After a difficult season that saw the Pirates flash signs of life in the first half with a 48-48 record before crashing to a 28-38 record after the All-Star break, Pittsburgh GM Ben Cherington discussed a few of the club’s key players as they team now looks ahead toward the 2025 campaign and the coming offseason.
Chief among those was like NL Rookie of the Year favorite Paul Skenes. For all of the club’s faults this year, Skenes was the most obvious bright spot as he was nothing short of dominant practically from the moment he made his big league debut back in May. In 23 starts from then on, Skenes posted an eye-popping 1.96 ERA with an excellent 2.45 FIP. With a 33.1% strikeout rate across his 133 innings of work, Skenes was perhaps the most dominant pitcher in all of MLB this year. The one flaw in is otherwise dominant rookie campaign was volume, as Skenes threw just 160 1/3 innings of work in total this year between the major and minor leagues. That includes eight starts where Skenes failed to pass 80 pitches in his outing.
Fortunately, that seeming unwillingness to have Skenes pitch deep into games faded as his season continued, with the right-hander ultimately throwing more than 100 pitches in six of his 23 big league outings. What’s more, Cherington told reporters (including Alex Stumpf of MLB.com) that the hard-throwing righty could find himself unleashed completely next year. Cherington indicated that the Pirates do not currently plan on “any sort of hard limits” on Skenes’s innings or pitch counts headed into 2025, leaving the door open for Skenes to post an even stronger season next year should he be able to post something close to this season’s results over a full slate of 30 starts. The righty figures to headline Pittsburgh’s rotation next year, followed by Jared Jones and Mitch Keller. There’s some uncertainty at the back of the club’s rotation behind those three, but Johan Oviedo, Luis L. Ortiz, and Bailey Falter could all be in the mix for starts as well.
Looking beyond the rotation, Cherington notably also offered a vote of confidence in longtime closer David Bednar, who struggled badly throughout the 2024 campaign and was eventually removed from the closer role in late August. Bednar’s results improved over the month of September but his peripheral numbers remained shaky, as he posted a solid 3.38 ERA but walked (ten) more batters than he struck out (nine) across 10 2/3 innings of work. That left Bednar with an overall ERA of 5.77 on the year, and while his 4.80 FIP offered some reason for optimism even that figure was still worse than average as it was held back by a 10.7% walk rate.
Given Bednar’s brutal performance and a fairly considerable $6.6MM salary projection for next season courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz, it wouldn’t be a shock to see the club explore moving on from Bednar this winter. If that possibility is on the table, however, Cherington did not acknowledge it. On the contrary, Stumpf notes that Cherington suggested Bednar could even recapture the closer’s role in time for 2025. Even in spite of Bednar’s poor performance, such an outcome would hardly be a shock. After all, the club has few proven relievers under team control besides Colin Holderman and Bednar dominated to the tune of a 2.25 ERA with a 2.56 FIP over the 2021-23 seasons. If Bednar can even come close to that sort of production next year, he’d be well worth the $6.6MM investment via arbitration.
Now turning to the positional side, Cherington also provided a small update (as relayed by Stumpf) on third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes. A former top-of-the-line infield prospect who enjoyed something of a breakout campaign in 2023 where he paired excellent defense with a roughly league average at, Hayes appeared sure to join Skenes, Jones, and Oneil Cruz among the club’s core this season. Instead, injuries derailed Hayes’s year completely. He was limited to just 96 games by a disc problem in his back that sent him to the injured list twice this year and left him playing through pain for the majority of the year when he was on the field. The injury marred campaign led to disastrous results, as Hayes hit just .233/.283/.290 in 396 trips to the plate alongside defensive numbers that were a far cry from previous seasons.
Difficult as 2024 was for Hayes, however, Cherington expressed optimism about the infielder’s status as he looked ahead to 2025. The GM acknowledged that there’s “always some level of concern” regarding an injured player until he’s once again on the field, but added that he believes the club is better informed about Hayes’s injury situation and that the third baseman is “excited” to return to action in 2025. When Hayes was unable to take the field this year, Jared Triolo and Isiah Kiner-Falefa were the club’s primary options at the hot corner this year. Both players are in line to return to the club next year and could continue backing up the position in the event Hayes struggles to stay on the field in 2025 as well.
