Three Off-Season Goals for the Pittsburgh Pirates

With the regular season now over, the Pittsburgh Pirates will head into the off-season, and these are three tasks they need to get done this winter.

The 2020 Major League Baseball regular season is now over. The Pittsburgh Pirates finished with the worst record in all of baseball at 19-41. That’s not inherently a bad thing either as they now have the number one overall pick in the 2021 MLB Draft.

This gives them the opportunity to draft Kumar Rocker or Jack Leiter, two pitchers who are considered to have pitches that would already play well in the big leagues. Or any other player that the Pittsburgh Pirates deem worthy of the top pick in the draft.

But before we get to the draft, the Pirates need to take a trip through the off-season. This off-season will be very different from previous ones considering just how much uncertainty there was this year. Regardless, they have some tasks to complete this off-season, and here are three I think they to get done.

Will all three of these get accomplished? We will have to wait and see. But these three tasks are certainly ones that Pirate general manager Ben Cherington needs to look to accomplish this off-season.

Depth, Lots Of It

Adding depth to the roster needs to be another priority for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Aside from the middle infield, the Pirates lack a decent amount of outfield depth and pitching depth that is MLB ready.

Last off-season, the Pirates signed seven minor league deals. Mostly, they were position players, and the only two pitchers they signed were Derek Holland and Robbie Erlin. Now granted, you shouldn’t expect them to make any big deals when it comes to free agency this winter. But right now, the Pirates need to be looking for cheap veterans they can sign to minor league deals that have some potential upside.

Guys like Brock Holt, Billy Hamilton, Jake Lamb, Steven Souza Jr., Joe Panik, or Adeiny Hechavarria would be good low cost utility men that may or may not turn into something notable. On the pitching side of things, Jeff Samardzjia, Tommy Milone, Alex Wood, Chris Devenski, Jared Hughes, Luis Avalian, Ross Detwiler, and Andrew Chafin might also turn into solid minor league signings.

Aside from making a handful of minor legue deal signings, this team needs a durable starting pitcher. They need an innings eater, and signing someone like Mike Minor or Julio Teheran on a cheap, one year ‘rebuild your value’ kind of deal would be great.

Sell High On Pitchers

The Pittsburgh Pirates are going to need depth because it’s time they sell high on some of their core pieces from 2020. One player that ended 2020 on a high note was Joe Musgrove. After a rough start to the year that included an injury that kept him out nearly all of August, Musgrove returned to put up very solid numbers in September.

Through his final 25 innings of the year, the right hander had a 2.16 ERA, 1.39 FIP and 1.95 xFIP. He walked just five of the 98 batters he faced, and struck out 38 of them, resulting in an outstanding 7.6 K/BB ratio. This, combined with his solid work in the last two seasons, and control through the 2022 season, Musgrove could prove to be a valuable asset in the trade market.

Recently, relief pitchers, even ones that aren’t elite, are going for a lot on the trade market, and the Pittsburgh Pirates might want to capitalize right now with Richard Rodriguez. Rich Rod had a nice bounce back campaign, pitching to the tune of a 2.70 ERA, 2.83 FIP and an outstanding 0.86 WHIP through 23.1 innings of work. After his HR/9 was approaching 2 per game in 2019, that has since lowered to a solid 1.16 per 9 rate. He also saw his strikeout rate raise to a career high 36.6% rate and walk rate drop to a career low 5.4% rate. His ERA estimators pinned him as excellent as well with a 2.83 xFIP and 2.40 SIERA.

The one issue Rodriguez faced was batted ball numbers. Opponents had a 91.8 MPH exit velocity and 51% hard hit rate, both in the bottom 3% of MLB pitchers in 2020. Still, his xERA which takes into account batted ball numbers was at a solid 3.28 and his xBA was strong .218 mark. He is controlled through the next three seasons.

Now I don’t want them to trade both Musgrove and Rodriguez just to trade them. There is no major rush if Ben Cherington doesn’t get offered what he wants. This goes for Frazier as well since he has two years of control left. But both Rodriguez and Musgrove are coming off strong seasons. Unless they can work out an extension with Musgrove, he probably isn’t going to be around the next time the Pirates are in contention, so I think the best course of action is to capitalize while their trade values are high.