The Pittsburgh Pirates have been busy this offseason. They’ve added an influx of talent, most recently bringing back franchise icon Andrew McCutchen.
They have also added Carlos Santana, Ji-Man Choi, Austin Hedges, Rich Hill, Vince Velasquez, and Jarlin Garcia to their team, among others.
The overall additions have boosted the veteran influence on this team, while also upgrading a few holes on a 100-loss team.
For this week’s Roundtable, I asked the team for their thoughts on the veteran additions. I’m sitting this one out, since you can see my similar thoughts in First Pitch from last week.
What do you think of the Pirates’ veteran additions?
JOHN DREKER
The off-season veteran roster additions are an interesting group that should make the Pirates more fun for the fans to watch until the group of top tier prospects at the upper levels start making their debuts mid-to-late season. Andrew McCutchen was an outstanding addition for the fans, as well as a good one for the team. I think they went about it all wrong for the future of the team, but that thought really didn’t set in until I saw how much money they were spending.
I still think 2024 is the first season we will see them compete for the playoffs, but the guys they added won’t be around. It feels like they could have gone after one big piece for a longer contract with the same amount of money, so that player is actually a key part of the future. At this point they spent a lot of money (in Pirates terms) on guys who might not last the full season, but also won’t have huge trade value unless you can package them. Then all you have left from this group is Jarlin Garcia in a bullpen role, and McCutchen possibly returning as a backup in 2024, because he wants to finish his career in Pittsburgh.
Basically what they did is improve a 62-win team slightly, while doing very little for the future. They are just going to need to plug holes next year again. The hope is that the holes are fewer and they could actually do what they didn’t do this off-season — adding a big piece for more than one season. I will note that they seem to have added a great group of veterans for the young players to be around, so that could have some future impact we don’t see on the stats sheet.
ETHAN HULLIHEN
I don’t know, maybe I’m mostly indifferent?
Austin Hedges should be solid behind the plate until a hopefully more long-term option makes their way up. Ji-Man Choi and Carlos Santana should be better at first base because it would be nearly impossible not to be. Rich Hill should help stabilize and bring experience to a rotation who could use it while hopefully still being effective, and while I’m personally having trouble seeing why it’s such a big deal, apparently fans are happy to see McCutchen back. He’s not going to be the player of old, which I think mostly everyone realizes, but I don’t think he’s going to hurt the team in any way either.
Nothing is obviously guaranteed, but it’s hard to imagine the team not being better than it has been the last three seasons, and there’s value in that. If anything, they should have been making more moves like this the past several seasons, so I’m certainly not going to complain about them. Teams should be trying to put their best product on the field, but the problem is that if this is their best, it’s still not good enough. Sure, there are going to be real, actual major league options available—again, an undeniably good thing—but it’s very unlikely to lead to any kind of contention, at least in my eyes, and that’s the point of all of this.
The hope would be that actually winning some games leads to positive vibes on the field and more effort off of it to get this turned around even sooner. The product will be better, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it’s just not enough.
WILBUR MILLER
Just as well to ask this question after the signing of Andrew McCutchen. That significantly changed the offseason. Apart from the sentimental aspects, the analytics suggest Cutch has more in the tank than it appeared from his 2022 season. He also should help the team dramatically against LHPs. As an added benefit, Cutch should serve as a Shelton Stoopid Suppressor. His presence should greatly reduce the risk of Ji-Man Choi seeing many LHPs, or of weak-hitting middle infielders playing in the outfield.
Beyond Cutch and Rich Hill – also a good addition – there wasn’t much to recommend the team’s veteran acquisitions. Maybe most disturbing was the process; once again, Ben Cherington went straight for the bottom of the market, targeting the guys who weren’t likely to draw interest elsewhere. It was especially disappointing given the opportunity for massive improvement over the biblically horrific situations Cherington created at first base and catcher last year. An improvement just to average at those positions would have been enormous, but Cherington chose to aim for not-horrible.
The Vince Velasquez acquisition also made little sense, as he’s not remotely comparable to Tyler Anderson or Jose Quintana. The acquisitions of Connor Joe and Jarlin Garcia were OK. They’re both modest-ceiling, high-risk players. In Joe’s case, he’s coming off a bad season and moving from Coors Field to a home park that figures to be extremely unfriendly for him. In Garcia’s, the Pirates are getting a pitcher who fell off badly over the last four months of 2022, and who’s always been totally reliant on extremely low BABIPs.
The big remaining question is whether Cherington will follow his practice of previous seasons, waiting until partway through spring training, then acquiring washed-up or never-was players who can safely be expected to drag the team down. Hopefully, Cherington will recognize that Cutch – on his own initiative and not Cherington’s – salvaged the Pirates’ offseason and leave well enough alone.
ANTHONY MURPHY
I have two thoughts as far as the veterans the team has added this offseason. As individuals, I like each addition that the Pirates have done so far this offseason. They upgraded first base which was a priority, signed one of the best defensive catchers in the game to help a young pitching staff and brought back Andrew McCutchen — who still has some game left in him.
The only issue I have with it all is that it feels like it sets up too many potential platoon situations that may stretch the roster too thin. Adding McCutchen after signing Carlos Santana seems odd too, after it looked like the latter was going to take the majority of the at-bats at DH.
McCutchen was primarily the DH for the Milwaukee Brewers last year, but still got time in the outfield. He graded out better than he had in quite some time, depending on the site you look at, so there may be potential to play him in the field more than expected. If not, you kind of clogged up the most limited position to two players and in the process, still left more question marks in the outfield that need to be answered.
Outside of that, every move was made for an exact reason, and it’s to help the young players continue to mature, which is exactly what they needed to do at this stage in the build.
JEFF REED
I think the veteran additions for the Pittsburgh Pirates is an overall positive. I believe they’ll bring with them a mixture of performance and a set of intangibles that the team has desperately missed over the past few seasons.
On the surface level, I don’t think many can say objectively that the Pirates will be a competitor. What I believe can be said though is that the team has substantially increased their floor. With that, we’ve come full circle back to Neal Huntington. Providing a floor and then hoping everyone hits their highest percentile potential.
The Pirates don’t have a pitcher that strikes fear in opponents, but by adding Austin Hedges along with a pitcher like Rich Hill, they should enter games fully prepared with a game plan. The team won’t be reliant on whether or not Luis Ortiz and Johan Oviedo are ready to step into immediate roles, rather they can continue to refine their games, while being the first to be called upon when a need arises. It’s a depth improvement from Zach Thompson, Bryse Wilson, and Jerad Eickhoff.
Ji-Man Choi and Carlos Santana will bring a sense of stability in a position that hasn’t had stability in quite some time. The Pirates stand to have a young, wild-throwing middle infield that having a veteran presence at first base should help mediate, even if only incrementally.
Then there’s the addition of Andrew McCutchen that should improve the overall product on and off the field. Fans aren’t going to limit their distaste for the organization, but McCutchen’s return should dial it back. There was a time when fans would be irate if they saw McCutchen and Josh Harrison smiling while the team was in the midst of a slump, but the past few years have left fans with a desire for anything to bring some semblance of joy in the game of baseball.
I have mentioned a few times previously that I believe the team needed personality. Something, or someone, that allowed fans to better connect with the team. More than another wry-smiled player saying, “We fought hard and tried our best.” The organization brought in players that have the potential to make baseball fun again in Pittsburgh.
