The Pirates are inching closer toward the 2025 debut (and Pirates debut) of first baseman Spencer Horwitz. The 27-year-old has yet to play this year after undergoing wrist surgery in February, but he set out on a minor league rehab stint yesterday and went 1-for-2 with a single and a walk in three plate appearances with Double-A Altoona. Horwitz will need several games in the minors before he’s up with the big league club, but it’s a positive sign to see him take the field.
With Horwitz injured, the Pirates have split first base reps up among Enmanuel Valdez, Endy Rodriguez, Jared Triolo and (more briefly) Matt Gorski. Valdez has connected on a pair of homers and held his own in 74 plate appearances. Rodriguez and Triolo have both struggled. Gorski was only just called up for his MLB debut a few days ago. He’s 1-for-4 with a homer. As a whole, Pittsburgh first basemen have combined for a .192/.286/.374 batting line on the season. The resulting 83 wRC+ (indicating they’ve been 17% worse than average at the plate) ranks 20th in the majors.
Horwitz, one of the Pirates’ key offseason acquisitions, should provide considerably more offense. In parts of two seasons with the Blue Jays, he slashed .264/.355/.428 with 13 home runs and 21 doubles in 425 plate appearances. He’s a .316/.433/.471 hitter in 945 Triple-A plate appearances.
Horwitz has primarily been a first baseman and started at first in yesterday’s rehab game, but he doesn’t necessarily need to take over full-time reps there. The former 24th-round pick has just over 600 innings of left field work in his pro career and another 434 frames at second base. Both positions have been even more problematic for the Bucs than first base.
At second base, the Pirates have seen Adam Frazier, Nick Gonzales, Tsung-Che Cheng and the aforementioned Valdez and Triolo combine to bat .200/.300/.303. In left field, the group of Tommy Pham, Jack Suwinski, Alexander Canario, Ji Hwan Bae, Frazier and Gorski has combined for a staggering .150/.220/.187. No team in baseball has received less production from its left fielders than the Pirates.
Wherever Horwitz slots into the lineup, he should give a boost to a Pirates team that is hitting .224/.304/.341 on the whole. Pittsburgh ranks 23rd in the majors in both runs scored and home runs. Pirates hitters are 26th in batting average, 23rd in on-base percentage and 28th in slugging percentage.
The pitching has been better in Pittsburgh, particularly in the bullpen. Pirates relievers rank 14th in the majors with a solid 3.65 ERA, and Pittsburgh has seven relievers who’ve tossed at least nine innings with an ERA of 3.38 or better. Unfortunately, their most dependable arm so far, righty Justin Lawrence, is out with an elbow injury. Pirates assistant GM Bryan Stroh rather ominously revealed yesterday that Lawrence is headed for a second opinion on that ailing elbow (link via Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). There’s still no firm timetable for Lawrence’s return, but Stroh already indicated that he’ll miss more than the minimum 15 days on this current IL stint.
Lawrence, 30, came to the Pirates via waivers this March and has been a terrific pickup. He’s fired 11 1/3 innings of one-run ball, holding opponents to just five hits. The former Rockies hurler has walked six batters and plunked another pair of hitters, casting some doubt on his ability to continue anywhere close to this level, but even with some expected regression in terms of ERA, the right-hander has looked quite intriguing thus far.
Lawrence is throwing more sliders than ever before and missing more bats than ever before. He’s also begun sporadically using a four-seamer after previously throwing a sinker as his only fastball. Lawrence has punched out a whopping 34.1% of his hitters, helping him to offset a 13.8% walk rate. His 14.5% swinging-strike rate is well north of league average and is way up from the 9.3% career mark he carried into 2025. An absence of some note would sting, and seeking a second opinion is an inherently worrisome update.
The rotation hasn’t been quite as sharp as the bullpen, due in no small part to Jared Jones’ elbow injury and early struggles from southpaw Bailey Falter and righty Carmen Mlodzinski . Falter gave up seven runs (five of them earned) in a start for the second time this season yesterday. The lefty blamed his inability to throw his offspeed pitches for strikes when assessing his performance after yesterday’s game (link via the Post-Gazette’s Colin Beazley).
Falter is now sporting a 5.93 ERA on the season. He and Mlodzinski (6.95 ERA) have both been weak points in an otherwise solid rotation. Each of Paul Skenes, Mitch Keller and Andrew Heaney have kept their ERAs under 4.00 — well under in the case of Skenes and Heaney.
The veteran Heaney has been an outstanding addition, giving the Bucs 31 1/3 innings of 1.72 ERA ball with a hearty 26.3% strikeout rate and a tidy 5.1% walk rate. The 33-year-old’s one-year, $5.25MM deal with the Pirates in March caught many off guard, but he’s been a godsend in the wake of Jones’ injury and has probably already made some clubs second guess themselves for passing on him when he lingered in free agency. The Pirates won’t want to talk about the trade deadline anytime soon, but as things stand, Heaney could be a nice arm for them to market if they can’t turn things around after an 11-18 start.
Naturally, with Jones ailing and both Falter and Mlodzinski struggling, there’s plenty of attention on the Pirates’ young arms. Thomas Harrington made a brief MLB debut earlier this season, but it’s top prospect Bubba Chandler who has Bucs fans buzzing the most. The 22-year-old righty is a consensus top-20 prospect in the sport and widely considered among the best four to five pitching prospects in particular.
