Compiling and comparing the WAR of moves by the Pirates

Baseball offseason is always very interesting. At least for most of the League, for the Pirates it typically is not. Usually, it consists of the Pirates making a bunch of bottom-of-the-barrel type moves, bringing in veterans on cheap 1-year deals, or prospects who have been labeled a bust and likely will continue to be. We have seen the team sign the likes of Derek Holland, Rich Hill, Jose Quintana, Carlos Santana, Ji-man Choi, and Ben Gamel.

The Pirates once again followed this trend during the 2023-2024 offseason. The team was a little more aggressive in acquiring players, but the impact has not really been there yet. Several new players have contributed very little to the Pirates cause. Of course, a lot of their in-house players continue to struggle as well.

This offseason the team made several acquisitions for the 2024 Major League Club. This group was led by hard-throwing lefty reliever Aroldis Chapman. On the offensive side, the team brought in several players with Michael A. Taylor leading this group.

Overall it has not been very good results for the Pirates and their new additions. FanGraphs provides WAR, so I decided to compile the total WAR of the new additions. Michale A. Taylor leads the new Pirates with a WAR of 0.4. For the new pitchers, lefty Martin Perez leads all Pirates with a WAR of 0.9.

Overall the new additions to the Pirates have compiled for 1.1 WAR. This is considering 12 offensive players who were brought in this offseason. So that breaks down to just under 0.1 WAR per player. Not very impressive. Martin Perez also helps make up a large chunk of that number at 0.9 with Rowdy Telez bringing the number down the most at -0.7.

For comparison's sake, I decided to look at a few other teams' news acquisitions and the WAR they have produced. The Cincinnati Reds are the first team I looked at. Most of their team has been built through internal development. However, they did bring in 7 new players. These players have totaled for a 0.7 WAR. A very similar rate to what the news players posted for the Pirates.