5 more bold predictions for the 2024 Pittsburgh Pirates

There is no greater time for hope and predictions than Spring Training. There are plenty of reasons to have hope in the 2024 Pittsburgh Pirates. Between the young core in place at the big league level, the talented crop of prospects in the upper levels of the minors, and the significant steps forward the club took last season, the Pirates could make some serious noise in 2024.

March is always prediction season in baseball circles. With Spring Training now in the rear-view mirror and Opening Day now upon us, here are five bold predictions for the 2024 Pittsburgh Pirates, ranked from least to most bold:

5. Braxton Ashcraft is in the bullpen by August

The Pirates have a plethora of talented and highly-ranked arms in the minor leagues, specifically at the higher levels, and it feels like Braxton Ashcraft has been somewhat forgotten. But he shouldn't be.

Ashcraft was selected by the Pirates in the second round out of high school in 2018. He has faced three separate roadblocks in his development: a left shoulder dislocation in 2019, the COVID pandemic in 2020, and an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery and cost him the end of 2021 and all of 2022.

He has overcome the obstacles and turned into a very intriguing prospect. In his return to the mound last season, split mostly between High-A Greensboro and Double-A Altoona, the results were spectacular. In 19 appearances, all starts, Ashcraft posted a 2.39 ERA while striking out 29.6 percent of opposing hitters and walking just 5.2 percent.

That performance caught the attention of prospect pundits industry-wide, specifically Baseball America, which gave Ashcraft 60 grades (on a 20-80 scale) for his fastball, slider, and control. Among pitchers in their Top 30 Pirates prospects, only Ashcraft and Paul Skenes had their fastball, a secondary pitch, and their control graded as a 60 or better.

That plus stuff held up this spring, with Ashcraft having not allowed an earned run in four appearances. The fastball has even been up a couple of ticks from last year, now sitting 96-97 and touching 99. These are all good things—so why is he being relegated to the bullpen?

Well first off, he wasn't really a traditional starting pitcher in 2023, even though he started every game he pitched in. The Pirates eased him back into game action as he returned from his elbow injury, but the build-up wasn't exactly gradual—his usage was pretty consistent throughout the season. He made 19 starts but only pitched 52.2 innings, approximately 2.2 innings per outing. He never surpassed four innings or 62 pitches or got to face any hitter a third time.

Another reason to believe the Pirates might do this is that they have transitioned multiple pitchers into relief roles in the minor leagues in recent years in order to expedite their timeline to the majors. Two examples of this are Carmen Mlodzinski and Kyle Nicolas.

Mlodzinski, a first-round pick in 2020, first began his switch to the bullpen in Double-A Altoona in 2022, and was used exclusively out of the bullpen in Triple-A Indianapolis last year. He excelled in that role, earned a promotion to Pittsburgh in June, and pitched to a 2.25 ERA the rest of the way. He's now widely expected to be a key contributor to the Pirates' bullpen in 2024 and beyond.

Nicolas' struggles were more exaggerated, as his first 20 appearances between Altoona and Indianapolis last year resulted in a 6.10 ERA. Once he was moved to the bullpen for good in August, he saw dramatic improvement, posting a 2.05 ERA while opposing batters hit just .133 against him before he was called up to Pittsburgh in September.

Braxton Ashcraft pitching out of the bullpen wouldn't be an indictment of his abilities as a pitcher; with a 60-grade on his fastball, slider, and control, he probably could thrive in a major league bullpen right now. With how much high-end pitching the Pirates have at the upper levels (Ashcraft hasn't even pitched in Triple-A yet), moving him to the bullpen would maximize his talents and probably get him to Pittsburgh faster. I think the Pirates will realize this soon, if they haven't already.

4. Pirates set their franchise single-season home run record

The Pirates already set their Spring Training home run record this year. Might as well go for the regular season record, too.

This seems like a pretty lofty expectation, but bear with me. The Bucs have a handful of serious power threats in their lineup - Oneil Cruz and Jack Suwinski have 30+ homer potential, Bryan Reynolds is usually good for 20-25 homers each season, Ke'Bryan Hayes' bat finally broke out in the second half of last season, and 2021 #1 overall pick Henry Davis has quite a bit of thump in his bat.

The Pirates also re-signed Andrew McCutchen, who played well before getting hurt last season and is sitting on 299 career homers. Other additions include Rowdy Tellez, who homered 35 times with the Brewers in 2022, and Michael A. Taylor, who quietly hit a career-high 21 home runs last year.

The current franchise single-season home run record holder is the 1999 club. That team had four 20+ homer bats, headlined by Brian Giles, who hit 39 bombs in his first season in Pittsburgh. Also topping the 20-homer mark were Kevin Young, Al Martin, and one-hit Pirate wonder Ed Sprague.

That team, as a whole, hit 171 home runs. Fangraphs only projects three Pirates (Suwinski, Cruz, Reynolds) to surpass the 20-homer threshold in 2024, But if you add all of their projections (which are generally pretty conservative) for every player on the Pirates' Opening Day roster, you get ... 172 home runs.

That's right. Fangraphs agrees with me on this one. And that's with the team leader (Suwinski) only hitting 25 homers, and that factors in Alika Williams and Jason Delay's projections (one homer apiece) over those for Liover Peguero and the injured Yasmani Grandal.

If in fact the Pirates do get a 30-homer season from Cruz and/or Suwinski, and if Hayes and Davis continue to trend upwards at the plate, they could break the record pretty easily. But for now, I'm setting the bar at 172.

3. Henry Davis catches 108+ games

This seems like an unusual number, but there's logic behind this. Davis catching 108 games would mean that he was behind the plate for at least two-thirds of the Pirates' games in 2024. Just a handful of months ago, this would have seemed near impossible. While it still isn't exactly the most likely outcome, there's a pretty clear avenue for this to happen.