Nice positive spin on the Cherington press conference from last Wednesday, which i thought was a train-wreck
I have a strong feeling he wants to say more, specifically about how ownership wants things run, but ovbiously won’t for professional reasons.
I have a strong feeling that this was an opportune time to fire Shelton.
I have an.even stronger feeling that everything Ben says should be taken with a grain of salt
Offer Skenes a ten year contract, throw in lifetime passes to Nutting’s sky resort to sweeten the deal.
He sold all his Ski Resorts in 2021 or 2022. All he has is his family newspaper company outside of the Pirates. But this spend cheap to find lighting in the bottle type of player(s), needs to end. This isn’t early 2000s anymore. This bargain shopping won’t win the amount of games to be relevant again. This is a poorly funded team because of a cheap owner who just cares about the money. What PNC Park brings in yearly, is triple or what ski resorts were accomplishing in 4 years. He treats the stadium and team as a tourist attraction. Paul Skenes gives Bob that golden ticket to capitalise on profits coming in. Sometimes I wish Cuban bought the team (even if he moved them to Dallas), it would have been better for the organization than what we have seen for nearly 30 years it’s a disgrace to all the great players who played in Pittsburgh. From Honus Wagner to Roberto Clemente to Andrew McCutchen, it’s an big slap in their faces.
The Nutting’s also have a hand full of other “small” operations in the region.
I guess before Nutting’s took the reigns the team was so much better… Oh wait.
A lot happened leading up to the Nutting’s getting the majority stake and more happened before the Nutting’s (Bob) took the Head seat later on. The franchise position in the late 90s early 00s was a huge mess. The franchise wasn’t in a good position to make moves until 2010 or so and shortly after started to do well. NH wasn’t having any of that and threw that all away with a series of collosal failures. We are just now starting to recover.
Not giving Bob a pass, he has made mistakes and I wish more budget was availabe but the whole “Bob is cheap” line is old.
Move the team to Dallas? Have you heard of the Texas Rangers? Won the WS last year. Ringing a bell? Call Dallas home.
10-year contract for a pitcher is like taking a 10-year warranty on a Mitsubishi Mirage. Too risky. Neither will last that long. It’s pretty much assumed now that more than 50% of pitchers will have TJS somewhere down the line, so you lose 1-1/2 of those years and, even then, you have to hope they come back strong.
True letit. Only 10y deal ever recall for a pitcher was horrid.
Wayne Garland. He finally retired early, after he tore his shoulder up leaving several years worth of cash on the table:
baseball-reference.com/players/g/garlawa01.shtml
1st objective is get skenes on a high dosage of acutane, after that facial mess clears up then get him a razor and shave off that hideous mustache of his. Once both of those are finished get him to a competent barber and have him clean up that mess he has on top of his head.
Oh, and also offer him a contract extension 10 years 350mm to 12 years 400mm.
First paragraph, classless
Second paragraph, clueless
Touché.
What about a deal involving Bubba Chandler and Jarren Duran? Pirates need a lefty hitting center fielder. Red Sox need to trade some lefty hitters and have other center field options.
If it were up to me, I’d make that deal in an instant. But Chandler seems like an untouchable, and I doubt the Sox are in a rush to trade him right now.
Would take more than Chandler to get Duran right now.. 4y of control led the league in doubles, triples, superb defensive CF, 21HR, 30+ SB.. He’s what they used to call a 5 tool guy and projected to make less than 5m in 2025.
Chandler might be a piece in a proposed package, but more than any prospect to get, what quickly became one of the best overall players in the game during the ’24 season.
yeah, i can see Boston possibly moving him this offseason, but for a legit front end starter, not for a prospect who “might” turn into one.
Why would the Sox trade Duran? They need to win next season. Their little “reset”, “re-tool”, “reload” whatever, has gone on long enough. They need to win now in order to prevent a fan revolt.
Red Sox are going to start winning soon they have a really good farm system. That fan revolt stuff is nonsense they need to do what’s best for the team.
Dream on! Chandler not going anywhere.
Durran is a stud fella. Hanging onto prospects for a chance to win is the Pirate way i suppose.
So el Chapo wants skenes completely hairless on his head… interesting.
