The second half of the 2024 MLB season kicks off tonight, with the Pittsburgh Pirates hosting a three-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies this weekend.
This has been a much more enjoyable Pirates season to follow than the 2020-2023 years, and even better than most of the 2016-2019 seasons. The easiest way to tell is by looking at the schedule.
No, not the remaining schedule this year. The 2025 schedule that was released yesterday.
In any of those other seasons, this might be welcome news to start looking forward to the following season. This year, who cares about next season? There are plenty of things to look forward to this season.
Here are the three things I’ll be looking forward to the rest of the way:
1. Paul Skenes
With a three-game series taking place at home against the Phillies this weekend, Paul Skenes won’t be on the mound.
The rookie phenom started the NL All-Star Game this week, and is going to exceed his career high in innings, as well as pitching longer in a season than he ever has. If the Pirates are going to make the playoffs, they’ll need to find the right mix of managing his workload in the short-term to also allow for wins that will provide the need for him to pitch in October. You can’t fault them for giving him a bit of a breather.
Every start from Skenes is an event. I don’t think the Pirates have ever had a pitcher like this. The best pitcher season I’ve ever seen in Pittsburgh has been Oliver Perez, in 2004. I wasn’t a Pirates fan, and was too young, to properly put Doug Drabek into perspective. The Pirates had good pitchers during their 1970s World Series teams. Skenes is different.
Skenes is already performing like one of the best pitchers in the game, and he continues to show that no challenge is too big for him. The Pirates aren’t challenging him with the NL East leading Phillies, who sit 62-34 with the best record in baseball. Instead, he’ll likely go up against the division rival St. Louis Cardinals on either Monday or Tuesday.
I’ll be watching to see if the entire team can band together to reach the playoffs. I’ll be watching this entire rotation. But the Skenes starts are ones where you mark your calendar for the opportunity to watch one of the best in the game, at the outset of what will no doubt be an impressive career.
2. The Trade Deadline
The clock is ticking on Skenes. In fact, if he wins the Rookie of the Year award this year, he would end up getting a full year of service time, even though the Pirates called him up in May for less than a full-season of active service. That means he’d be a free agent after the 2029 season.
I don’t want to get into the debate of extending him into the 2030s. A meteor could wipe out this entire planet’s population by that point, and as it comes crashing down, human beings in Pittsburgh will have the same thought that went through the mind of the dinosaurs: “I wish I had spent more time watching Paul Skenes pitch, rather than thinking about when all of this might end.”
I will say that you would have to be completely inept at business if you owned a baseball team and let Skenes walk. I’m not going to name names, but if you own a baseball team, and you let Paul Skenes walk after 2029, when he’s likely to be one of the best in the game in his prime, no one with your last name should ever be able to own and/or operate a business for at least three generations.
All you need to do is watch and listen to the crowds on TV to see that having such an elite player on the field brings Pirates fans more entertainment, and brings more of them to PNC Park, than a gimmick hot dog ever could.
Pirates fans are starved for a winner.
They want a reason to go to PNC Park and witness — and this is a novel concept, so try and wrap your mind around it for a bit — good baseball. Winning baseball. The kind where you can relax at the park after your own work is done, and trust that the players on the field are going to give their absolute best for the entire game — with their absolute best being enough to win most games.
The Pirates can provide a reason to go to the games, beyond Skenes. The MLB trade deadline is approaching, and the Pirates are exiting their rebuild into a chance to actually contend. They don’t need to sell the farm this year to add an upgrade. The upgrade need is clearly on offense, and the Pirates could upgrade their team with anything from a rental for the remainder of 2024, all the way to an impact player who could help beyond this season.
My own personal preference would be Randy Arozarena, but that’s mostly because he’s one of my favorite players in the league. It’s also because he could seriously upgrade this offense, and with two more years of control, that upgrade could extend through the 2026 season. He had a slow start to the season, but has a .368 wOBA and a 145 wRC+ since the start of June. The only Pirates hitters who have been better during that span are Rowdy Tellez, All-Star Bryan Reynolds, and Joshua Palacios in a smaller sample.
The question would be where to play Arozarena? He mostly plays left field, which is occupied by Reynolds. He hasn’t played right field since 2022. He’s played 48.1 innings in center field this year, but that’s out of 91 in his MLB career. He’d be the best hitter they could add, with no clear spot on defense.
The Pirates probably should bank on Tellez being their first baseman for the remainder of the season. He’s earned it with his season turnaround the last six weeks.
Palacios is an interesting guy who deserves to keep getting chances at the MLB level. Adding a corner outfielder like Arozarena would reduce the playing time of Palacios, so the Pirates would have to determine how much they trust him and Jack Suwinski — who has stepped up this month with above-average offense — for the remainder of the year.
If they’re fine at the corner outfield spot and at first base, then center field would be an upgrade possibility. Michael A. Taylor has some of the best outfield defense in the league, but well below-average hitting. If the Pirates could upgrade center field with a better hitter who wouldn’t lose all of the defensive value from Taylor, then this would be their most impactful upgrade path. One thing about the Pirates pitching staff is they allow the lowest percentage of fly balls in the league, which somewhat reduces the need for outfield defense.
Whether it’s adding the home run celebrations from Arozarena, or a more tactical and sensible center field option, this team could use an upgrade. It would be a waste of a year of Skenes to do nothing, or to sell, when the team is so close to the playoffs with a quality rotation that could make the post-season exciting.
3. The Playoff Push
The Pirates enter their game on Friday night with a 48-48 record, sitting directly at .500, after finishing the first half with a sweep of the Chicago White Sox. They’ve got one of the more difficult schedules in the league during the second half, based on their opponents’ current win/loss totals. They are still in the mix for the playoffs.
In the NL Central race, the Pirates are 6.5 games back from the Milwaukee Brewers. A more obtainable goal would be a Wild Card spot, where they currently sit 1.5 games back.
With one of the best young pitchers in the game in Skenes, a quality pitching staff joining him, and the chance to upgrade the offense at the deadline, the Pirates should be able to push their way to the playoffs.
Bonus. The Prospects
This being Pirates Prospects, I’ll be watching the minor league system daily, keeping track of the best performers of the future Pirates.
Yesterday, I recapped the best hitters and pitchers at each level of the system in the first half. In the second half, I’m looking forward to the hitting from Charles McAdoo in Altoona, along with a lot of likely pitching promotions throughout the system. Hopefully that list is led by Bubba Chandler going to Triple-A.
Pirates Prospect Watch: The Best Hitters and Pitchers At Each Level in the First Half
If you missed the MLB Draft coverage this week, catch up with my column grading the 2024 Pirates selections.
You can also follow the 2024 Draft Pick Signing Tracker for all of the completed deals over the next few weeks, with August 1st at 5 PM being the deadline.
