PIRATES

Don Kelly knows two particular things are certain: The 2025 season didn't bring forth a desirable outcome and the Pirates' offensive performance needs to improve in order for things to improve in 2026.

"Offensively, we need to get better," Kelly said on the first day of the Winter Meetings today. "We've talked about that a lot. We need to get better on the offensive side and we need to continue to be really good on the pitching front. That's the foundation of our team. Gotta find a way to score some more runs to win baseball games." 

Kelly is stating the obvious here, but he knows that a lack of offense was what kept the Pirates from going anywhere this past season. Regardless of how good the pitching staff is, he's aware that a step forward can't be taken with a lineup that produced some of the worst offensive statistics among all teams in Major League Baseball in 2025. 

So, there's obvious work that needs to be done. The Pirates have been connected to a plethora of offensive contributors this winter and there's been a stated urgency to improve the lineup with external additions. For Kelly, it's exciting to see the club in the mix for talent that could achieve that latter goal.

"We all know how much 2026 means and a lot of discussions going on about building toward that," Kelly said. "Started right after the season was over this year. Obviously 2025 didn't go as we had hoped and really looking forward to '26. Just covering every avenue that we possibly can to try to improve the team for next year." 

Now, there's a difference between the front office expressing its intentions to contend for free agents and actually executing the plan to acquire talent that could truly move the needle. 

I asked Kelly if he's confident that there will be execution in terms of being able to bring in bats from the outside to improve the offense: "I really love the conversations going on. Can't speak specifically to any individual thing per se, but a lot of great conversation, a lot of great things that are happening. Really with the ultimate goal of winning in Pittsburgh in '26." 

It's fair for one to question why any top free agent bat would want to join a club that just won 71 games after back-to-back 76-win seasons and hasn't made a postseason appearance in 10 years. Most of the top-tier free agents eye the larger-market teams or ones closer to winning championships than simply contending for playoff spots. 

In the eyes of Kelly, they're not just selling a player on dollars, cents or length of a contract. The talent of a pitching staff led by Paul Skenes is a major selling point, too. 

"When you look at the team and the way that we're built with our pitching staff -- there's some teams around the league that have good pitching staffs, not discounting that at all -- I totally believe that ours is at the top, toward the top of the league," Kelly said. "When you look at Paul, Bubba Chandler, Mitch Keller, Braxton Ashcraft, Jared Jones, Mike Burrows -- it's unbelievable the way that we have the starting pitching depth and the talent to be really good. I think that it's something that gives us a chance to win in '26 with the right additions."