For the 21st 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

The Pirates got off to a hot start in 2024, winning 10 of their first 14 games, but getting swept in consecutive series against the Mets and Red Sox quickly vaporized their small early cushion in the NL Central. Pittsburgh didn’t collapse, though, and played respectable baseball for the next three months; at the trade deadline, the Pirates stood just 2 1/2 games out of the final wild card spot in the NL, with the debut of Paul Skenes serving as a harbinger of hope that better days might be ahead. Pittsburgh made some low-key pickups at the deadline, but none of them made much of an impact, and its pitching collapsed in August, sealing the team’s 2024 fate.

Looking down the lineup, it’s not truly a mess anywhere – with the possible exception of DH, which makes me sad since it’s Andrew McCutchen – but it’s hard to get past the feeling of being underwhelmed. Moving Oneil Cruz to center field isn’t the worst idea around, but you’d like to see the organization’s grand plan involve something more ambitious than Isiah Kiner-Falefa playing shortstop every day. I know it’s a pipe dream given their ownership, but the Pirates would be a whole lot more interesting right now if after moving Cruz to the outfield, they’d splurged on, say, Willy Adames in free agency. Alas.

However, there are some things to like, if not love, with this lineup entering 2025. Nick Gonzales has improved enough that he’s a perfectly fine second baseman, albeit not one likely to make any All-Star appearances. ZiPS is optimistic about Spencer Horwitz’s bat at first base, and it was a nice little move to get him for Luis L. Ortiz and hope he’ll see some positive regression from his .243 BABIP. I think we’ve reached the point at which we recognize that Ke’Bryan Hayes does not have the offensive upside that he showed in a very brief debut, but he’s still got a terrific glove; ZiPS projects a far more typical season for him. I’m still not sold on Joey Bart, but I also think Endy Rodríguez has a pretty decent ceiling so long as he’s fully recovered from his UCL injury, so catcher isn’t really a problem position for Pittsburgh.

I hope that Bryan Reynolds has had enough consecutive 2-3 WAR seasons that people stop sending me angry DMs about ZiPS projecting him to have 2-3 WAR seasons! It’s nice that the Pirates actually paid to keep him around, but Reynolds is also just a solid player, not a star. Right field feels more like a collection of role players assembled rather than a real upside position, but ZiPS does believe Jack Suwinski can get back to his 2022-2023 level of offense after an absolutely brutal 2024.

The Pirates’ lineup is… OK… ish. I think what lends to the pallor is that it just doesn’t feel like there’s much of a ceiling here. A reclamation project or a gamble or two, rather than filling out the roster with known quantities, would have been a lot more interesting at some of these positions. McCutchen isn’t going to suddenly be 25 again. The big exception might be Henry Davis, but he was brutal enough in his very brief time in the majors that he’s likely going to have to continue raking at Triple-A before he gets another shot in the majors, and possibly answer the question of what position he should play (if any).

Pitchers

Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller are a double reminder that the Pirates — even though they’ve finished with a winning record just once (barely) over the last nine seasons — do at least some things far better than in the bleakest days of the Cam Bonifay/David Littlefield era. Skenes was the right guy to take in the draft, and Pittsburgh did a good job with him, promoting him quickly with confidence while ramping up his pitch count slowly and surely. Back in the bad old days, there’s no chance that Keller would have gotten a five-year contract extension. Skenes and Keller are a solid one-two punch, and ZiPS has a lot of confidence that Jared Jones can build upon his rookie year success.

The back of the rotation is adequate. Bailey Falter is extremely hittable, but at least he’s developing into a decent fourth-starter/innings-eater type. Johan Oviedo, Bubba Chandler, and Braxton Ashcraft all get projections in the same general realm as Falter, and ZiPS also includes Thomas Harrington in that same tier. Overall, this is a solid staff because of its first three pitchers, but none of these other guys are breakout candidates, so the ceiling of Pittsburgh’s rotation is limited. Because of Skenes, Keller, and Jones, the Pirates probably have the makings of a top-10 rotation in baseball, and even though this group probably won’t climb into the top five, this amounts to a team highlight.

