Pittsburgh Pirates: Attempting to Construct a Realistic Off-Season

Let's attempt to put together what a realistic off-season could look like for the Pittsburgh Pirates based on the amount of money they spent last fall and winter

The Pittsburgh Pirates are coming up on a pivotal off-season. After a solid 2023 campaign, they’ll look to build off their momentum in the second half of the year and try to avoid such a horrible mid-June and mid-July. However, they’ll definitely need to bring in some reinforcements this upcoming off-season.

I’ve previously written about what a perfect Pirates off-season would look like in my vision. But I wasn’t really considering payroll or realism when writing that article. It was mostly looking at what I believe to be the best combination of players the Pirates could go after. Today, I want to give a more realistic take.

I am trying to accomplish that by putting one self-limitation, and that’s keeping a budget within $1 million of 40 million, so anything around $39 million to $41 million. The Pirates spent $37.205 million on trade and free-agent acquisitions. I decided on $40 million as that would be about a $3 million increase in off-season spending from the previous winter. I will also track an estimated amount through each entry.