Four Realistic Free Agents That Could Make The Pittsburgh Pirates Playoff Contenders

These four free agents should be within the Pittsburgh Pirates' realistic price range, and if they were to sign some of them, could make the team a potential contender in 2024.

The off-season is far from over, and even though we are past the Winter Meetings, there are still plenty of free agents the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates want to contend next year, but they would be relying on a lot of unproven young talent. Of course, some of that young talent could boost the Pirates to a potential playoff spot, but it would be nice if they solidified their roster with some proven veterans.

As of right now, based on the Pirates’ roster and who is on the free agent market, who are some realistic free agents the Pirates could go after? On top of that, which ones could potentially make them a contender for the 2023 campaign? While I don’t think the Pirates would add all five players, adding two or three of them could significantly help the Pirates.

First baseman Brandon Belt

The Pirates’ lack first base depth in the Majors. If the season were to start right now, Connor Joe would be their answer to the position. Joe is far from a bad player, and made some promising adjustments in the second half that could make him a better and more consistent hitter moving forward, but he’s a good part-timer or platoon hitter, not someone you to rely on regularly. Adding another strong platoon hitter would significantly improve the first base depth, and production, and nobody would be a better platoon-mate for Joe than Brandon Belt.

Belt batted .254/.369/.490 last season with a .369 wOBA, and 148 wRC+. Although he struck out at a 34.9% rate, he also had a phenomenal 15.1% BB%. Only 17 batters have put up a BB% of at least 15% in 400+ PAs over the last three years, and five of them are Juan Soto and Aaron Judge. Belt’s 19 home runs is the second most he’s ever hit in his career, and his .236 ISO is his third best.

But of those 404 plate appearances Belt took, 365 were against RHP (90.4%, to be exact). Belt batted an even better .256/.375/.515 with a .381 wOBA, and 146 wRC+ when he faced opposite-handed pitching. He still struck out around 35% of the time with a 34.5% K-rate, with a similar 15.6% BB%. But all 19 of his home runs were against right-handed pitching, and his .259 ISO was the 19th highest among hitters with 350+ PAs against RHP last season.

Belt mostly served as a designated hitter last year, but he’s still a solid defensive first baseman. He had -2 defensive runs saved, but +1 out above average. UZR/150 also painted him in a positive light at +2.6. Belt may no longer contend for a Gold Glove like he did in his prime, but he’s going to give you average to above average defense at the position.

A platoon of Belt and Joe would be a strong duo at first base. If you combine Joe’s splits vs LHP and Belt’s splits vs RHP, both from 2023, you get a hitter who had 558 plate appearances, and a .259/.373/.493 batter with 24 home runs. We are playing some narrative ball here, but that’s an OPS well above .850, .866 to be exact. Just look at the kind of batters who put up an ~.860 OPS last season. Austin Riley, Corbin Carroll, Luis Arraez, and Luis Robert were all relatively close to that level of production. That’s production any team would take from one of their line-up spots, even if it took two players to do so.

RHP Seth Lugo

I’ve been spouting off about these next two all off-season, and for a good reason. They’re quality starting pitchers, and ones who will likely be relatively affordable. Seth Lugo spent the first seven years of his MLB career with the New York Mets where he was mostly a long-reliever/spot-starter. But Lugo was signed by the San Diego Padres last off-season, and was given a starting rotation spot.

Lugo ran away with it, as he pitched 146.1 innings, working to a strong 3.57 ERA, 3.83 FIP, and 1.20 WHIP. The right-hander had an above average 23.2% strikeout rate and 1.17 HR/9, however his 6% walk rate was one of the best in baseball last season. Among pitchers with at least 25 games started last year, he had the 17th lowest walk rate.

The only downside for Lugo is that he’s not young, and he’s not good at limiting hard contact. He will be 35 next season, and was below the 25th percentile in exit velocity (90.7 MPH), barrel rate (9.6%), and hard hit rate (44.2%). These were all career worsts, and from 2016-2022, he had an 88.1 MPH exit velo, 7% barrel rate, and 34.6% hard hit rate. How Lugo would age and how his hard hit rates would progress (or continue to regress) would be something to keep in mind.

But Lugo would still be a quality pitcher behind Mitch Keller and Marco Gonzales. Even though he’s older and allowed a decent amount of hard contact, he still limits walks, gets strikeouts at a good rate, and it marked the fifth time in a row in a 162 game season where he has posted a sub-4.00 ERA.

LHP Brent Suter

The Pirates lost Angel Perdomo this off-season. Not only would he sit out the entirety of the 2024 season due to Tommy John surgery, but he was claimed off waivers by the Atlanta Braves. That leaves a hole for a left-handed reliever for the Pirates. One of the better LHRP on the market is Brent Suter, who’s durability and consistent performance could give the pitching staff a much needed booster shot.

The lefty reliever pitched 69.1 innings last year, working to a 3.39 ERA, 3.44 FIP, and 1.30 WHIP. Suter’s 18.8% strikeout rate and 8.6% walk rate aren’t going to jump off the page. That’s because the name of Suter’s game is limiting hard contact. He had an 84 MPH exit velocity, 26.3% hard hit rate, and 3.3% barrel rate last season. This put him in the 97th+ percentile of each statistic. Heck, he led all pitchers in exit velocity last season. 

Unsurprisingly, he had a HR/9 rate of 0.39. But the most impressive part about all of this is that he had such a strong home run rate while pitching for the Colorado Rockies. Coors Field is consistently one of the most hitter friendly parks because of its paper thin atmosphere. Imagine how that will play in PNC Park, somewhere that’s been significantly pitcher friendly.

But how is a lefty middle reliever going to make the pitching staff that much better? Suter has pitched 209.1 innings the last three seasons, the fifth most by any reliever who has started three or fewer games. Last year, he tossed 69.1 frames. The Pirates’ have a lot of uncertainty in the starting rotation. Having a quality lefty who you know will give you upwards of 70 innings out of the pen gives the Pirates some sense of security in the bullpen. Think about how valuable Vin Mazzaro and Jeanmar Gomez were to the 2013-14 Pirates. That’s the kind of role Suter could fill.