The bullpen looks a lot like the rotation, except it doesn’t have a reliever of Skenes’ caliber. It’s a bit Olive Garden-esque, which I don’t actually mean as an insult. There’s nothing exciting about the bullpen, but at least most of the relievers are decent, if somewhat interchangeable. ZiPS projects seven Pirates relievers to finish with an ERA+ between 100 and David Bednar’s 116, with nobody projecting above that mark. That’s not the end of the world; if you’ve seen an episode of Kitchen Nightmares, you should be aware that the quality of new restaurants can fluctuate widely, whereas middle-of-the-road chains are known commodities. This bullpen will hold leads as well as Olive Garden’s endless breadsticks will get you a week’s worth of carbs on the cheap, but neither will be the highlight of your Instagram. He didn’t get a great projection, but Kyle Nicolas in a relief-only role might be the most interesting of Pittsburgh’s non-established relievers, with enough nastiness to his stuff that he could blossom if his command improves.

ZiPS sees the Pirates as a .500 team, but in the very early team projections I’ve run, they just have less upside than the rest of the division. If ZiPS is accurate, it’s certainly a concern for the lowest-spending team in the division to have the lowest ceiling as well. Considering this, if the Pirates aren’t going to spend more — which they surely will not — they should instead roll the dice a little bit more to get some low-cost, high-upside players. As of now, though, that isn’t what they’re doing, and that’s a shame because they do have some young and exciting stars who could make for a talented core if ownership were willing to surround them with some capable complementary pieces. Even so, the bright spots of this overall lackluster roster should offer fans enough of a reason to watch the Pirates this year.

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 2025 due to injury, and players who were released in 2024. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Ukulele Dixieland Jazz band that only covers songs by The Smiths, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.11.

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.

The Toronto Blue Jays have finally signed a free agent slugger, agreeing to a five-year, $92.5 million deal with outfielder Anthony Santander on Monday afternoon. A former Rule 5 pick out of Cleveland, Santander has spent his whole major league career with the Baltimore Orioles. He’s amassed 9.6 WAR, 155 home runs, and a 113 wRC+ in 2,830 plate appearances since his 2017 debut, but these numbers are also dragged down a bit by the fact it took him a few years to really get going as a hitter. Since the start of 2022, his age-27 season, he’s been worth 8.3 WAR and posted a much sunnier 124 wRC+. This past year was the best full season of his career thus far; he slashed .235/.308/.506 and set career highs with 44 homers, a 129 wRC+, and 3.3 WAR en route to earning his first All-Star selection and Silver Slugger award.

Anthony Santander and Blue Jays are in agreement pending physical, sources say. @MLBNetwork

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) January 20, 2025

Santander’s deal includes a club option for 2030 and an opt-out after the 2027 season, according to multiple reports. The club option is a conditional one; if Santander chooses to opt out, Toronto can void his decision so long as it tacks on the sixth year, which would bring the total value of the contract to $110 million. The options here don’t change the calculus of the deal all that much. Considering Santander is already 30 and doesn’t offer much more than his power, he probably won’t risk the security of his contract unless his production with the Jays exceeds what he did with the Orioles — and even then, he might rather stay put. Similarly, the Jays probably won’t exercise their option for the sixth year unless he continues to be a viable middle-of-the-order slugger into this mid-30s. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 21st 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 Tampa Bay Rays.

Batters

Coming off a 99-win season, the Rays shed 19 games last year to finish at 80-82, their first losing record since 2017. While certainly some of that loss can be chalked up to Wander Franco’s troubling legal issues, which have likely brought an end to his baseball career, a blend of injuries and few pleasant surprises also played a big part in the Rays’ dropping out of solid contention. Two-thirds of last year’s projected starters, both in the lineup and the rotation, are gone, making this season a bit of a transition for Tampa Bay.

