The 2021 Major League Baseball season is nearly upon us. After a winter of staying indoors and at least six feet away from the outside world, spring and baseball have finally arrived.
It’s going to be a different look for the 2021 Pirates. Gone are Josh Bell, Jameson Taillon, Joe Musgrove, Trevor Williams, Keone Kela and Chris Archer, players who had been around for years. The Pirates are in a rebuild, and while there is hope for the future, a young team is going to have to go through some growing pains to get there.
So what should we expect as this year’s club prepares for its 140th season?
On the eve of pitchers and catchers reporting Wednesday, here are 10 storylines to follow this spring:
1. ANY MORE CHANGES?
Without context, it seems ridiculous to think that there could be any more significant changes coming to this season at this point. After all, pitchers and catchers have reported. The season has started.
But MLB and the Players Association do not negotiate like normal entities. Last week they agreed to completely overhaul the spring training schedule. Last year they struck a deal for an expanded playoff field just hours before the first pitch of the season.
Both sides still would like something from the other. Expanding the playoff field from 10 to 14 teams. A universal designated hitter. Perhaps expanded rosters are brought back on the table, even for early this season to help ease pitcher workloads. There aren’t any negotiations going on right now, but if we’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that anything can happen at any time.
Speaking of the pitchers...
2. CAN PITCHERS BE HEALTHY?
Last season, the Pirates sent 11 different pitchers to the injured list, tied for the sixth-most in baseball (fourth most if you exclude the Marlins and Cardinals, who had widespread COVID-19 outbreaks). The long midseason layoff and short camp was too much for a lot of pitchers, and that led to many arm, shoulder and oblique injuries. For the Pirates, that included Musgrove, Kela, Mitch Keller, Kyle Crick and Nick Burdi, to name a few.
The general prediction across the league is there are going to be a lot of arm and soft tissue injuries again in 2021. Perhaps there will be a slight decrease, but pitching a full season after the shortened 2020 campaign is a legitimate cause for concern across the league.
This is going to apply to players across all levels. Pitchers are going to to be monitored closely not just this spring, but all year.
3. BACK END OF ROTATION?
One more on the pitchers.
The front three of the Pirates’ rotation is pretty easy to project. Keller is a former top prospect and will lead the rotation for years to come. Veterans Steven Brault and Chad Kuhl could be on the trade block come July, but for now, they both have spots as well.
After that, it’s pretty open. JT Brubaker and Cody Ponce both made a good impression in their first taste of the Majors last season. Miguel Yajure and Wil Crowe are both Major League ready and came over in the Taillon and Bell trades. The Pirates are also still looking at the trade and free agent markets and aren’t setting a deadline to add another arm. There’s also the possibility that they could explore the piggyback option again to get a couple of their young pitchers consistent outings while managing their workload.
Every team ends up going through more than five starters in a season, so even if someone doesn’t make the opening day rotation, there is still a very good chance they’ll get starts over the course of the season. Expect some shuffling as the year goes on, but a strong spring would go a long way for these young pitchers’ development.
4. HOW DO HITTERS LOOK?
There were a few bright spots here and there, but for the most part, the Pirates had a disastrous season at the plate in 2020. Bryan Reynolds and Kevin Newman had drastic drop-offs from encouraging rookie campaigns. Gregory Polanco became a whiff and strikeout machine. Bell took a huge step back, which surely tanked his potential trade value.
As a whole, the Pirates finished last in team runs, on-base percentage, slugging, OPS and just about every category that matters for hitters. Rick Eckstein stayed on as hitting coach, with the only changes to the coaching staff being moving assistant coach Mike Rabelo to Major League field coordinator and hiring Christian Marrero as the new assistant hitting coach. The Pirates are betting on internal improvement.
There are some talented hitters on the roster, and they’ll be getting in-game video back, which was a detriment to many last year. The Pirates are going to have to improve offensively, or there will need to be changes on the offensive coaching side.
5. RETURN OF POLANCO, CRUZ
It was a newsworthy winter in the Dominican Republic for the Pirates. In late September, Cruz was involved in a car accident that killed three people on a motorcycle. The Pirates firmly denied any allegations that it was more than an accident, and while there was a report early that Cruz had been drunk at the time of the crash, there were no charges brought against him that he was under the influence.
In far less consequential news, Polanco returned to the Dominican Winter League to try to get some extra reps after a trying 2020 season, but he ended up fracturing his right wrist. It was yet another ailment in a long line of injuries for him.
Both players will be in Bradenton on time and healthy, but there will certainly be a lot of eyes on them. Polanco is entering the final guaranteed year of his contract, and Cruz is on the cusp of reaching the Majors.
