Despite three seasons until he hits free agency, the Pirates find themselves at a crossroads with Bryan Reynolds. Pittsburgh shipping out veterans as they approach lucrative paydays is a 30-year-old story, and as the team’s young(ish) star with the most service time, it’s no surprise that Reynolds would be the subject of constant, swirling rumors. He and the Pirates talked about an extension, but nothing came of it; seeking a little more clarity, the 2021 All-Star requested a trade. Luckily, unlike the Gerrit Cole situation, there hasn’t been a decisive break between player and organization, and Reynolds is still open to discussing an extension. But what kind of extension is realistic for Reynolds, and will the Pirates be able to field a contender while they have him?

Per The Athletic, the Pirates and Reynolds were about $50 million apart in their extension talks. Given that this $50 million isn’t, say, the difference between $300 and $350 million, it’s a notable separation. Pittsburgh’s offer was six years and $75 million, covering a few years of free agency; that would be the largest contract in team history, but that mostly reflects the ultra-thrifty approach of the Bucs, not some surfeit of munificence on their part. Compared to the eight-year, $70 million contract that Ke’Bryan Hayes signed, it seems downright miserly, given how far away Hayes was even from arbitration at the time.

Reynolds had a notable dropoff in play from 2021 to ’22, going from .302/.390/.522, 6.1 WAR to .262/.345/.461, 2.9 WAR, but a large chunk of that dropoff was to be expected given the pattern of what happens to players after career-best seasons. And in any case, there was never a chance the Pirates were actually going to offer him a contract consistent with the notion that he was a six-win player, because then you’re getting into Juan Soto territory. But as a three- or four-win player with a few years of arbitration remaining, it’s close enough for a deal to be plausible.

So let’s run the numbers. The current contract, a two-year deal to avoid arbitration, already covers the 2023 season, so we’ll focus the projection as an extension past this season. Read the rest of this entry »

Josh Barfield had a relatively short big league career. Now the farm director for the Arizona Diamondbacks, the 40-year-old son of 1980s outfielder Jesse Barfield played for the San Diego Padres in 2006, and for the Cleveland Indians from 2007-2009. I asked the erstwhile infielder whom he considers the most talented of his former teammates.

“I think I’d have to say Grady Sizemore,” replied Barfield. “He was ridiculously talented. He could do just about everything on the field. Probably the best player overall — the best career — was Mike Piazza, but for pure talent it would be Grady.”

Sizemore debuted with Cleveland and accumulated 27.3 WAR — — only Albert Pujols, Chase Utley, and Alex Rodriguez had more — from 2005-2008 in his age 22-25 seasons. He made three All-Star teams, won two Gold Gloves, and logged a 129 wRC+ with 107 home runs and 115 stolen bases over that four-year-stretch. A string of injuries followed, torpedoing what might have been a brilliant career. When all was said and done, Sizemore had just 29.7 WAR.

Other former teammates who stand out for Barfield were Adrian Gonzalez, Mike Cameron, and Victor Martinez, the last of whom he called the most gifted hitter of the group. Read the rest of this entry »

Termarr Johnson and Endy Rodriguez are the top two prospects in the Pirates organization. An 18-year-old middle infielder, Johnson was drafted fourth overall by Pittsburgh last summer out of an Atlanta high school. Meanwhile, Rodriguez, a 22-year-old catcher from Santiago, Dominican Republic, was acquired by the Pirates from the Mets in the January 2021 three-team trade that included David Bednar and Joe Musgrove.

I asked Pittsburgh general manager Ben Cherington about the highly-regarded duo during November’s GM Meetings in Las Vegas.

———

David Laurila: Pirates fans and prospect nerds are quite familiar with Termarr Johnson, but a lot of fans around the country probably aren’t. What can you tell me about him?

Ben Cherington: “I think a good place to start is that he is currently in the Dominican, participating in our Dominican instructional program, which I think is a cool thing for a high first-round pick to do. It’s something that he wanted to do. Termarr wanted to go down there and be part of that experience, and to get to know potential future teammates who are young Latin players. He’s a full participant in our Dominican program.” Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the third year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Who was better, Joe Mauer or Chase Utley? I asked that question in a Twitter poll earlier this week and the result was… well, lopsided. The erstwhile Minnesota Twins catcher/first baseman garnered 79.5% of the 1,362 votes cast, while the former Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman received just 20.5%. With both debuting on next year’s Hall of Fame ballot — one that will include numerous notable holdovers — that breakdown could be telling. While it seems unlikely that Utley will join the likes of Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker as a one-and-done snub, might he poll just as poorly, or even worse, with BBWAA voters as he did in the head-to-head matchup with Mauer?