For a team that doesn’t spend money practically ever, and coming off a bloodbath of trades of youngish veterans, one could call the lineup projections surprisingly good. There are only a few positions that project to be below average, and even those spots aren’t disasters; in fact, every position on the team projects for more than 1 WAR. That’s a testament to the team’s player development system, which has to continually restock the shelves year after year because the organization doesn’t have enough money in the budget to bring in established talent through free agency.

Even so, the best parts of this lineup are rather uninspiring. ZiPS projects the Rays to get at least 3 WAR from only one position, second base, but I’m more skeptical than the Depth Charts are about Brandon Lowe’s ability to stay healthy. In the outfield, ZiPS doesn’t think Jonny DeLuca’s defense will be enough to make up for his bat, and it believes that Christopher Morel is best suited as a DH, where he may have the best chance to live up to his power potential.

But it’s not all bad. ZiPS does like some Rays players, just not the ones on the top of the depth chart – yet. Four of the top-eight WAR projections on offense are players who have not yet seized the primary jobs at their positions. Carson Williams is hardly unexpected, of course, given that he’s a top-five prospect. ZiPS thinks his bat is already acceptable for a starter in the middle infield, and the coordinate-based defensive system I use for the minor leagues thought he was one of the best fielding shortstops in the minors. He’s not the only minor leaguer to get defensive plaudits from ZiPS; third baseman Brayden Taylor also appears to be elite with the leather. He’s not as big a name as Williams, but my colleague Eric Longenhagen gave him a 45/70 evaluation for defense last year, and the Rays have liked his glove enough to give him some run at shortstop, something you don’t do with your third baseman if you think he’s a butcher. Going well down the prospect lists, catcher Dominic Keegan and center fielder Chandler Simpson also get very promising projections.

Sum it all up and the Rays have a solid offense with a lot of depth and a real future, but I’m not sure the upside will be realized this season.

Pitchers

When you compare the innings pitched in the ZiPS projections and the ones listed on our Depth Charts, one conclusion I think you should draw is that the Rays are very reliant on getting healthy innings from Shane McClanahan and Drew Rasmussen. The projections gauge the two as the most talented pitchers on the team right now, so it’s understandable that the Rays would struggle if they’re without McClanahan for the entire season and Rasmussen for most of it due to their respective major elbow surgeries.

That’s not to say ZiPS hates the rest of the rotation, just that McClanahan and Rasmussen would change the whole complexion of the staff. Ryan Pepiot was the odd man out in Los Angeles, but he thrived as a solid no. 2 or 3 starter with the Rays, who just stuck him in the rotation and left him there. Taj Bradley showed great progress from his rookie season, getting hit a lot less hard last year, and Zack Littell showed that Tampa hasn’t lost its touch for taking other teams’ castoffs and transmogrifying them into above-average starters, almost instantly.

A surprising number of other pitchers project to be about league average as starters: Shane Baz, Joe Rock, Mason Montgomery, and Mike Vasil. A few of these guys will likely see some significant bullpen innings, especially Montgomery.

The Rays don’t have the high-end bullpen arms that the Twins or Guardians do, at least not according to ZiPS, but they do still have is an impressive amount of relief pitching depth. The majority of the bullpen projects to be better than average, but only Kevin Kelly and Pete Fairbanks do by a large margin, with the computer not being all that high on Edwin Uceta. If the projections prove accurate, this is a solid bullpen, but it’s probably not going to make or break their chances of reaching the postseason.

The Rays are a good team, but they likely aren’t a great one. ZiPS projects them to finish with 84-88 wins, enough to put them back into contention, but perhaps not enough to actually make the playoffs.

Ballpark graphic is Dan’s mockup of George M. Steinbrenner Field. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Charts playing time. The final team projections may differ considerably from our Depth Charts playing time.