Pirates' maligned outfield options projected to have surprisingly solid seasons

FanGraphs has recently released their ZiPS projections for all Major League Baseball players entering the 2025 campaign, and their projections for the Pittsburgh Pirates feature some surprising names slated to perform well next season.

The ones that may stick out the most to curious fans are the projections for two Pirates outfielders they believe will break out in 2025. Although neither player is coming off a stupendous season, they both are projected to be solid contributors in 2025.

Of course, a set of projections shouldn't be an excuse for the Pirates not to add another outfielder; it's a poor one, at best. The more high-level depth, the better. Tommy Pham may not be great, but at least he represents a swing. At the end of the day, these are only educated guesses. Nobody has a crystal ball or DeLorean time machine to tell you how players will perform. While these projects may have some value, no team or fan should solely rely on them to evaluate players. If the Pirates do heavily believe in these projections, then it's up to them to help their players reach them via coaching and player development.

That said, one of the Pirates players they foresee breaking out is Joshua Palacios. Palacios only has 342 plate appearances over the last two seasons with the Bucs, and has hit .236/.291/.398 with a .299 wOBA and 84 wRC+. Palacios has run into some home runs, with a dozen long balls and a respectable .162 isolated slugging percentage. He also has a sub-20% strikeout rate at 19.9%, although he rarely walks with a 6.4% free pass percentage.

But FanGraphs' ZiPS has the clutch-hitting outfielder slashing a solid .263/.327/.413 with a .322 wOBA and 104 wRC+ through 354 plate appearances in a theoretical 2025 campaign. He is projected to walk in 7.3% of his plate appearances with a 20.9% K%. ZiPS also has Palacios going yard nine times with a .150 isolated slugging percentage.

This may seem surprising, since Palacios hasn't done anything extraordinary to earn such an optimistic projection (aside for some clutch hits), but his underlying numbers are decent andcould lead to a breakout. Since joining the Pirates, Palacios has a .429 xSLG%, .325 xwOBA, 91 MPH exit velocity, and 8.6% barrel percentage. All four of these stats are above average. Unlike ZiPS, these numbers aren't projections. They're based on batted ball data, so they should hold more weight. Based on exit velocity and launch angle alone (seven degrees, in this case), Palacios has numbers similar to those of some pretty solid batters like Michael Harris III and Lars Nootbaar.

ZiPS has both Jack Suwinski and Joshua Palacios making somewhat surprising leaps forward for Pirates

Notably, ZiPS also has Jack Suwinski rebounding. In 2024, Suwinski hit a disappointing .182/.264/.324 with a .260 wOBA and 62 wRC+ through 277 plate appearances. Although Suwinski cut down his K% to a still below-league average 28.8% rate, he still put up poor numbers regardless. Suwinski saw his walk rate plummet to 9.7%, and hit just nine home runs with a .142 isolated slugging percentage. His ISO was nearly 100 points lower than it had been in 2023.

Regardless, FanGraphs projects Suwinski to hit .231/.323/.442 with a .330 wOBA and 109 wRC+. Although ZiPS sees Suwinski's K% rising back up to 29.7%, it also sees his walk rate climbing back above 10% to 11.2%. His power is also projected to rebound, with 22 home runs and a .211 isolated slugging percentage.

Suwinski is still only one year removed from putting up a quality .224/.339/.454 triple-slash, .341 wOBA, and 112 wRC+ in 534 plate appearances in 2023. He may have struck out nearly a third of the time with a 32.2% K%, but he also drew a walk in 14.4% of his plate appearances while going yard 26 times with a .230 ISO. He was one of only eight qualified batters with a walk rate over 12% and an ISO over .220. Suwinski also showed some rebound potential during the season's last month at Triple-A.

For the Pirates' sake, they'd better hope that Suwinski and Palacios play up to these numbers. All we can do now is hope that either the Pirates' addition of Pham thrives, so they aren't relying on these projections, or that Suwinski and/or Palacios play like they're projected to.