The Pirates have gotten off to a difficult start in 2025. The club is 8-15 overall, leaving them in last place in the NL Central and six games back of the division-leading Cubs. While the club’s pitching staff is right around league average by measure of ERA and top-six by FIP, an offense that has produced a wRC+ of just 70 to this point in the year. Despite those struggles on offense, general manager Ben Cherington told reporters (including Kevin Gorman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) before Friday’s game that external solutions to the lineup are unlikely, though the team is always open to exploring deals.
“It’s April. Most teams are going to rely on the players that are inside the organization,” Cherington said. “We certainly have an eye out and already we have an eye outside the organization. We will keep an eye on things. We keep having conversations, but trades don’t usually happen this soon. We’ve got to rely on the guys that are here….We are going to get healthier. And then over the course of the season if we do what I believe we will do, then they’ll be opportunities to add to it at some point.”
Spencer Horwitz, Nick Gonzales, and Endy Rodriguez are all currently on the injured list, robbing the Bucs of three players expected to operate in starting or regular roles this season. Perhaps their returns will be enough to get Pittsburgh on track, yet the Pirates will also need several of their healthy but struggling regulars to start heating up.
More from around the NL Central…
- The Brewers’ injury-riddled rotation might be getting some help this week with the return of Tobias Myers, who told MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy that he expects to be activated from the 15-day IL to start Thursday’s game. Myers suffered an oblique strain in mid-March that delayed his 2025 debut, but he came out of his third minor league rehab start Friday feeling in good shape, and ready to get back to the Show. It is a testament to Milwaukee’s pitching depth and development that even the makeshift version of its rotation is still posting good numbers, but obviously the Crew will happily welcome back Myers. A surprise emergence himself during his 2024 rookie season, Myers posted a 3.00 ERA over 138 innings for the Brewers last year.
- Spencer Steer was the Reds’ starting first baseman today, marking the first time this season that Steer has played a position other than designated hitter. Steer’s longstanding right shoulder problems have been an issue since last season, and after the injury resurfaced during Spring Training, the decision was made to keep Steer as a DH (and off the injured list) until he could throw without discomfort. Today’s return to the field is a good sign that things are slowly returning to normal for Steer, though the larger issue is his ice-cold start at the plate — Steer had a .111/.186/.204 slash line in 59 plate appearances heading into today’s game.
As a lifelong diehard Pirates fan, I want them to trade Skenes ASAP to a team that cares. Young man deserves better.
That’s rough, only way to make it worse would be by trading him, Hayes, and Cruz for Chris Archer…. or his 2025 equivalent
I’m taking a different route. Lose as many games as it takes to get rid of Shelton. The future is bright, but not with Shelton.
Life isn’t bright with the MORON jagoff…he’s just as clueless as the Cheetos Pres
alwaysgo4two, it’s much deeper than just Shelton.
This was the lineup for the Pirates on Saturday:
DH Cruz
RF Reynolds
3B Hayes
1B Valdez
LF Pham
2B Frazier
SS Triolo
CF Suwinski
C Davis
Easily the 2 most talented hitters in this lineup were acquired by Neal Huntington (Cruz via Dodgers and Reynolds via Giants)
ONLY Davis was drafted by Ben Cherington!!
Ben Cherington:
“We are going to get healthier. And then over the course of the season if we do what I believe we will do, then they’ll be opportunities to add to it at some point.”
Spinning this current disaster as primarily “health-based” is clue #1 that he’s out of touch with reality. Clue #2 is that he believes the Pirates will have enough success to eventually ADD this season.
Clue #3: Derek Shelton is STILL the manager.
Great stadium,but a bad team with bad owners..
Believe Cherington had his last chance this last off season. In 6 seasons not one multiple year FA signing. The lack of offense has discouraged the most loyal fans. Had every opportunity to make this team better, but regardless the biggest issue has and always will be Nutting.
“It’s April. Most teams are going to rely on the players that are inside the organization…”
Well, that’s because most teams are relying on a complement of players that they added during the offseason, through trades and free agency.
Translation: Bob Nutting didn’t give me enough to add to payroll so this is what we’re rolling out. But he fully expects a competitive team to make a play-off run.
No disrespect to Pirates fans, but enjoy Skenes while he’s here, he’s undoubtedly being traded once he hits his first or second year of arbitration…
People keep saying that Pittsburgh deserves better but that’s nonsense. Fans get what the owners give them. If they don’t like it, tough. Be a fan of a different team and stop acting so whiny and entitled.
Found Nutting’s burner account! Haha
the Pennsylvania taxpayers paid for the construction of PNC Park
We definitely deserve a winning team, but what we don’t deserve is a nobody know nothing telling us how we should feel
Lamest argument ever. Your tax dollars built a stadium. It didn’t buy a baseball team.
