2026 ZiPS Projections: Pittsburgh Pirates

For the 22nd 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, as well as MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Batters

From a pure talent standpoint, the Pittsburgh Pirates are in better shape than their 71-91 record this season might suggest. Still, the organization always feels like it’s on a giant treadmill because when the time to increase the level of investment comes, the push is always extremely underwhelming. The Pirates have actually gotten slightly better at committing to payroll (slightly!), but when they do spend, they frequently do so in rather unproductive ways.

The construction of the offense provides a good example. One area where the team actually has some depth is in viable role players and marginal starters. And yet, when the wallet finally gets pried open (again, slightly!), rather than go after the kind of big score that’s been hard for them to develop themselves, they tend to spread that money around to… viable role players and marginal starters. Spending nearly $17 million on Andrew McCutchen, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and Tommy Pham wouldn’t break the bank of a normal team, but when you’re the Pirates, with a pre-benefits payroll under $90 million, that’s a significant chunk of your budget that didn’t do much to make the team better in 2025 or at any point in the future. McCutchen was an amazing player at his best and is still a fan favorite, but he’s already gotten what amounts to a three-year retirement tour in Pittsburgh. If the team can’t think of something more productive to do with those at-bats, that’s a failure of imagination.

Oneil Cruz’s 2025 season was a curious one, in that he did better than he ever has at laying off bad pitches, and absolutely crushed the ball generally, but got objectively worse results. You have to at least wonder if the sudden full-time conversion to the outfield took away some of the attention that might have been better spent focusing on becoming a more well-rounded hitter. I remain far from convinced that there was an emergency that required him to move off of shortstop before Konnor Griffin arrives, or that the swap to Kiner-Falefa did anything of value. ZiPS actually thinks that Cruz will be fine in center field since speed is so important there, but there’s a real split between the 2025 Statcast (+4 runs) and SIS (-14 runs) numbers. I still think there’s a 40-homer hitter hiding somewhere in Cruz, but it’s getting rather late in the day for the Pirates to discover him.

Since the team has good role player depth, they aren’t projected to be truly awful anywhere except designated hitter. With some health, and some creativity mixing and matching the various spare parts at the weaker positions, this could be a halfway adequate lineup. ZiPS is absolutely RAM-over-chipset in love with Griffin, and the quicker he shoves his way through the high minors, the better the Pirates will be. Still, once you get past him and Cruz, it’s a lot of guys who might be fine but aren’t true breakout candidates.

Pitchers

Well having Paul Skenes at the top of the rotation sure is a nice way to start things off! Of course the question is just how long it is before Skenes is shipped off to a team more interested in paying him, and general manager Ben Cherington saying that he “is going to be a Pirate in 2026” is a little worrisome for its specificity. After all, Skenes can’t hit free agency until after the 2029 season, and saying that he’ll be on the team “in 2026” doesn’t preclude a trade deadline mega-deal. There’s really nothing in Skenes’ profile to worry about apart from the normal fretting over possible injury, which is the case for every pitcher past, present or future — at least until we figure out a way to give pitchers ligaments bio-engineered to be stronger. The Hall of Fame comps continue past the first three below; everyone who pitches like Skenes is a Hall of Fame talent.

Mitch Keller is a solid no. 2 starter and Bubba Chandler is projected to build on his 2025 debut; if the Pirates are fortunate with injuries, they’ll be a reasonable complement to Skenes at the top. Elsewhere, more innings from Braxton Ashcraft is a good thing, at least in the ZiPS view, and Jared Jones is ostensibly returning from internal brace surgery on his right elbow fairly early in the season. Guys like Mike Burrows, Johan Oviedo, and Hunter Barco all get very respectable, if unexciting, projections. Overall, the rotation is a Wild Card-worthy group.

Keeping with the “respectable, if unexciting” theme, we come to the Pittsburgh bullpen. There isn’t a whole lot of crazy upside here, but ZiPS does see the Pirates as having four pitchers with ERAs in the 3.00s in relief: Dennis Santana, Carmen Mlodzinski, Justin Lawrence, and Dauri Moreta. Now, most of these guys project in the high 3.00s, but the relief corps isn’t a disaster. A whole slew of other relief options project better than a 4.50 ERA, and while that’s not a very praiseworthy line to draw, at least the games will end before they get too ugly. If this team does get into a Wild Card situation over the next year or two, they might need to bring in outside bullpen help, but considering how tight their budgets are, it’s understandable that the front office hasn’t done so just yet.

Without any major disasters, the Pirates could creep into the low 80s wins-wise, but I expect a high-70s finish that adds six or seven wins to their 2025 total to be the most likely outcome.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time. The final team projections may differ considerably from our Depth Chart playing time.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2026 due to injury, and players who were released in 2025. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Ambient Math-Rock Trip-Hop Yacht Metal band that only performs in abandoned malls, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.16.

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. It is important to remember that ZiPS is agnostic about playing time, and has no information about, for example, how quickly a team will call up a prospect or what veteran has fallen into disfavor.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by misinformation, a non-pragmatic reality, or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter or on BlueSky. This last is, however, not an actual requirement.