Utley finished his career with 61.6 fWAR and 64.5 bWAR.
Mauer finished his career with 53.0 fWAR and 55.2 bWAR.

Adrián Beltré, who will also debut on the ballot, is a shoo-in to be elected in his first year of eligibility. It is much for that reason that the Mauer-Utley comparison is meaningful — at least for the segment of voters that includes yours truly. Eight of the 10 candidates I voted for this year will be returning, and Beltré is a no-brainer. That leaves one open slot. Moreover, I’m not alone in this conundrum. A total of 54 voters put checkmarks next to 10 names, with eight ballots being identical to mine. Read the rest of this entry »

The one constant this offseason is that Bryan Reynolds is probably going to get traded. We all knew this, because he’s a good player on a bad team that doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere anytime soon. Players like that get traded, or at least they get talked about as trade candidates. In December, Reynolds turned circumstantial evidence into an actual news story by requesting a trade.

A month and a half later, there’s still no movement, which isn’t really a surprise. Reynolds is under team control through 2025, and the Pirates — if they decide to move on from Reynolds at all — shouldn’t be in any rush to get rid of their best player. A couple weeks ago, Jon Heyman cited a rival executive who compared Pittsburgh’s ask for Reynolds to what the Padres gave up for Juan Soto last August.

If you’ve been around baseball, followed it, watched it, or even become generally aware that there’s a sport behind cultural idioms like “ballpark figure” and “getting to second base,” you know how this dance goes. Player requests a trade, team negotiates with rivals both privately and through leaks to reporters, a price is eventually agreed upon, and the trade is executed.

But I find this process particularly intriguing for Reynolds, because it involves determining a public consensus over how good he actually is. Read the rest of this entry »

Player Valuation Analyst

The Pirates Why

The Pittsburgh Pirates are a storied franchise in Major League Baseball who are reinventing themselves on every level. Boldly and relentlessly pursuing excellence by:

• purposefully developing a player and people-centered culture;
• deeply connecting with our fans, partners, and colleagues;
• passionately creating lifetime memories for generations of families and friends; and
• meaningfully impacting our communities and the game of baseball.

At the Pirates, we believe in the power of a diverse workforce and strive to create an inclusive culture centered in Passion, Innovation, Respect, Accountability, Teamwork, Empathy, and Service.

Job Summary

The Pittsburgh Pirates are currently seeking a full-time Analyst to join their Professional Player Valuation team. The Professional Player Valuation team is responsible for producing internal valuations of players and for communicating the insights from their research to others within Baseball Operations. In this role, you will have the ability to influence roster construction and to see the impact of your work on the field. This role will provide candidates with opportunities for growth and the ability to learn from others throughout the organization.

When you submit your application, please include an original piece of research, or a project you have worked on, that you feel is relevant to this position. There is no expectation that this research/project is baseball specific. While not essential for consideration, priority will be given to applicants who submit a sample of their work.

Primary Role Responsibilities:

• Serve as the primary analyst for a subset of the professional player population
• Collaborate with other areas of Baseball Operations on the assessment of professional players
• Assist in the building of models and tools to aid in player skill assessment discussions
• Prepare tools, visualizations, and reports to aid in disseminating information throughout Baseball Operations
• Answer research questions that you think will add value to the organization, as well as those requested by department leadership and other within Baseball Operations

Involvement In:

• Trade deadline meetings.
• Off-season strategy meetings.
• Roster management discussions.

