3 massive problems the Pirates' front office needs to deal with right now

Cut bait with a bad player

First base was an obvious position that this Pirates team could add some thump to the middle of a lineup lacking some run production. The offseason crop was also ripe with solid options to accomplish this. They had options like Rhys Hoskins, Carlos Santana, Brandon Belt (if he still wants a job, it's there), Justin Turner, Jeimer Candelario...you see the point? They had quite a bit of options to fill in the role, and yet, they end up with a bat only first baseman coming off a 78 wRC+ season with 13 home runs.

I know Tellez had a 35-home run season in 2022, but did ownership really think that would happen again in the pitcher friendly PNC Park? Not to mention, aside from the 2022 season, Tellez had 57 home runs across five different seasons. It seems pretty obvious what the outlier season was.

Tellez just looks lost at the plate and pretty much every metric supports that: he is finding less barrels and not hitting the ball as hard. Not to mention, he is swinging at terrible pitches and watching fastballs right down the middle; this kills the team's momentum, especially with runners in scoring position.

At some point you have to admit that it just isn't working out and cut bait. The Rowdy Tellez experiment hasn't worked thus far, and the Pirates need to give up and move on from it before it ends up costing them more games. They have plenty of internal options for his replacement that will surely provide better at-bats than the 29-year-old lefty.