After the Pirates completed the trades of Joe Musgrove and Jameson Taillon in January, general manager Ben Cherington said the front office was going to start to focus more of its efforts towards adding to the roster.
While the team had mostly been quiet, outside of trades, this winter, they have become more active on the free agent market recently. This past week, the Pirates added a left-handed reliever, Chasen Shreve, a catcher, Tony Wolters, and an outfielder, Brian Goodwin.
What else are they looking for?
“Not sure we’ll do anything, but we’d like to add pitching,” Cherington was telling me.
Cherington clarified the team is open to both starters and relievers, but they are more interested in the former. While there are still starter options out there, and Cherington said the Pirates are looking at both the free agent and trade markets, the field is starting to thin rapidly.
Free agent signings have started to pick up ahead of spring training getting started. Pitchers and catchers are set to report to Bradenton, Fla. on Feb. 15, with their first workout scheduled for Feb. 17 and first game Feb. 28. Cherington isn’t setting a deadline for making a move, though.
“It’s nice, obviously, to have guys there for the first workouts, but it’s not the end of the world if they’re not,” Cherington said.
The Pirates made their most lucrative free agent signing, Jarrod Dyson, after their camp got started last season, and they could follow suit this year. It could be they don’t get a starting pitcher, or they could still get multiple. The Pirates can add up to six more players to their spring training group without violating the league’s health and safety protocols.
If the Pirates do not acquire someone, they should still have enough starting pitching to get through the season. The club acquired Major League-ready starters Miguel Yajure and Wil Crowe in the Taillon and Josh Bell trades. Roansy Contreras also came over in the Taillon trade, and Max Kranick was added to the roster in November. Those two need some more time in the minors -- as does Cody Bolton, their second-highest ranked pitching prospect – but they could potentially make starts later this season too. And there is Cody Ponce and JT Brubaker, both of whom made their debuts last season.
But you can never have too much pitching.
“We feel pretty good with the young starting pitching depth that we have,” Cherington said. “Optionable depth. We’re trying to build a group of 12, 13, 14 starting pitchers, and we feel pretty good about part of that. The younger part of that. I think we would like to add, if we can, a little bit more experience to the front of that group.”
MORE FROM CHERINGTON
• While the Pirates have added three players this week who have a legitimate chance of making the team via minor-league contracts, they are one of just two clubs – along with the Rockies – to have not signed anyone to a guaranteed deal.
It’s not that the Pirates are against MLB deals, and Cherington said they would offer that type of contract for “the right fit,” but adding a player on that type of contract would require a roster spot to be opened up and releasing someone the Pirates had hung onto through the offseason.
Non-roster invitee (NRI) contracts aren’t necessarily bad for players, either.
“Opportunity does play into it,” Cherington said about why a player would take an NRI deal. “There are cases where players will choose an NRI over a guaranteed deal if they see an open opportunity to win playing time.”
• Most years, a team would have their minor league rosters pretty much finalized before players reported to camp. A few players each year do have a chance to maybe jump a level, but teams don’t want to be too reactive to a handful of good spring training games.
There will be a little more wiggle room for guys to earn a higher assignment this spring, even perhaps what is already planned.
“I do think this year, in fairness to the players, because we do have less information about what players have done over the last 12 months than we would in a normal season, we have to be a little bit more open minded and learn where they are right now,” Cherington said. “There’s a balance there. It’s a slippery slope. I still think there is something to earning your way up and proving yourself at a level.
“In some cases, it may be there are players that start back at where they were penciled in for in 2020. And in some cases, maybe a player’s really taken advantage of the time and we feel like is ready to be pushed a little bit. And maybe in some cases, it goes the other way too. Maybe the player didn’t take as much advantage of the time and we go even slower.”
That doesn’t mean a Quinn Priester could find himself in Indianapolis to start the year, and most of the assignments the Pirates are planning will come to fruition. But the Pirates’ talk of competition and opportunity will also apply to the minors.
“We’re more open-minded this year than in a normal year, and we have projected rosters built out already, but maybe they’re a bit more in pencil right now, rather than a normal year, where it would be more in ink.”
• Cherington also said those coaching staffs for the affiliates are nearly finalized and will be shared soon. New director of coaching and player development John Baker wanted to get to know his coaches first before assigning them to a team, and since the season for Class A and AA affiliates was pushed back, the Pirates knew they had a little more time to determine those assignments.
The affiliate to watch in particular is Altoona. In 2019, the staff was Mike Ryan as manager, Joel Hanrahan as pitching coach and Jon Nunnally as hitting coach. Ryan was fired after the season while Hanrahan and Nunnally were moved to Indianapolis, before returning to help run the Altoona camp with Brian Esposito.
Dave Turgeon and Tom Filer were supposed to be the Curve’s manager and pitching coach in 2020, but both were let go as part of the front office shakeup.
• The Pirates currently have 69 players coming to their Major League spring training. That includes some of their top, and younger, prospects, like Priester, Nick Gonzales and Liover Peguero.
“I wouldn't necessarily expect it to continue in future years,” Cherington said. “These are not normal times, and we’ve chosen to take advantage of some extra time with those guys. Now we need to make it a good experience.”
These players, especially the pitchers, will not prepare the same way the Major League players do this spring. They will be heading to the minor league spring training right after this camp, so it doesn’t make sense to prepare a pitcher like they will be making starts in April, just to restart the process of stretching them out once they get to minor league camp.
But is there a chance we could see Priester or another one of these prospects appear in a spring training game?
“We certainly don’t want to eliminate game opportunities for anybody in camp. We’ll just have to be mindful that the guys who are most likely to be on our Major League team get the chance to prepare for that.”
