Pittsburgh Pirates: Three Non-Tender Candidates

Jose Osuna

Another player who has a high possibility to get non-tendered is Jose Osuna. Osuna has been a bench bat for the Pittsburgh Pirates since 2017. Since arriving in MLB, Osuna owns a .241/.280/.430 line through 705 plate appearances. That comes out to an 86 OPS+ and 84 wRC+.

Osuna had his best work in 2019 when he hit .264/.310/.456 with a 99 OPS+ and 97 wRC+ in 285 plate appearances. Overall, league average production, but it’s much inflated by a two and a half month stretch from June through Mid-August. In this 126 plate appearance stretch, Osuna was hitting .328/.360/.638 with a 153 wRC+.

However, this very small amount of plate appearances is the only time he’s been truly good at the plate. In his first 338 plate appearances of his career, he hit .231/.236/.417 with a 79 OPS+ and 76 wRC+. This year in 82 plate appearances, Osuna posted a .205/.244/.397 with a 72 OPS+ and 69 wRC+.

Osuna can play multiple positions with experience at both corner infield and outfield spots, but isn’t necessarily a great defender at any of the three positions. Osuna has the most innings in the outfield, but has been quite ineffective with -8 DRS, -7.1 UZR and -6.2 range runs above average through 560.2 innings. He’s played first base often as well where he has -1 DRS, -1 UZR and -0.1 range runs above average through 507 innings. He has proven to be a solid third base defender with 0 DRS, but +1.1 UZR and 0.1 range runs above average, but this is through just 175 innings at the hot corner.

Overall, an 85-90 wRC+ guy with a below average glove at multiple positions is not a guy the Pirates need to keep around. He does have one option left, so if the price to keep him is around league minimum I could see a small possibility they keep him around, but I’d rather them give the playing time they’d usually give to Osuna to Will Craig or Kevin Kramer.