Chandler is out to a brilliant start in Triple-A Indianapolis, tossing 20 1/3 frames with a 1.33 ERA, a 36.5% strikeout rate and an 8.1% walk rate. That comes on the heels of a 1.83 ERA in seven starts (39 1/3 innings) with Indianapolis late in the 2024 season. The Pirates have been cautious with the touted righty’s pitch counts early in the season, but he tossed a season-high 70 pitches in five one-hit frames his last time out.
Chandler may not be built up to the extent he was in his Triple-A run late last year, when he averaged 87 pitches and 5 2/3 innings per start, but he certainly seems stretched out enough to be a rotation upgrade in Pittsburgh. There’s no firm indication as to when Chandler might be promoted, but we’re fewer than two weeks away from the one-year anniversary of when the Pirates promoted Skenes under similar circumstances; Skenes made his MLB debut on May 11 last year.
Horwitz being back in action is very promising. Hoping to see him back in the Major Leagues very soon. Offense has looked better in the last week, but getting him back would be a huge boost. Valdez has been much better than I and many others likely expected as sort of the hold-over until Horwitz is ready. He should stick around in a platoon-utility role even once Horwitz comes back.
The news on Lawrence is pretty ominous. Anything regarding elbow injuries is always ominous. It would suck if he’s out for an extended period of time. He’s been next to lights out for the most part. You could definitley tell something was wrong in his last outing. He was missing his spots way more than usual, and threw a wild pitch in the left-handed batter’s box. If worst comes to worst and Lawrence does miss a lot of time, then the Pirates need to send Nicolas and Holderman down, promote Chandler, move Mlodzinski to the pen, and recall Hunter Stratton.
Is it me or do the Pirates always seem to have a 1b problem? Looking at past starters, looks like Santana and one of the Bell years was 1+ WAR but doesn’t seems they’ve had consistent production there since the LaRoche years.
They have for decades. The last 1B to have consecutive seasons with +2.0 fWAR was Jason Thompson in the early-1980s. It’s why having Horwitz is sort of a big deal to me. He could actually be their first consistently solid answer in years.
Kevin Young was a decent first baseman
LaRoche was an annual late starter. offensively
By the time his bat heated up, they were out of contention
“we’re fewer than away”
Huh? Is “two weeks” missing from that statement?
Totally agree especially moving Mlodzinski to the pen and keeping Valdez. Also Holderman doesn’t belong here until he gets his act together. There are better options in AAA.
Send Triolo and Eddy down until they show more offense in AAA.
Honestly, I’d be okay if they just cut ties with Holderman altogether. Trade him for what you can get. He still has decent stuff, so some team would definitley be willing to take him on as a change-of-scenery project. Mlodzinski (when Chandler gets promoted), Stratton, Burrows, Ashcraft, you have plenty of better options to replace him with.
Sell the team bob
NOBODY wants to buy the team and keep it in the historically bad Pittsburgh baseball market.
False. MLB teams are a very limited commodity, and there would be no shortage of buyers if Nutting decided to sell.
NOBODY wants to buy the Pirates . . . . and KEEP THEM IN THE HISTORICALLY BAD PITTSBURGH BASEBALL MARKET.
If they are sold, they will be moved to a better market (Nashville, Charlotte, San Antonio) as soon as the lease on PNC Park expires at the end of the 2030 season.
I stand by my comment. There would be plenty of buyers even if there were a stipulation that the team couldn’t be relocated.
Granted, being able to relocate would increase the value of the offers. But this is still an MLB franchise. No need to dip into hyperbolic absolutes. The Pirates have drawn well (for a small market team) when the team is competitive
Last time I checked. I feel the pirates do very well on local tv
Some exciting talent on the team but they clearly aren’t going anywhere this season. Had to explain to my son that growing up they were one of the iconic franchises.
Why not promote Yorke and get his bat in the lineup? He’s been off the IL awhile now and seems to be rounding into form.
Chandler should be held back untill the team outlook is a bit better or closer to the break.
Statement should read: Chandler will be held back until mid-June to manipulate service time
“As a whole, Pittsburgh first basemen have combined for a .192/.286/.374 batting line on the season. The resulting 83 wRC+ (indicating they’ve been 17% worse than average at the plate) ranks 20th in the majors”
20th with that slash line! It’s hard to get my head around the fact that 10 teams could have worse production than that.
This was my thought, too. 1B for the Pirates has been a frustrating position for a long time but to know that there are 10 teams in a worse position just puts into context how poor the market for 1B is right now. I’m not sure they could have done better than Horowitz, honestly.
They will never send Triolo down because of his defense but as a hitter he’s too inconsistent.
Canario should released when Horowitz finally comes up to the majors
Too bad Cherington signed Pham for $4 million. He would be a perfect candidate to release. But Nutting would never allow Ben to cut ties with him this early in the season
Holderman pitched 1.1 innings of no runs baseball yesterday which is promising
Nichols isn’t the answer for long relief either and Falter has not pitched well at all this year. I know there was an issue with his back, maybe he should be further evaluated
Help wanted!! Pirates need a consistent hitter in this lineup! We need 3 to contend, he have 0! Every one is up then down? Can’t win like that. Doesn’t matter how good pitching is.