3 players who are entering their final days with the Pirates

We are officially in the final stretch of the 2024 season, and with the impending offseason comes inevitable roster turnover for every MLB team.

With less than a month remaining in the season, it will soon be time to say goodbye to a few members of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Some goodbyes will be more difficult than others, but none of these should come as a huge surprise. Below are three players – two pitchers and one position player – who are entering their final days with the Pirates.

3 players who are entering their final days with the Pirates

3. Aroldis Chapman

Veteran Aroldis Chapman has easily been the Pirates' most effective left-handed reliever this season, and the team would undoubtedly love to have him back next year. The likelihood of him returning to Pittsburgh, however, is practically zero.

At $10.5 million, Chapman is the highest-paid player on the Pirates' roster, and he is only signed for the 2024 season. He will want a bigger payday in 2025, and, frankly, he's earned one. But the Pirates are notoriously stingy and won't want to shell out that kind of cash for one more year of an aging reliever, no matter how electric his stuff may be.

Chapman's killer velocity and shutdown ability would be extremely valuable assets for any team's bullpen, but especially for a legitimate playoff contender. This offseason, you certainly can't blame him if he signs with a team that actually cares about winning.

2. Yasmani Grandal

Like Chapman, veteran catcher Yasmani Grandal signed a one-year contract with the Pirates this past offseason. Unlike Chapman, though, Grandal is much more affordable at $2.5 million. Still, Joey Bart's emergence this season has made Grandal's salary too hefty for a backup catcher, especially with young backstops like Henry Davis and Endy Rodriguez waiting in the wings.

Grandal has certainly been valuable to the Pirates during his one season in Pittsburgh, serving as rookie phenom Paul Skenes' preferred battery mate and stepping up as the team's primary starter when Bart went down with a hamstring injury in August. But he was never meant to be a long-term solution for the Pirates at catcher.

1. Marco Gonzales

This one should be the least surprising of all. Veteran southpaw Marco Gonzales made just seven starts as a serviceable, back-of-the-rotation option for the Pirates, who acquired him from the Atlanta Braves in a trade this past offseason. The Pirates placed Gonzales on the 60-day injured list with a left forearm strain Aug. 12, and later announced that he would be undergoing season-ending flexor tendon surgery – his second forearm surgery in just over a year.

Gonzales' contract technically contains a $15 million club option for 2025, but the Pirates are almost certain to decline it. In the extremely likely case that that happens, he will become a free agent this offseason.

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