No, I want him to have a clean face and a nice sharp haircut befitting a man who has a supermodel GF and is the face of an organization and an up and coming superstar.
His girlfriend probably likes his hair and mustache or he wouldn’t have them like that.
Skenes will be unleashed in 2025. Said Pirates GM Ben Cherington, “We don’t plan any limits for Skenes. He only really has to hold up for 3 more years, 4 max. Then we’ll trade him for prospects. We certainly aren’t going to pay anyone SP1 money. I doubt Mr. Nutting will want to pay Skenes his likely Arb Year 2 money. If his arm falls off while playing for a team with an owner who wants to win, it’s not our problem. So if he’s got a perfect game going into the 7th inning at 105 pitches, he ain’t coming out. That will sell tickets!” A club official who requested anonymity later clarified that Nutting does want to win, just not if it requires a payroll higher than $80M.
I’m about to write what is essentially an essay, but after such a frustrating year, I need to let out some frustration.
I want to first rattle off my positive thoughts. The Pirates actually feel like they’ve figured something out with their pitching development. Paul Skenes is the obvious big success story, but Jared Jones, Bailey Falter, Kyle Nicolas, Dennis Santana, Luis Ortiz all took steps forward. Their minor league top prospects have looked fantastic too and also took steps forward. That’s something that hasn’t happened in years, both Major and Minor league pitchers in the organization making huge leaps forward.
Oneil Cruz had a very promising season. There were some bumps in the road, but after coming off a huge leg injury, to see him back at full strength was a fun sight. His move to center field was a lot better than I think anyone could have expected. He didn’t have any trouble running good routes or getting a good jump on the ball, two things many worried about because of how different the angle is, and he immediately became the hardest throwing position player in baseball. He worked really hard with Michael A. Taylor to make a good first impression.
I don’t think this team is as far out as some want to paint it out to be. I’ll admit, I’m biased and more optimistic than most, but there’s a solid foundation here. It’s now on the Pirates to build upon that foundation by adding players and improving the ones they currently have. There have been some other positives, other than pitching development. Oneil Cruz was good and took to center field much better than anyone could have expected. Nick Gonzales and Joey Bart were big positives. Billy Cook and Nick Yorke showed some promise in September. Hopefully they can continue to do that next year. As things stand right now, I think they’re a potential WC contender.
Now let me rattle off my negative opinions on the team. Well first of all, I think it’s easy to say they fell well short of expectations. Me personally, I had them winning 82-83 games, which is only a 6-7 game improvement from last year. You’d think that getting a healthy and solid season from Oneil Cruz, a mostly full season from Paul, and the other multiple positives I mentioned earlier would be enough to give them that boost. It wasn’t, because of many other things that went wrong.
The Pirates, the bare minimum this off-season (regarding the coaching staff), need to completely re-evaluate what they’re teaching their hitters at the Major League level. Jack Suwinski went into this year with the expectation he could be a potential run producing threat after swatting 26 home runs with a .793 OPS, and 112 wRC+. He couldn’t even crack a .600 OPS or a 70 wRC+. He had a huge change in approach, and it took until September this year at Triple-A for him to figure things out again. If it was one instance of a player struggling badly after a solid season prior, that’s one thing. Every team has had a player or two have a bad year.
But the Pirates had Michael A. Taylor, Edward Olivares, and Jared Triolo each have a drop in wRC+ of 20 points or greater from 2023 to 2024. Not to mention that the players they did acquire mid-season, like Bryan De La Cruz and IKF also taking huge steps back after getting traded to the Pirates. I’ll give BDLC and IKF a pass for now, but when you have multiple other players take huge steps back, having 3-4 of what was supposed to be key parts of your line-up decline during the same season is suspicious. Once or twice is normal, 3, 4, 5 times, that’s a huge problem. Not to mention many of the prospects who did well at Triple-A, like Henry Davis and Ji Hwan Bae, did not take a step forward.
Luckily, the Pirates at least know something different has to be done in the hitting department, as they’ve already moved on from Andy Haines, which is a good way to start the off-season. When you have that many players take a huge step back, and multiple others look for help outside the org, something needed to be done, and something was.
