The one positive thing, pretty much the only positive thing, about the Pirates is their abundance of high quality starting pitching. An old adage in baseball is you cannot have enough pitching. However, the Pirate’s front office must feel that you cannot have enough infielders. In the case of infielders, quality is not even a consideration. Here is a list of the players that the Pirates have available to play 2nd, 3rd and shortstop. All of these players are on the 40 man roster and they have played any one of those positions for the Pirates or in the minors. Some of them have played in the outfield but all of them have a decent number of games in the infield. Here is a list of the future Hall of Famers with the position they have played the most in the infield or what I consider their best position: Liover Peguero 2b, Nick Gonzales 2b, Ke’Bryan Hayes 3b, Isiah Kiner-Falefa 3b, Jared Triolo 3b, Enmanuel Valdez 2b, Alika Williams SS, Ji Hwan Bae 2b, Nick Yorke 2b, and finally Tsung-Che Cheng SS. Count them, 10 players for 3 positions. The Pirates also have no. 3 ranked prospect Termar Johnson, who is projected to make his major league debut in 2025, playing, you guessed it, 2b.
These infielders have a lot in common. All of them are below average major league hitters. Half of them are not that good of fielders. The Pirates have 11 infielders that have the potential of being on the team this year. Granted Bae saw practically all of his limited action in 2024 in the outfield but he still has played 69 games at 2b for the Pirates. So, what’s a mother to do. The Pirates only carry 13 position players. It would be shocking if the Pirates wound up only carrying 12 pitchers. Will the Pirates just have a massive DFA party around March 24th? Most likely it would be Hayes, IKF, and Gonzales as the starting infield opening day. Quite frankly, these players would be the only ones that would generate any trade interest. I do not think that you would get much for them but certainly you could get some bullpen pieces. What if the Pirates traded all three of them. The new infield would look something like this, Triolo, Peguero, and Valdez. In reality this is not much of a drop off. When you add both groups’ OPS+ they come out exactly the same at about an average of 73. If Valdez gets off to a rough start, you always have Johnson waiting in the wings. You still have Williams, Chang and Yorke as replacements also. If you are going to get bullpen help, this seems the way to do it.
What do the Chicago Cubs know about Cody Bellinger that nobody else does. They traded him to the Yankees for a pitcher that is 30 years old and has pitched in only 24 major league games in his career. Plus, they had to give the Yankees 5 million dollar. Talk about a salary dump trade. The Pirates had to give up more to acquire Spencer Horwitz who has not had 400 major league at bats. It will be more than interesting to see how Bellinger does in the big apple. Will the Pirates ever pick up somebody and pay him between 15 and 25 million ? Highly unlikely. Let’s just hope they don’t spend another 35 million on garbage. I would rather see them do nothing that just pick up these washed up free agents again. Not only do they not produce but they block the progress of the younger players. One thing is for sure, the Pirates have enough infielders to field 3 teams. The sad thing is it does not matter what players you plug in, the 3 infields are going to perform about the same. Mediocrity is a hard thing to overcome. It may also be a hard thing to trade. Please, answer this cry for help, the other 31 teams in baseball. The Pirates need a right fielder and some bullpen arms. We can only pray.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 