Pittsburgh Pirates: Three Sleeper Picks to Watch in 2024

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Don't sleep on these three Pittsburgh Pirates players. They have the potential to make an impact for the team this season.

A sleeper player is described as a player who is “generally undervalued but carries significant upside.” The Pittsburgh Pirates definitely have a handful of these kinds of players on their roster. They have a handful of different players who have the potential to break out or rebound next year based on some of their underlying numbers or based on improvements they made in the second half of the season or later.

These are the kinds of players that we will be looking at today. Whether they showed some improvements in 2023 or something that could make them a standout player in 2024 but were generally glossed over by Pirates fans or the greater baseball world, they will be on today’s list.

Joshua Palacios

Joshua Palacios captured the hearts of many Pirates fans in 2023 with his consistent, incredibly clutch hits. In late and close games, Palacios had 13 hits, nearly all of which were extra-base hits (four home runs and doubles, one triple), six walks, and just eight strikeouts in 45 plate appearances. Palacios mostly served as a 4th outfielder for the team during the second half of the season.

Palacios’ overall line was not impressive. He only batted .209/.279/.413 with a .297 wOBA, and 83 wRC+. On the plus side, he did hit for above-average power, hitting ten homers in 264 plate appearances with an above-average 21.2% strikeout rate. But he also struggled to draw walks with a 4.5% walk rate, leading to a BB:K ratio of 0.21. Palacios did show off good power with a 91.3 MPH exit velocity, 10.3% barrel rate, and 45.4% hard-hit rate. His 7.7-degree launch angle, however, was a tad low.

Baseball Savant was very optimistic about Palacios’ overall performance. He had an expected .259/.318/.438 triple-slash and .318 xwOBA. That comes out to a .758 OPS. That’s comparable production to Eddie Rosario, Spencer Torkelson, or J.T. Realmuto. The league average triple-slash, OPS and wOBA was .248/.320/.414, .734, and .318. That would make him an average to slightly above league-average batter in most regards.

According to Baseball Savant and Statcast, Palacios’ batted ball profile is very similar to four players from 2023: Michael Harris II, Eloy Jimenez, Ryan O’Hearn, and Freddy Fermin (they do include a fifth comparison in Brendan Rogers, but he received less than 200 plate appearances, which is why I left him off). These four batters combined for a .284/.323/.465 slash (OPS of .788).

The most similar of these four batters in 2023 was Harris II. Harris’ BB:K ratio was 0.25 while carrying a 90.9 MPH exit velocity, 48.5% hard-hit rate, 7.6-degree launch angle, and 10% barrel rate. Those are very similar to Palacios’ 0.21 K:BB ratio, 91.3 exit velo, 45.4% hard-hit rate, 7.7 degree launch angle, and 9.8% barrel rate. Harris, of course, was a very productive batter in 2023 with a .293/.331/.477 slashline, .345 wOBA, and 113 wRC+.

Sure, Palacios will likely open the year as the team’s fourth outfielder, but I would not be surprised if he played well enough to at least earn a semi-regular role. He does a lot of things similar to batters who had good seasons last year. If he hits anything like his potential suggests, you are looking at arguably the most underrated breakout candidate of 2024.

Rowdy Tellez

Rowdy Tellez showed a ton of potential in 2022. He hit 35 home runs, had a 10.4% walk rate, only struck out 20.2% of the time, and had a 110 wRC+. But there was definitely hope he could improve upon that. He had just a .215 batting average on balls in play and was one of the most shifted on players in 2022. But with the new rules in place, he looked primed to build upon his good numbers from ‘22.

Tellez looked good through the first two months of the year. In 184 plate appearances in April and May, the first baseman was batting .244/.332/.494 with a .347 wOBA and 118 wRC+. Tellez was starting to benefit from the new shift rules as his BABIP went from just .215 to .255. His isolated slugging percentage had also risen to .250. Tellez’s strikeout rate may have taken a step back to 23.3%, but his walk rate also rose to 12.2%.

Tellez then fell off hard in June, collecting just 15 hits in 95 plate appearances with five walks. He then appeared in three games in July before hitting the injury list with a forearm injury. Tellez then suffered a finger fracture in mid-July, right when he was scheduled to return, which kept him out until mid/late August. Although he would return in August, he never got back on track, posting a 76 wRC+ through his final 63 plate appearances.

I think you can chalk up most, if not all, of Tellez’s struggles to his forearm injury. It’s too coincidental that he started to struggle the month before landing on the IL. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the Tellez we saw in April and May of last year. But because of how much he struggled after May, I think many are overlooking the upside he comes with.

Connor Joe

Connor Joe could make a big impact in 2024, one larger than many fans realize. Joe showed off a good amount of improvement in the second half of the year, enough to make his future outlook very promising. At the very least, he could be a very good semi-regular, if not a full-time regular. Joe set very extraordinarily high expectations in April after finishing the month batting .288/.387/.575 with a .406 wOBA and 156 wRC+.

Sure, while he was still expected to hit well, he came crashing down to Earth hard in May and June. Throughout the next two months of the year, he batted for a meager .209/.291/.331 triple slash, .278 wOBA, and 70 wRC+. He struck out more often, walked less frequently, and hit for less power.

Many fans forget that Joe was good in the second half of the season, as they mostly remember the hot April start and steep May/June decline. Throughout his final 214 plate appearances of the season, which lasted from July 1st onward, Joe batted .259/.355/.427 with a .343 wOBA and 113 wRC+. His isolated slugging percentage of .168 was league average on the dot. Meanwhile, he cut his strikeout rate to just 17.3% and upped his walk rate slightly to 11%.

Joe made a change in his approach, which I went more in depth with here. The simple answer is Joe sacrificed some power for a more contact/patient approach. He was swinging more frequently in July-September compared to earlier months but was making more contact. The only thing is that he wasn’t making as much hard contact. He had an 89.4 MPH exit velocity from the start of July through the end of the year, but that is still above average.

But that approach worked for Joe, and a 113 wRC+ is good. He ranked ahead of Luis Robert Jr., Luis Arraez, and even Jose Ramirez in July through the end of the year. Heck, Joe even out-hit Paul Goldschmidt after the start of July, outranking him in all three triple-slash stats, wOBA, wRC+, and had a lower strikeout rate. Both tied in fWAR at +1.1, but Joe appeared in 15 fewer games and had 123 fewer plate appearances.

Joe does not absolutely need a platoon partner. He actually hitright-handed pitching better than left-handed pitching in July through September. He had 121 plate appearances vs RHP, batting .267/.355/.467 with a .355 wOBA, and 122 wRC+. But he was still decent against left-handers with a .250/.348/.375 line, .323 wOBA, and 100 wRC+. He may benefit more from it, but it is not an absoulte need.

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