King, you’re wrong, but theman is also wrong. Public funded the stadium in return the Pirates promised to stay till at least 2035. I may be wrong on the date. That was the agreement. So the taxpayers did “buy” a team. There was no promise, on “entitled to” a winning team, just a MLB team.
@KingofCards. “Be a fan of a different team…”
I’d rather lose than cheat to win. And being a fair weather fan, as you suggest, just feels like cheating to me.
There’s not some law or rule that says you have to root for a certain team man. You can pick any you like. You can’t be arrested if you don’t feel like being a pirate fan
Pittsburgh has never supported the Pirates. It is, and always has been, a bad market for baseball.
Pittsburgh does NOT deserve a team better than the Pirates.
I just want more than 1 run before the 9th inning. I’m not expecting like 6 or 7 runs, I just want like 3 before the 9th inning. This team would probably be over .500 right now if the offense was even just average-ish, like 95-100 wRC+. For what it’s worth, it’s not completley hopeless in my opinion. They have the second lowest out of zone swing rate in MLB, and the lowest in the NL, they’re top ten in exit velocity at 90 MPH, and have an about average 8.1% barrel rate. They’re contact rate of 75.4% is also about average. Those are all things that you want your team’s offense to be doing: not chasing outside the zone frequently, making contact at a respectable rate, and making solid contact when hitting the ball. And for what it’s worth, they have a team .320 xwOBA, compared to a team .271 wOBA, which is the largest gap in the league by nine points.
Some stuff might fix itself on its own. No way does a team continue to have a near 50 point gap between their wOBA and xwOBA. Getting Spencer Horwitz back, who I heard was starting his rehab at Bradenton, will be a big help. He was probably the second best rookie in MLB last year when it came to hitting behind Jackson Merrill, ranking behind Merrill in wOBA, wRC+, and only behind Merrill and Jackson Chourio in OPS.
But the Pirates still need to be proactive on their part. Get Adam Frazier out of here. He’s no longer the hitter he was when he was first with the Pirates. Bring up Nick Yorke or Liover Peguero since he’s looked pretty good at Triple-A. We already have too many defensive first utility men. You can’t have both Triolo and Frazier, and between the two, I’d rather have Triolo. I’d hope that Frazier is the first guy gone when either Horwitz or Nicky G are back, whoever comes back first.
Time to cut bait with Alexander Canario. He’s hitting the ball hard, but has way too high of a whiff rate. Bring up Billy Cook or Matt Gorski. Even if neither hit that much, you at least are still getting some power potential, and both are better defenders than Canario. Send Jack Suwinski to Triple-A. I’m fully convinced that Andy Haines has done some long-lasting damage to him. You’ve now made him chaneg his approach twice in less than a year. It’s going to take a long while now for him to get back to what he was used to pre-2024.
By June, I’m hoping this is what the team looks like:
C: Joey Bart/Endy Rodriguez
1B: Spencer Horwitz
2B: Nick Gonzales (Nick Yorke if he is still recovering)
3B: Ke’Bryan Hayes
SS: IKF
OF: Tommy Pham, Oneil Cruz, Bryan Reynolds
DH: Andrew McCutchen
Rotation: Skenes, Keller, Chandler, Heaney, Falter
Bullpen: Dennis Santana, Carmen Mlodzinski, Caleb Ferguson, Ryan Borucki, Tim Mayza, Justin lawrence, Hunter Stratton, David Bednar
Bench: Nick Yorke (Liover Peguero if Yorke is at 2B in Gonzales’ absence), Endy Rodriguez, Billy Cook, Enmanuel Valdez
I know, a lot to read, but in my opinion, this is even more frustrating than a season like 2021 or 2022. You now actually have a competent ptiching staff. Like I said before, even a 95-100 wRC+ offense would probably make this team a .500+ team.
TLDR: Pirates will likely have some positive regression, but still need to be proactive.
I’ve realized that I wrote more words here than in the entire article, but there’s a lot to unpack about this line-up, and it feels like the Pirates aren’t even putting out the best they’ve got internally.
Tommy Pham is this years version of Rowdy Tellez, and like Rowdy, he’ll be here way longer than he should.
If Tommy Pham could give the Pirates a 90 wRC+ and .700 OPS like Tellez produced, he’d be fine. His defense is still decent at least.
I don’t think Spencer Steer should be starting.The original scouting report on him was a Good utilty player. I think he should earn or re-earn a Starting role.
I think his rookie year was a FLUKE as many have had.
You can be a starting utility player imo, and even last year he hit twenty homers and played multiple roles. Hopefully getting back into the field will help him get into a better rhythm hitting
I used to feel sorry for Pirate fans but after these lame comments I feel sorry for the owners who have to have these little entitled brats as fans.