The Pirates, by many estimations, overachieved this season to some degree by finishing 82-79. They enter the offseason with a belief that they can compete in 2019. This was proven with the acquisitions of Keone Kela and Chris Archer in late July. However, to compete, it is believed that they need more help.
Last offseason, the Pirates traded away Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole while signing no MLB free agents. This all angered fans, but perhaps the Pirates were onto something when they did it. They then put belief in this group in July which will help them until 2020 at least. Given those moves showing the Pirates are not rebuilding and aren’t planning to for awhile and the fact they appear to be positioning themselves to win now, as well as the fact that if they have another offseason like they did last year, there may be only 10 people at PNC Park next year (I will be one of them by the way), makes this maybe the most crucial offseason of the Neal Huntington era. The team has treaded water and paddled around .500 for too long. It is time for Neal Huntington to continue the work he began and continue to give this group all the assets that they need to win. They can ill-afford to rearrange the furniture, so to speak, again.
Pirates will have money to spend after holding payroll down in both 2017 and 2018 after it hit franchise-high levels in 2015 and 2016. This combined with the likely option being declined on Harrison and the departure of Mercer and Sean Rodriguez (the trade of Freese saved money too) will create more money, even if it’s just balanced out by pay raises through contracts or arbitration. All in all, the Pirates should be able to at least spend some money, and not doing so would be an amazingly bad optics move by the organization, as well as the consequences it could have on the team potentially just falling flat like they have done recently and just be a mediocre team again.
The Pirates could really use a hitter or two to bolster the lineup as well as a pitcher or two now that both Chad Kuhl and Edgar Santana are set to miss all of 2019 after Tommy John surgery. These are the greatest areas of needs, but helping out the depth of the team as a whole to handle injuries and other things is always an important thing to do as well.
The Pirates were not great in 2018, but they had some flashes that show the potential is there. Adding Archer and Kela for a full season will add some wins to this team even before any other moves. This team is much more capable of handling misfortune than the previous seasons when they’d lose a key player or two to injuries or loss of production and crumble. That wasn’t the case this year, and that’s huge going forward. This team, as currently constructed can win 85 games in 2019 (which hasn’t been good enough for the playoffs most years), even if some big things don’t go right. This team’s ceiling may be beyond that though, and that is something Huntington has to tap into for them to return to the playoffs. Call me crazy, but adding a few more pieces to put the icing on the cake would make this team a legitimate threat to make the playoffs and maybe challenge for the division, like the Brewers have done this season.
The Pirates are in a crucial position right now concerning where they are going the next few years, and they are closer to being good than being bad. Huntington cannot afford to be act like a deer caught in headlights this offseason. His job in the months to follow is to get this team those few extra pieces they need to really get this ball rolling.
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