Required:

1. Authorized to work lawfully in the United States.
2. Expertise with R, Python, or Stan
3. Ability to generate insights with testable predictions from complex data sets
4. Experience with programming data visualizations (Rshiny, Ggplot, or equivalent)
5. Demonstrated ability to explain complex models and ideas clearly and succinctly
6. Proficiency in SQL to perform data manipulation with an understanding or relational database structures
7. An understanding of skill-acquisition and development concepts and their applications

Desired:

1. Strong interpersonal skills to communicate effectively with a wide range of individuals throughout the Baseball Operations department
2. Passion for learning, especially in areas outside of individual expertise
3. Ability to apply insights from external fields to baseball. Examples include, but are not limited to, computer science, kinesiology, machine-learning, physics, or psychology
4. Initiative to seek out and perform research on topics of personal interest

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

With his wiry frame, Rockette-like leg kick, and flowing blond locks — once upon a time, braided into cornrows — Bronson Arroyo certainly cut a memorable figure on the mound. The tall right-hander (sources ranged between 6-foot-3 and 6-foot-5) made just one All-Star team while spending parts of 16 seasons in the majors from 2000–17, but he established himself as one of the game’s most durable workhorses while pitching for several contenders, first in Boston, where he was part of the drought-ending 2004 champions (and the last player active from that team), and then in Cincinnati.

Arroyo didn’t have dominant stuff. In fact, based on data going back to 2002 from Baseball Info Solutions, his average fastball velocity never cracked 90 mph, but the combination of his breaking and offspeed pitches and the deception produced by his delivery and variable release points helped him produce plenty of soft contact. He was among the game’s best at generating pop ups and suppressing batting average on balls in play.

A willingness to improvise helped. “Maybe I’ve never thrown a fricking sidearm changeup, but you know what, I can’t get this m———– out, so I’m going to throw him a sidearm changeup and get him out,” Arroyo told Sports Illustrated’s Ben Reiter in 2013. “To be honest with you, there ain’t many people who have ever played this game who are going to keep up with me mentally, picking hitters apart with the s— that I have.” Read the rest of this entry »

After five seasons and four different teams, Andrew McCutchen is returning to the ballclub where it all began. On Friday morning, the 36-year-old outfielder came to terms with the Pirates on a one-year, $5 million contract. The deal is pending a physical, but the official hype video is already up on Twitter.

McCutchen was remarkable in his first stint with Pittsburgh, putting up 46 WAR from 2009 to ’17. Only five players were more valuable during those nine years: Mike Trout, Buster Posey, Joey Votto, Miguel Cabrera, and Robinson Canó. McCutchen hit 203 home runs, stole 171 bases, and led the Pirates to three straight postseason appearances, including their first in more than 20 years. He’s the best player in the history of PNC Park and the greatest Pirate since Barry Bonds. Read the rest of this entry »

Long, successful baseball careers usually have a predictable shape to them. A young, highly-regarded prospect gets his first cup of coffee, then becomes a full-time starter over the next few years, possibly ascending to star level. Then he slowly ages and declines, riding off into the sunset in his late 30s. Some choose not to follow that trend. Jamie Moyer pitched twice as many innings in his 40s as he did in his 20s, finally retiring at the absurd age of 49. In 1965, a 59-year-old Satchel Paige returned to the majors for one more game, and despite his signing being a largely ceremonial move, he still tossed three scoreless innings.

Then there’s Rich Hill. First drafted out of high school in a different millennium, Hill debuted with the Cubs in 2005 at age 25. Over the next decade, he bounced around the league, often struggling with elbow injuries and poor command. At the end of 2014, Hill was a 34-year-old who had played for six different teams, only completing 100 frames in a season once. After opting out of a minor league deal with the Nationals in the middle of the 2015 season, Hill ran out of offers with affiliated clubs. He signed with the independent Long Island Ducks and laid waste to his Atlantic League competition… for two starts. Hill was then tendered a big league contract with his hometown team, the Red Sox, had four excellent starts to close out the season, and has held down a big league roster spot ever since. Hill will begin the upcoming spring training by celebrating his 43rd birthday, making him the oldest major league player since the then 45-year-old Ichiro Suzuki last suited up in 2019. The Pirates will be his 12th team, making him one of just six players to appear for a dozen or more clubs.

When a slightly younger Hill signed with the Red Sox (for the seventh time in his career), Ben Clemens used the prophetic projection system RiPS (Rich is Pitching Superlatively) to forecast a 4.15 ERA and 1.7 WAR for his 2022 season. Hill’s actual numbers? A 4.27 ERA (but a 4.13 SIERA), and 1.8 WAR. Not bad, RiPS. But it gets even better. Ben wrote, “If he pitches to this line, he’ll earn $8 million next year and be well worth it for Boston.” In 2023, the Pirates will be paying Hill (checks notes) $8 million on the dot. Can we get some RiPS projected standings for the season? They might even turn out to be more accurate than the baseball Reddit’s marble race simulations. Read the rest of this entry »