2023 ZiPS Projections: Pittsburgh Pirates

For the 18th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Batters

There’s a lot not to like about this organization, much of which concerns ownership and its commitment to investing in the Pirates’ on-field product. Contrary to the opinions of a surprising number of people, I don’t think the Frank Coonelly/Neal Huntington era was a failure, at least in terms of their contributions. In sharp contrast to the prior efforts of Dave Littlefield or Cam Bonifay, Coonelly and Huntington built up the Pirates in the down years and there was even a brief moment when the team was a real contender. Problem is, when it was time to push the team over the top, to spend all those savings from the leanest of the slash-and-rebuild years on a contender, the investment in the roster never actually came. It turns out that in the eyes of ownership, an even better use of the savings was to not spend it at all and simply keep it. Those Pirates were left to die as ownership served up the Requiem aeternam.

But looking at the players the Pirates have currently, there are some things to like. Now, not a lot of things to like, but there are players scattered throughout the roster who are very good at major league baseball, and the guys who aren’t are at least interesting rather than 32-year-old journeymen (with a couple exceptions that I’ll get into).

Four hitters stand head and shoulders above the rest. I wouldn’t even bet a bite of a mediocre sandwich on Bryan Reynolds actually staying in Pittsburgh for that much longer, but the Pirates have so far resisted calls to trade him. For now, he’s the team’s best player and a top-10 center fielder to boot (preliminarily, that is — ZiPS ranks him eighth). Ke’Bryan Hayes once again demonstrated that his wildly good offensive debut in 2020 wasn’t a fair representation of what his bat is actually like, but he convincingly reaffirmed the idea that his Glove ought to be made of Gold very soon. Some of the expected flaws in Oneil Cruz‘s game were there, but so were the expected strengths, and with just a bit more defense or plate discipline, his upside is nearly limitless. ZiPS is as much a fan of Endy Rodriguez as Steamer is — the position’s underwhelming showing on the depth chart is mostly due to Ali Sánchez’s presence.

I hate to discourage the Pirates from spending money, but spending money on a one-year contract for Carlos Santana is worse than not spending it at all. We want ownership to invest in the Pirates, not simply spend on the biggest, cheapest name-brand veteran available in an attempt to quell some of the franchise’s most vocal fans. If you want to spend $6.7 million on the team, great! Stick that in an index fund to be used on a player who matters at a time that matters. Santana’s been lousy for three years now and he’ll be 37 in April. He doesn’t help the Pirates win now and signing him only hurts them in winning later; plate appearances are a resource just like money, and playing Santana instead of someone else who could possibly have a future with the team is wasteful.

The Pirates will likely have a below-average offense in 2022, but there are reasons to watch them.

Pitchers

The pitchers’ projections are considerably less exciting than those of the batters, but the situation is far less bleak if you look back at least year’s projections. Over a full season in the majors, ZiPS now sees the Pirates with twice as many one-win pitchers as it did this time a year ago. Pittsburgh could actually get through an entire season without using a starting pitcher with an ERA+ projection under 90, and Roansy Contreras has real upside. ZiPS remains a bit ambivalent about Mitch Keller; he strikes out very few batters for a pitcher with his stuff, and his lousy first-pitch strike rate suggests that the walks may not be gone forever. But he showed enough that he at least looks like a viable mid-rotation starter.

ZiPS has Johan Oviedo and JT Brubaker as serviceable fourth starters, and sees things to like in Luis Ortiz. Quinn Priester gets a solid projection for a pitcher with very little upper-minors experience. The computer even thinks Bryse Wilson’s control is just good enough to make him viable despite his inability to punch out batters. ZiPS really wants to take a look at Mike Burrows this year.

The bullpen is largely David Bednar and everyone else. Bednar is solid at the top, but given the lack of utility a solid closer has for a 90-loss team, I still think he’s not long for this roster. As with Reynolds, Bednar is still far enough away from free agency that Pittsburgh won’t necessarily trade him immediately. What I’d like to see the Pirates do with their bullpen this year is use it almost like a mad scientist’s lab from a 1950’s sci-fi movie. Any time a live arm hits the waiver wire, regardless of whether that player is aware of the existence of the strike zone — and on the waiver wire, they usually aren’t — the Pirates should be in on them hard.

Are the Pirates good? No, but they’re at least mildly interesting, which I can’t say for a few of the other cellar dwellers in the league.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2023 due to injury, and players who were released in 2022. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Death Dixieland Bubblegum Ska-Funk band, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.22, above 2022’s level of offense but lower than other years. Pitchers who appear to have a fairly definite change in the majors from start-to-relief or vice-versa from these projections will receive reconfigured updates in the spring.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.