Pittsburgh Pirates: Position Group in the Biggest Need of Help

The Pittsburgh Pirates are in the middle of their rebuild and have a future at each position, but what is one position that would further them along?

The Pittsburgh Pirates still need an upgrade/help at a variety of positions. The one position that I think needs the most help is relief pitching. Although it isn’t a popular position to heavily target in free agency, I think if the Pirates bring in a couple of players the team will have more success this year, especially if some top prospects come up.

The Pittsburgh bullpen has not been very good in recent years. This free agency class of relief pitchers should be where the Pittsburgh Pirates extend many offers to many different pitchers no matter the price tag.

But the one downside is most of them are starting to enter their mid-30s or are at that point and won’t be around much longer. Still, there are young enough options to where the Pirates can send whatever low-money offer and possibly get some help in that area.

The Pirates had one of the eight worst bullpen ERAs that stood at 4.55. The Pirates were also ranked 29th in saves with 25. The Pirate bullpen was in the bottom 10 of almost every major pitching category from the bullpen and that is not a way to win games. Most of Pittsburgh’s current roster in the bullpen would not even reside in the major leagues if they were on other teams, there is so little depth in that area right now.

The Pirates are going to need to target the Daniel Hudsons or the Jakob Junis of the free agency class to reel in arms for the bullpen. The Pittsburgh Pirates need to get rid of players like Luis Oviedo, Cody Ponce, and Tanner Anderson and replace them with proven options until the Pirates are able to sign better and younger players in this area or when prospects come up, you can never have too many pitchers and the Pirates should take full advantage of that saying.