Pirates bats are lacking, 2024 Draft Class has plenty to offer

After the last couple of weeks of Pirates Baseball, it has become obvious that the team's offense still has a long way to go in terms of improvement. The thought was that the bullpen would be strong, the offense would be improving, and hopefully, the starting pitching could be good enough.

Instead, the Pirates have scored over 3 runs in a game just once in the last couple of weeks. They currently sit at 18th overall for team batting average, have struck out the 6th most of any team, and are also in the bottom 10 for OPS. This is mainly due to some players not performing even remotely close to expectations.

The most obvious person who matches this description in the lineup is Henry Davis. Davis has not been a below-average hitter, he has been one of the worst hitters in the National League. On the year he is batting just .180 with an OPS of .515. He was a first-overall pick and is not even close to performing at league average, let alone like a can't miss prospect.

The same can be said for some of the other players as well. A guy like Jack Suwinski continues to be streaky at the plate and looks like he has not developed much compared to what he was at this time last year. Jared Triolo has regressed with the bat, Oneil Cruz and Andrew McCutchen have gotten off to slow starts.

It is hard to be inspired by this team's offense going forward. They also do not have any top 100 hitting prospects left in their system. So there is no help on the horizon. This is why my preference at the time of the 2023 Draft was to select Wyatt Langford. This is not me revising my stance by any means, but obvisouly Paul Skenes was worth the pick and I am more than pumped to see him soon.

The good news is that the Pirates most likely will have an opportunity to grab a college bat in this year's Draft.

The team at MLB Pipeline believes that this Draft class is definitely headlined by college hitters. With the 9th overall pick, the team could be in a position to grab one of these prospects. The team also has the 37th overall pick and 47th overall pick. After putting together a couple of pitching-heavy draft classes, maybe the Pirates will go hitter-heavy this year.