The real wild card for next season, as things stand right now, is Ke’Bryan Hayes. I hate to see what happened to him this season, but his struggles aren’t entirely his fault. He was playing through a herniated disc and it was clear something was off. Any raw power he showed last year was gone. He never had an exit velocity below 90 MPH since getting into MLB, and last year he had a career high 92.2 MPH exit velo. But this year it was just 88.9 MPH. That’s like the difference between Joc Pederson or Marcell Ozuna, to Ty France or Jon Singleton.
Not only could you tell by his huge dip in raw power numbers, but something was clearly bothering him based on his play style and body language. Hayes always puts 110% effort out there, especially on the defensive side of the ball, and we saw that last year. But he just physically couldn’t do that without pain this year. He was unhappy with himself, and you could tell. I can appreciate the admirable effort to play through it, but it led to some pretty bad results.
Unfortunately, the only thing the Pirates can do with Hayes is put him through good physical therapy and pray his back strengthens up enough where he can get some of that raw strength back and can make the plays at third he was making the last few years. There really isn’t a surgery that can fix every and all herniated discs, and based on what it sounded like, his case fell into that. It’s not a simple fix. Back issues are always scary because that’s where a lot of a hitter’s power is generated from.
Regarding Shelton, if they’re not going to move on from him right now, someone needs to have a serious sit-down with him and give him a lesson on managing a roster, because that’s where most of this team’s struggles were this year; not properly managing the bullpen when pitchers were struggling, calling up players a month later than they should have been, weird, inconsistent line-ups, etc.
My final thoughts are that this team can be good; there’s a good foundation here, and they need to build around this talented rotation. I remain optimistic right now, as I think this team is just a few good decisions away from truly being great, but it’s clearly been frustrating.
And your final, final thought?
Can you please type more your thoughts are too open ended
MLB1225- My simple thoughts on the Pirates in the article are:
The strength of the team is obviously the starters. As long as they keep a reasonable approach to keeping them healthy they’ll be good there for quite awhile. I actually thought Shelton did a great job not ruining them for the sake of his job.
Hayes-? I still fail to see what everybody sees in this guy. I don’t think he’s all that even when he plays which isn’t much.
Bednar- For 6 million bucks I’d give him a chance to right the ship next year. 6 million for a closer is peanuts. I’d definitely have a plan B and maybe even C as you need more bullpen guys. Just my opinion.
Excellent example of how the Pirates might look going forward are The 2024 Mariners. With the best(?) rotation in MLB for 24 season only got them within 1 game of October, again.
And not even to our all important number, 54%
if I wanted to read a book on the Pirates I would have visited the local library
Actually well thought about and to the point. I don’t watch much pirates baseball, but the little I watched was when either skenes or jones was on the mound. So I have a few questions for you being the pirates fan that you clearly are. It seemed to me that jones faded a bit down the stretch, post injury, his velodrome was clearly there, but the sharpness on his pitches didn’t seem to be the same as earlier in the season. Do you have a theory as to why? Secondly you say that ke’bryan hayes has/had a reputation for giving it his all, but all see on here opin other pirates related posts are other commentators lambasting his low energy, uninspiring level of effort. What am I missing?
Well if you’re talking to me I’m a Cubs fan and a White Sox fan that keeps it quiet for the most part especially now. See a lot of the Pirates though. They’re drafting in the right direction but that happens when you draft where they have been. Hard to miss. But it takes more than that and Nutting isn’t up to it IMO.
The biggest off season improvement other than the possibility of signing Soto, oops, IMpossibility, sorry…would be to fire Shelton which by itself would be a 10 game improvement. His mismanagement of the roster was pitiful. Sticking with an unhealthy Hayes, writing Connor Joe into the lineup way to often influenced by a decent month and a half.
Going with Bednar when the fanbase, but seemingly not Shelton himself, knew that he was going to give up the game, if not the lead. IKF is not any more of a SS than Cruz was. In the absence of a true defensively minded SS, Gonzales or Triolo were the better options. Williams …can’t hit major league pitching. Bae? So many tools, so many swing and misses. The roster is not bad, need a Francona type to……oops, hometown boy takes another job in Cincy. That’s on Cherington. Optimistic because I’ve seen worse rosters do better.
