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Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Ben Cherington acknowledged at his end-of-season press conference that fans' patience with the club's seemingly never-ending rebuild was wearing particularly thin. The club needs to start winning, and they need to start winning now.
Exploring the free-agent market is the most obvious course of action for a team that needs to get better, faster. But Cherington has already gone on record as saying that, while free agency is going to be a "component" of the Pirates' offseason, it will not be how the club chooses to "drive winning."
Translation: The Pirates won't be making any big splashes on the free-agent market this offseason. Surprise, surprise.
There are a number of free agents on the market this offseason who would be "fits" for the Pirates in terms of filling areas of need on the roster, but financially speaking, very few of them could be considered realistic options for Pittsburgh.
In their ranking of the Top 50 free agents in 2024-25, the staff at MLB Trade Rumors made fleeting mentions of the Pirates as a team that could use the likes of Jurickson Profar, Joc Pederson, Harrison Bader and others. But the free agents they actually project to land in Pittsburgh are far less impressive. Again – surprise, surprise.
Pirates fans will really hate these free agency predictions for Pittsburgh
Tyler O'Neill
The MLBTR staff is especially high on Tyler O'Neill in Pittsburgh, with two out of four writers choosing the Pirates as the outfielder's most likely landing spot. On the surface, it doesn't sound bad – O'Neill is a power bat who hit 31 home runs in just 473 plate appearances across 113 games for the Boston Red Sox in 2024, which is seven more that Bryan Reynolds' team-leading 24 homers for the Pirates this past season.
But there are some red flags. First, O'Neill strikes out a lot, doing so in more than one-third of his plate appearances in 2024. There's also his injury history; he's landed on the Injured List 14 times in his MLB career, including three times in this past season alone. As a result, he's only reached 120 games or 500 plate appearances in just one of his seven MLB seasons – 2021, when he slashed a career-best .286/.352/.560 with 34 homers.
MLBTR predicts O'Neill's next contract to be three years at $42 million. That's steep by Pirates standards, even for a player who doesn't carry O'Neill's red flags. If the Pirates managed to pull this off, it would undoubtedly be their biggest "splash" in free agency this winter ... which would be underwhelming, to say the least.
Michael Conforto
Michael Conforto is another corner outfielder linked to the Pirates by MLBTR, and at a more reasonable projected price of two years, $18 million – though, if we're being honest, that's still probably going to be too expensive for this Pirates team.
Conforto slashed .237/.309/.450 in 488 plate appearances across 130 games for the San Francisco Giants in 2024, which, sadly, would make him a top-3 hitter in the Pirates' lineup – though that says more about the Pirates than it does about him.
Conforto wouldn't be an altogether bad choice, but he's not the best option available. And $9 million per year is an awful lot for a cost-conscious team to pony up for a passable defender with a just-okay bat.
David Robertson
Ah, yes. The Cherington special. Use most of what little funds you have in free agency to bring in the veteran reliever who's pushing 40 on a one-year, eight-figure deal.
In fairness, this strategy worked out favorably for the Pirates last year, when they signed Aroldis Chapman to a one-year, $10 million contract. The 36-year-old lefty used a 22-hold, 14-save campaign in 2024 to show that he's not over the hill yet, which will allow him to draw plenty of interest on the free-agent market this offseason and make him too expensive for the Pirates to re-sign.
MLBTR likes the Pirates to pull off a similar signing ahead of the 2025 season, inking 39-year-old David Robertson to a projected one-year, $11 million deal. Pittsburgh needs a high-leverage bullpen arm and could theoretically afford Robertson with Chapman's salary coming off the books, but taking big financial risks on aging relievers for one year at a time hardly feels like a recipe for sustained success.
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