Cruz he had an incredible spring at the plate.
If these two have breakout years and hit to their potential, the Pirates suddenly have the foundation for a very interesting lineup. But again, that previous sentence starts with that big two-letter word.
3. Can Ke’Bryan Hayes pick up where he left off?
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