3 Pittsburgh Pirates players who are no longer worth defending

The Pittsburgh Pirates are among the worst offenses in baseball this season, which should come as a surprise to no one – except, perhaps, to the few fans who remain in denial and insist on defending mediocrity.

Injuries have been at least partly to blame for Pittsburgh's poor offensive output early in the year, but even the Pirates' healthy bats have yet to show up in an impactful way this season. After being shut out twice in their last three games, the Pirates need to take an honest look at their lineup, and fans must stop defending key pieces as they fail to produce at the plate.

3 Pittsburgh Pirates players who are no longer worth defending

Tommy Pham

Was anyone really defending Tommy Pham in the first place? He's 37 years old and on his eighth different team in the last three seasons, so it's hard to call this an objectively good free agent signing for Pittsburgh – especially when it was the only signing made to address the lack of offensive production from the Pirates' outfielders.

Pham has hit to the tune of .140/.254/.180 through his first 50 at-bats with the Pirates. If the front office truly wanted to improve their outfield offense, they had all the time in the world to pursue any number of better options via trade or free agency. But that would mean going above and beyond the bare minimum, which we should know better than to expect from this organization.

Jack Suwinski

The level of denial that Pirates fans are in with Jack Suwinski is kind of unbelievable. When are we all going to admit that he literally had one decent season in the big leagues but has otherwise been an extremely below-average player?

Through 28 at-bats this season, Suwinski is slashing .107/.265/.143. The only reason he still has a spot on the active roster is because he can play center field in the event that anything happens to Oneil Cruz (we'll get to him in a minute). Even the best version of Suwinski – the version we saw in 2023 – only hit .224/.339/.454 that season. Yes, he hit 26 home runs during that campaign, but he hasn't even come close to that number since then, nor has he done much else to prove that he belongs on a Major League roster.

Oneil Cruz

Cruz already has four errors – more than any other outfielder in baseball – and the season is less than three weeks old. Yes, it's his first full season at center field, but Cruz's offensive output simply hasn't been good enough to excuse his shoddy defense.

Cruz was supposed to be one of the key pieces carrying the Pirates' offense this season. Instead, he was batting .217/.356/.391 with a pair of homers and five RBI through his 46 at-bats (and, yes, Wednesday's grand slam was a nice shiny distraction). The fact that his .356 on-base percentage led the team entering that game is, sadly, not surprising. But let's stop defending him as a top-tier offensive power until he starts hitting like one consistently.

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