Cruz is poised to take over as the Pirates’ big left-handed power bat, and if he can’t stick at shortstop, he just might be the right fielder of the future.
6. DOES A LEADER EMERGE?
Musgrove was a leader in the clubhouse. Derek Holland and Jarrod Dyson were veteran presences that younger players gravitated to. Taillon and Bell -- and on a national scale, Archer -- were the faces of the franchise.
They’re all gone, and there really aren’t a lot of candidates to replace them.
This Pirates team is young. Jacob Stallings and Richard Rodriguez are the elder statesmen in camp at 31. They’re both respected by the peers and have been around the block a couple times, but neither has been in the Majors for a full 162-game season. It’s not quite the same as a Musgrove, Holland or Dyson.
This might be the same person, but someone is going to have to become the face of this franchise. Is it too much pressure to put it on Ke’Bryan Hayes, who just turned 24 and has played only 24 games in the Majors? How about Reynolds, or Keller?
“I don't know that baseball operations can decide who that is,” Ben Cherington said on the subject recently. “Those players sort of declare themselves by their performance on the field, with the way fans connect with them.”
7. PROSPECT ACTION?
Teams are allowed to bring up to 75 players to spring training this year, and the Pirates are filling out their roster with some of their top prospects. Not just guys who should be in the Majors this year, like Hayes and Cruz, but young prospects who are a couple years away. Quinn Priester. Loiver Peguero. Nick Gonzales. Players from that next wave of talent that the organization is putting all its chips on.
These types of players will go to the minor league spring training right after the MLB camp breaks, so they won’t prepare the same way the MLB players do. Still, is there a chance they could see game action?
“We certainly don’t want to eliminate game opportunities for anybody in camp,” Cherington was telling me. “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.”
The first priority of Major League spring training is to make sure the Major League team is ready for the season, but would an appearance from Priester or a couple at-bats by Peguero and Gonzales really do any harm to the MLB club? Give them a couple reps against upper-level talent and drum up a bit of excitement for the future of the organization.
8. HOW MUCH COMPETITION?
Cherington and Derek Shelton have both said throughout the offseason that there is going to be a culture of competition this spring training. Some jobs are spoken for -- Hayes at third, Polanco and Reynolds in the outfield, Adam Frazier at second and Stallings behind the plate -- but there are going to be more than a couple jobs up for grabs.
To go through a couple, the trio of Anthony Alford, non-roster invitee Brian Goodwin and prospect Jared Oliva are going to compete for the third starting outfield job and a bench role. Oliva is the only one of that group who could be optioned, so he has a serious uphill climb. Tony Wolters and Michael Perez are vying for the backup catcher job. There are the aforementioned rotation openings, and there are always a couple spots up for grabs in the bullpen and on the bench.
And perhaps most intriguingly, both Shelton and Cherington have singled out shortstop as a position that has playing time to be won. Newman has to be the frontrunner, but Cole Tucker, Cruz or Erik Gonzalez could earn extra reps there.
One of the main themes of last season was the Pirates giving opportunities to players who might not have been given a shot elsewhere. That will continue into 2021.
9. WHAT OF YEAR 2?
Toward the end of the 2019 season, the Pirates’ clubhouse was lifeless, defeated and desperate for a change.
They got it last year, and it’s impossible to exaggerate exactly how much the tone around the team changed during spring training last year. Players were more eager to learn, put in their work and try to get better. While they finished with the worst record in baseball, Shelton commended his team for continuing to put in work the whole year.
One of the main goals of last season was to change the team culture, and that was accomplished.
“All of the players that I spoke to during the season, after the season, really embraced the changes that were made there,” team president Travis Williams told me in November. “We’re really thankful of that different approach Derek and his team took.”
Now it’s year two. Shelton and his staff aren’t going to be welcomed in just because they’re new faces. It’s about continuing to develop and maintain those relationships and trying to make the team better. This is going to be a rough year in the Majors. If Shelton can keep that culture and the players continue to buy into what the staff is saying through this year, it would go a long way in the rebuild.
10. ADJUSTING TO THE VIRUS
It’s a predictable storyline, but sadly, COVID-19 has been the center of everyone’s lives for the last 11 months. It’s going to be again for this season too.
Spring training schedules have already been adjusted. There are new health and safety protocols in place. The extra-inning and doubleheader rules from last year are going to stay in place. Managers can agree to shorten games or innings this spring training.
Like during summer camp last year, expect the Pirates to make a lot of adjustments while preparing for the season. Things are going to be fluid, but at least they have some experience at doing this now.
SPRING TRAINING 2021 PREVIEW
Saturday: Projecting lineup, bench
Sunday: Projecting rotation, bullpen