This week, as players are starting to get sent down to minor league camp, we’re breaking down how many options are remaining for members of the 2023 Pittsburgh Pirates.
Options, as previously discussed, allow teams to send players to and from the minor leagues without having to put them on waivers. It’s always useful to know who does and doesn’t have them.
While having only one option remaining is what is important for this season, I’ll be listing total options remaining, which will come into play in future seasons.
Greater than Five Years of Service
Once a player hits five years of service, they must consent to an assignment, meaning that even if they have options remaining, it’s not all that easy to option them. The team has more players in this bucket then they have in recent history:
Ji-Man Choi
Jarlín García
Austin Hedges
Rich Hill
Andrew McCutchen
Carlos Santana
Robert Stevenson
Vince Velasquez
Out of Options
These are the players who have used all of their options but have yet to hit five years of service, meaning they have to be subjected to waivers if the team wants to be able to assign them:
Chase De Jong
Duane Underwood Jr.
As you can see, the Pirates have built a fairly flexible roster, with most of the team still able to be sent to the minors. However, four of the names already presented are part of the bullpen, meaning that group could be harder to shuffle, at least if they keep the same players to start the season.
Options Remaining
Here is everyone else, and even if they aren’t going to see the minors—looking at you Bryan Reynolds—that doesn’t mean the options still aren’t there:
Ji-hwan Bae – 3
David Bednar – 2
JT Brubaker – 2
Mike Burrows – 3
Rodolfo Castro – 1
Roansy Contreras – 1
Wil Crowe – 1
Oneil Cruz – 1
Yerry De Los Santos – 3
Ke’Bryan Hayes – 2
Jose Hernandez* – 3
Colin Holderman – 3
Connor Joe – 2
Mitch Keller – 1
Max Kranick – 1
Tucupita Marcano – 1
Mark Mathias – 1
Cal Mitchell – 2
Dauri Moreta – 2
Luis Ortiz – 3
Johan Oviedo – 1
Liover Peguero – 2
Yohan Ramirez – 1
Bryan Reynolds – 3
Endy Rodriguez – 3
Colin Selby – 3
Canaan Smith-Njigba – 2
Jack Suwinski – 2
Travis Swaggerty – 2
Jared Triolo – 3
Ryan Vilade – 2
For eagle-eyed readers, you may be thinking “but Oneil Cruz has used three options?”. That’s true, but Cruz used his third option last season before accruing five full professional seasons, meaning he qualifies for a fourth option. Hopefully it’s not needed, but it is available in case of emergency.
He is the only player on the roster who qualified; however, Miguel Yajure and Nick Mears would have also, but they obviously are no longer on the team.
Non-Roster Players
Finally, I decided to provide the status for every player not on the 40-man roster who has prior Major League service. Therefore, if at any point these players are selected during the season, you can be aware if they can be optioned or not:
Cam Alldred – 3
Miguel Andújar – 0
Blake Cederlind – 2
Tyler Chatwood – 5+ YOS
Jason Delay – 2
Kent Emanuel – 0
Tyler Heineman – 2
Wei-Chieh Huang – 2
Domingo Leyba – 0
Drew Maggi – 3
Juan Minaya – 0
Chris Owings – 5+ YOS
Josh Palacios – 1
Angel Perdomo – 0
Kevin Plawecki – 5+ YOS
Caleb Smith – 5+ YOS
Daniel Zamora – 0
Rob Zastryzny – 0
Pirates Payroll Updates
—It was recently reported by the Associated Press—and subsequently confirmed by the team—that Oneil Cruz’s contract was renewed for 2023 as opposed to being agreed upon.
For the uninitiated, that means that the Pirates offered Cruz—and every other pre-arbitration player—a salary for 2023. While every other player said “okay, I’ll take that”, Cruz did not. Because he didn’t agree, the Pirates chose to renew him at the league minimum—$720,000—for 2023, very likely a penalty of sorts. We just don’t know how much of one without knowing what he was offered.
For payroll purposes, that decreases my estimate by $5,000. While that’s not important, I wanted to explain the difference and highlight what, in my opinion, is a bad look and simply unnecessary.
Last season, Cruz made $705,000, which was $5,000 over the minimum, presumably because of his two days of service time from 2021. Even though it’s a $15,000 raise in real terms, it’s effectively a pay decrease, as he would have made over the minimum had he agreed to the terms.
While it’s true that every team “punishes” a player for not accepting their terms, it doesn’t seem everyone does it the same. As the AP points out, 15 pre-arbitration players were renewed for 2023 league-wide, and five of them were for the minimum. That means the ten others will make more, ranging from $25,660 to $1,300 over the minimum.
Sure, maybe he was offered $725,000 and the penalty was a blanket $5,000, and I know this is all about precedent and formulas for the team; however, does it have to be?
—As of Wednesday, there were no other updates, but I apologize if I missed something since then.
—For 2023, the payroll estimate stands at $73,738,871 for the Labor Relations Department, while it’s $90,155,538 for CBT purposes.
