Pittsburgh Pirates: Checking in on Players Who Departed in the Offseason

The Pittsburgh Pirates shed three players throughout the 2021-2022 off-season who played regular roles with the 2021 team. So where are they now?

Last month, we looked at where players the Pittsburgh Pirates have traded throughout this rebuild. This included players such as Josh Bell, Starling Marte, Joe Musgrove, Jameson Taillon, etc. There were plenty of former Bucs to see where they are now.

However, I want to take a look at where the most recent former Pittsburgh Pirates players are. I’m talking about guys who’ve been traded, released, or non-tendered this past offseason. We’re over a month into the 2022 campaign, and I thought we’d look at how some of these players have kicked off the new year.

I’m only looking at guys who played at least one entire season with the Pittsburgh Pirates and are still playing or are currently on an active Major League roster. So honorable mentions to Gregory Polanco, Wilmer Difo, Phillip Evans, Steven Brault, Kyle Crick, and Cody Ponce.

Catcher Jacob Stallings

Trading Jacob Stallings was a severe blow to the gut, at least to me, as I was a huge Stallings fan. Stallings provided the 2021 Pirates with a top 10 catcher. In 427 plate appearances, Stallings only batted .246/.335/.369 with a .312 wOBA and 95 wRC+, but he made up for below-average offense with the best defense in the league.

Stallings led all of Major League Baseball in defensive runs saved. He racked up +21 DRS while also posting +8.8 framing runs. Only Oakland Athletics’ backstop Sean Murphy had a higher framing runs total, at +9.7. Stallings took home his first Gold Glove at the end of the day, which even he probably wouldn’t have thought he would get when the team DFA’d him back in 2016.

The Bucs sadly traded him to the Miami Marlins for three players this past offseason. That package included right-handers Zach Thompson and Kyle Nicolas and outfielder Connor Scott. Although I, along with many other Pirate fans, still greatly miss Stallings, he hasn’t done all that well in Miami, at least so far.

Stallings has batted just .164/.240/.224 with a .219 wOBA and 44 wRC+, which is about 50% worse than his 2021 numbers. His elite defense from last year has yet to show up in 2022. He does have +1 defensive run saved but has been terrible at framing. Currently, he has -1.8 framing runs, which is very un-Stallings-like. He’s averaged about eight framing runs every 800 innings caught in 2019 through last season.

Infielder Colin Moran

Colin Moran was never that great of a hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates, but he was consistently average. From the time the Pirates acquired him in the Gerrit Cole trade in the 2017-2018 off-season up until the Bucs traded him in the 2021-2022 offseason, Moran batted .269/.331/.419 with a .321 wOBA and 100 wRC+.

Although he was an average hitter, he was a terrible defender at third base and first base. Moran served as the team’s primary hot corner defender in 2018 and 2019, where he had -27 DRS, a -12.2 UZR/150, and -14 outs above average. Both DRS and OAA pinned him as the worst defensive third baseman in the league those two years. Moran started to get regular reps over at first base in 2020 when Ke’Bryan Hayes began to get playing time, but things didn’t improve. He had -4 DRS, a -6.1 UZR/150, and -2 outs above average, and the only reason he wasn’t worse was that he missed time with injuries in the two seasons.

After the 2021 season and the Pittsburgh Pirates re-signing Yoshi Tsutusgo and picking up Daniel Vogelbach on the free-agent market, having Mason Martin coming up through the system and Michael Chavis on hand, the Pirates decided to non-tender Moran.

Moran was picked up by the Reds on a minor league deal and has split time between third base and first base for the division rival. Even after his two-home run game on Sunday against the Pirates, he’s still been a well below-average hitter. Moran is currently batting just .208/.274/.340 with a .273 wOBA and 72 wRC+.

Left-Handed Reliever Chasen Shreve

The Pirates picked up left-handed reliever Chasen Shreve on a minor league deal in February 2021. Although he was a minor-league signee, he ended up playing a pretty big role for the Pirates out of the bullpen. Overall, he was a solid reliever for the team.

In 56.1 innings of work, Shreeve pitched to the tune of a 3.20 ERA and 1.26 WHIP, albeit with a 4.73 FIP. While Shreeve was solid, he got lucky more times than not. He had an 11.9% walk rate and 1.12 HR/9 rate. Usually, a lot of walks and home runs are a recipe for disaster. It also didn’t help he had a sub-20% K-rate. Despite his low ERA, Shreeve had a 4.93 SIERA and 5.15 xFIP.

After the season, Shreve was non-tendered and then picked up on a minor league contract by the New York Mets. Shreve’s contract eventually was selected, and he’s pitched pretty well since. In 11.2 innings, Shreve has allowed just two earned runs with 17 K’s and two walks. Although he’s been home run prone throughout his career, he’s yet to allow a long ball this year. The likely cause of this is because of his single-season career-best 30.4% fly-ball rate.