The primary component here is Davis' bat. He's got to hit. As was noted last week, Davis is one of the players most pivotal to the Pirates' success in 2024. They need him to hit and stick behind the plate. There's plenty of reason to believe the bat will hold up.

Davis has hit pretty much everywhere he has played. He posted a 1.001 OPS across three seasons at Louisville that earned him the honor of being the top pick in the 2021 draft. He continued that production into his first taste of pro ball. In 122 minor league games, he has a .947 OPS, along with 25 home runs and 20 stolen bases.

He got off to a hot start to his MLB career, as well. At the conclusion of his 27th career MLB game, in which he went 3-for-4 and homered twice off of Shohei Ohtani, he owned a .295/.391/.463 slash. Some time not long after that, he suffered a right thumb injury that he tried to play through. Over his next 24 games, until he was ultimately placed on the injured list, his production plummeted to the tune of a .125/.212/.205 slash line.

He looked really good at the plate this spring, sporting a .310/.400/.667 slash, with four home runs in just 42 at bats, while walking at about a 14 percent clip. It would be pretty astonishing if he were able to replicate any of the legs from that slash line in the 2024 regular season, but if he can carry over his power and on-base abilities, he'll be one of the premier offensive catchers in the league in short order.

Not only has he had a strong spring at the plate, but he's impressed behind it, as well. Pitchers have been singing his praises all spring as an improved game-caller, receiver, and blocker, to go along with an arm that was graded as a 70 as a prospect.

Davis worked extensively with Mike Rabelo (Pirates' third base coach and former MLB catcher) and Jordan Comadena (Pirates' bullpen catcher and former minor league catcher) on his defense throughout the winter. At the conclusion of the spring, GM Ben Cherington told the media, "At some point during the spring, we just stopped asking ourselves, 'Well, can he do this or not?' and we were just watching the games." It sure sounds like his hard work is paying off.

It's also plausible that any extended looks Davis gets behind the plate might be born of necessity. He caught all of two innings in the major leagues last year, mostly in deference to the other top catching prospect, Endy Rodriguez. However, Rodriguez tore his UCL playing winter ball, prompting the Pirates to add Ali Sanchez, who was DFA'd at the end of Spring Training, and Yasmani Grandal, who has been held out of game action for multiple weeks due to plantar fasciitis.

That leaves Jason Delay as the alternative to Davis. Delay is a plus defender who possesses a good rapport with the pitching staff, particularly Mitch Keller, who had a 2.37 ERA with Delay behind the plate last year. Delay can't hit - his .390 batting average last April was inflated by a .417 BABIP, and he was basically Austin Hedges after that - and thus, shouldn't be in the lineup consistently.

If Henry Davis continues to make strides offensively, and if his efforts to improve his defense prove fruitful, he will spend a lot of time behind the plate for the Pirates in 2024, and that's one of the key ingredients for the Bucs taking another step forward this season.

1. Pirates throw a combined no-hitter

The Pirates' bullpen figures to be one of the primary strengths of the team in 2024, as it was with the Shark Tank during the era of the mid-2010s playoff teams. The extent to which this strength fully manifests itself remains to be seen, but it sure would be fun if the Pirates accomplished a feat they haven't pulled off since 1997.

Ben Cherington entered the offseason with an obvious need in the starting rotation, and conceded that multiple additions were necessary. He accomplished that goal by trading for Marco Gonzales and signing Martin Perez to a one-year deal, but when attempts to further add to the rotation didn't materialize, Cherington pivoted and signed Aroldis Chapman.

The logic there is that beefing up the bullpen shortens games and takes pressure off of a primarily young starting staff, and adding a player with Chapman's talent and pedigree does that. At age 35, he posted a 3.09 ERA, struck out over 41 percent of opposing hitters, and still managed to average 99.6 MPH on his fastball. Slotting him as the primary set-up guy ahead of two-time All-Star closer David Bednar puts the Pirates in excellent position late in games.

This bullpen is well stocked with other weapons who, on the right day, are very tough to hit. Colin Holderman, the primary set-up option last season, throws a sinker that averages 97.9 MPH with over 15 inches of tail, as well as a devastating sweeper that induced a .185 opponent's batting average and a whiff rate over 37 percent.

Lefty Ryan Borucki flew under the radar as an in-season minor league free agent signing, but went on to lead all MLB pitchers with at least 40 innings pitched in 2024 with a 0.74 WHIP. He was particularly tough against left-handed hitters, who batted just .149 against him.

The aforementioned Carmen Mlodzinski was probably a bit luckier than his 2.25 ERA would indicate, but he throws a hard fastball and two plus secondary pitches, and didn't allow a batting average higher than .229 or a slugging percentage higher than .316 against any of those pitches. Had he thrown enough innings to qualify, his four percent barrel rate would have finished in the 94th percentile.

Neither Roansy Contreras nor Luis Ortiz were able to secure a spot in the starting rotation, but both pitchers found themselves in the bullpen, at least to start the season. They each suffered a dip in fastball velocity in 2023 but tinkered with their approach and mechanics throughout the winter and spring. Pitching shorter outings should allow their fastballs to ramp back up to their original velocity, and with each pitcher also throwing a plus slider, they could thrive in relief roles.

Manager Derek Shelton has plenty of weapons at his disposal when he needs to make the call to the bullpen. In the event that a starter - perhaps a young starter like Jared Jones or Paul Skenes - gets through only four or five innings, but does so without allowing a hit, this bullpen is more than capable of putting up more zeroes and placing themselves in the history books.