When all you have is crap to pick from when you’re trying to find some runs isn’t the Managers fault. It’s like blaming Counsell for the Cubs run drought when you’re looking down the bench at Wisdom, Mastrobuoni, Tauchman and Bethancourt for reserves. You choose between bad, worse and worser. . You can only play what they give you. That’s on Hoyer and Cherington.
Hard to defend Shelton when you aren’t watching the games. I’ve been following the Pirates for 40 years, have seen it all. He’s a terrible non instinctive game manager. You can comment on Counsell all you want….you know his management skills better than I do.
A good solid manager would have reversed the win and loss totals which would still not have made the playoffs but would have shown a clear improvement.
MLB- With all due respect,your essay basically is written while looking through rose colored glasses,
Many of us older fan posters have seen this yada yada before.
You are correct in thinking that position players show promise.
Shelton will never manage winning ball club. He lets players not hustle and does not demand fundamental baseball.
Cherington is clueless to think that he will.
Nutting is clueless now to keep them both.
Hayes has always been nonchalant and his back may be toast.
Cruz has poor fundamentals and does not hustle.
They do have have some good players,and can play much better.
But they will never have a great team because one must have several superstars and the Pirates will not be able to keep them in this big market team league environment.
Shelton lacks team discipline, allows players to do as they please and wrote 149 different lineups during the season based on analytics which doesn’t work on a team that lacks consistency
All really good thoughts and information but unfortunately the Pirates will never win as long as this management is there. They needed to fire everyone from Cherington down because this group cares more about their “process” and being the smartest people in the room than winning!
Only a moron writer from MLB trade rumors would say ” the only flaw” in Skenes was his work volume. Well you junior high school newspaper mojo. It’s not skene’s flaw, it’s the MORON managers flaw. And then he goes on to say that Falter, Oviedo, Ortiz fit in the bac of the rotation. .nice job of reporting what everyone knows
Now you have a poster like this goof el creepo posting a stupid idiotic post. He thinks it’s sarcasm. But el creepo shows just how much of a moronic troll that he is.
Dam, why don’t these insecure bed wetting trolls just go off into a corner and die.
Wow….any Pirates fan has the right to be angry but geesch, take a breath. Open forum here, which means everyone has their own opinion.
Nope I’m angry at idiot trolls. Do you count yourself as one????
You’re in the top three worst posters of all time. I’ll be updating my list soon.
So you know what a troll is? Go ahead and insult whoever you want. We actually agree more than disagree.
Wow I made your list dam am I lucky…
Well at least you have one thing going for you, that you agree with someone who knows what they are talking about…look.i don’t mean to sound so angry…it’s just that this site used to be so good. Now you have nuts coming on and not talking baseball, but just trolling others.
And I get annoyed when mlb trade rumors says to help support their writers. But I can’t support anyone that has middle school writers.
And when you make up your new list, put yourself at the top
The Cardinals and Pirates could swap 3rd baseman. The Pirates need a better hitter than Hayes and the Cardinals need salary relief. It may seem farfetched, but it works on several levels. Both teams assume risk. Both teams are betting on rebounds.
Well im Nrewer fan and I admit I like what the Porates are doing. Honestly I think that the Pirates are sitting pretty good. What helps Milwaukee a lot is player 40 to player 60. Right now is very important in finding guys that can help your roster for next year. They gotta go through the MiLB free agents that have some decent stuff that is got good attributes that they could adjust to help them be better. coach able players. The 40 to 60 players are just as important as the 40 man roster. I think Pittsburgh is close to being as good as the playoffs teams. Think the future is bright for years to come.
In terms of on field performance it’s not a terrible trade idea but also doesn’t really improve either team enough to entertain the idea either. All other factors make it pretty crazy though. Most notably the fact that off the top of my head the last Pirates-Cardinals trade I can remember was the Andy van Slyke deal back in the mid-eighties.
Jimmy- Oviedo for Quintana,but that was a deadline deal when the Pirates were not competitive.
Don- There is a chance that Hayes will basically be done if his back does not improve over the winter.
I do not know how much salary the Rockies are picking up but what is left would be too much for Nutting.
5 mil this year. 5 mil next. After subtracting Hayes’ salary it wouldn’t be a huge number. And it’s a relatively short commitment at three years. The contract is front loaded so the biggest expenditure would be next season.
coming from someone who has had 2 separate surgeries for a herniated disk in his #5 lumbar, I can attest to the fact that unless Hayes has surgery his back issues will be problematic for the rest of his career
Maybe they could coax Terry Francona out of retiirement?
Oh, wait a minute….. never mind.
Get a package together involving Hayes going to the Blue Jays for Vladdy Jr
I really am optimistic about the Pitching staff of the Pirates next year and beyond. Skenes, Chandler, Jones, Keller, Barco, et al has the makings of best in franchise history.
The problem is Nutting won’t increase the budget to acquire the bats needed to compliment the staff. And BC refuses to make bold moves to trade from the outstanding pitching depth to acquire inexpensive hitters who could blossom into 3+ WAR hitters.
It’s super frustrating being a fan of a team when the Owner and GM aren’t willing to do what’s necessary to win.
It’s best for the Yankees to let Skenes undergo his TJ next year so by the time they sign him he’s already past the inevitable and doesn’t log any unnecessary innings playing for such a trash team.
Because the Yankees had great success the past 10 years. LOL
Ohtani is the GOAT
Boooooring response. How about something original?
You’re not worthy. In fact, take a mute
RUS-Mute us all so you will go away,troll.
AYF.
Cherington, is he still the GM?
Any other organization would have fired this guy.
Take away Paul Skenes record and this team was worse than prior years.
Many pre-draft Mensa folks had Skenes as a number 3 pick behind Dylan Crews and Wyatt Langford.
And your point is?
Too bad Cherington doesn’t listen to Mensa for advice
His heart was always on drafting Skenes
Looking at the playoff rosters of teams like the Royals and especially the Tigers give me hope this Pirates team isn’t far off. You can’t tell me with a straight face the Tigers roster is better than the Pirates. They are essentially using one starting pitcher in the playoffs, a good bullpen has formed, and while their lineup is doing ok, I don’t really know any of them other than Keith, Meadows, and Vierling. Difference is they are good coached and developed.
I don’t see any free agents that would magically help the Pirates. Maybe Christian Walker at 1B. I don’t think Alonso will reach FA and even so will not be a reasonable signing. They need to get better with the moves they make in the margins. And realize they can never have enough pitching. Once a few guys went down, things spiraled and it hurt everything. German and Woodford had maybe 1 good start each but other than that were bad, killed the bullpen, and not really having a reliable long man was tough as well. Choosing Gonzales over Perez was a miss. Even though Perez was largely average at best, he still made his starts and usually kept them afloat.
Cherington needs to have a nice, long conversation with Neal Huntington about building a deep and dominant bullpen. The Bucs have the starting pitching to stay in games early but gotta close games out when they’re up late. Huntington was great at making sure the 7th-9th innings were covered (Watson, Grilli, Hanrahan, Melancon, etc) which was arguably the most important and most overlooked aspect of the early 2010’s teams that had success.
it’s not necessarily the players are better than the Pirates, it’s the manager and his style of leadership that produces a winning team
Shelton isn’t that manager
Jimmy- In Cherington’s defense I do not think that he saw the complete drop off of Bednar.
To his kudos he had Chapman in reserve.
This is the greatest Pirate pitcher drop in competence since Steve Blass dropped even further.
Cherington’s backups were awful and I still think that he should have kept Fleming who was a decent long man.
is it just me or is this new concept a train wreck?
Deeds is a terrible writer. What is an “average at?” Also, “difficult as 2024 was for Hayes“ is NOT proper English. You can’t just leave out “as” at the beginning of the sentence. It’s not optional, and neither is being grammatically correct when you’re being paid to write.
First off since the Pirates are baseballs smallest market mlb should consider contracting the pirates. Or buying them out so the team can be moved to a bigger market like Memphis or Charlotte or Orlando or Montreal or Portland or Austin Tx .pittsburgh just can’t support a mlb team and honestly would not miss it if it moved . Pittsburgh has the Steelers and penguins no need for the pirates . Maybe give Pittsburgh a single a or double a team to play in the stadium. Next since Skenes and Keller are out of the pirates pocket book range they should trade them to a contender so they get prospects too help your rebuild and get your farm stocked up with good prospects.