All That Jazz

Jazz Chisholm Jr. displays a downside to the Pirates' self-made plans

Jazz Chisholm Jr. was the best player at the trade deadline last year.

The Pittsburgh Pirates had the resources to acquire him, both in terms of financials and prospect capital. I doubt the cost on both fronts would have been considerably more than what they combined to pay for Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Bryan De La Cruz.

Chisholm was instead acquired by the New York Yankees, and he almost immediately became a star. During the first week of the 2025 season, he hit .292 with four homers and a 1.162 OPS.

Had the Pirates acquired Chisholm, I have serious doubts that he would have achieved the same success. Don’t think the focus of this article is lamenting what could have been.

This weekend against the Yankees displayed the disadvantage the Pirates face.

Chisholm went 1-for-9 in the first two games of the series. The Yankees still won both games, convincingly, by a combined score of 19-8. On Sunday, Chisholm went 1-for-5 with an RBI double and three strikeouts. The Pirates ended up winning 5-4 in extra innings.

If Chisholm had been acquired by the Pirates, he’d be facing much more pressure than he currently has with the Yankees. The Pirates would need him to be a star, in order to have a chance to take more than one narrowly won game against the Yankees. Meanwhile, the Yankees didn’t really need Chisholm this weekend to easily take a series against the Pirates.

The Yankees are benefitting this year from the new torpedo bats. The best description I’ve seen of how those help players is that they take each hit to the next level. A weak hit becomes solid contact. Solid contact becomes more of a barrel. And those who are more prone to finding the barrel of the bat will see an explosion in home runs.

Make no mistake, the Yankees would be good without those bats. Chisholm hit 11 homers with an .825 OPS in 46 games with the Yankees last season. It’s frustrating that a team already so good is getting an easy boost with bigger bats.

The Pirates have almost the opposite problem. Their offense is entirely reliant on — I don’t want to say young players, but inexperience in leading.

Bryan Reynolds is the most consistent hitter on the team. He’s ranked 32nd among all hitters from 2021 to 2025 in offensive run value. Reynolds would be a significant part of any lineup in baseball. He also reflects an issue with the Pirates, in that they don’t have any top-end hitters to make him the complementary star he’d be with a better offense.

This isn’t the fault of Reynolds, but it does put unreasonable expectations on him to be more than his already great level of hitting.

Oneil Cruz faces the same pressure. He has an .850 OPS to start the 2025 season, which is similar to the pace that Chisholm was on with New York last year when he was seen as a huge deadline boost. Yet, Pirates fans need Cruz to be more. Chisholm only needs to be as good as Cruz is now, while the Pirates are dreaming that Cruz can be as good as Aaron Judge.

Cruz could rise to that level, but he also faces the pressure that the Pirates need this result.

On the pitching side, the Pirates got a boost last year from the addition of Paul Skenes. Drafted first overall in 2023, Skenes immediately lived up to his generational pitcher hype. He not only became one of the best pitchers in the league instantly, but he also set the tone for the rest of the starting group.

There’s no pressure on Mitch Keller to be a number one starter. Jared Jones is injured, but when he returns, he can just become another high velocity arm to deal with. The top prospect in the minors, Bubba Chandler, has already issued the friendly promise that he would be coming for the top spot from Skenes.

Unlike the top hitting prospects, the Pirates don’t need Chandler to be the best, instantly. They just need him to complement an already talented rotation.

The pressure that Chandler will face is going to be less than the pressure of any hitting prospect in this organization.

The hitters are trying to fill the void of that elite bat who the rest of the lineup can produce around. The pitchers received that catalyst to stronger group production with the arrival of Skenes.

What can be done about this in 2025? Not much.

The hope that Cruz becomes that elite hitter, or that Reynolds has a career year, or that Ke’Bryan Hayes remains healthy and gets his bat on track, all lead to the same desire that these players need to be more than what they are.

The Pirates don’t have one of the elite hitters in the game. They also don’t have many hitters with consistent track records. Every hitter in the lineup needs to play to their best abilities in order to make up for this. There’s no margin for error and little room for long-term slumps with this offense.

The hope is that new hitting coach Matt Hague won’t take hitters backwards like the trend under former hitting coach Andy Haines, but instead will find a way to get players advancing forward. Collectively, this group could contend behind this pitching staff, but it would take consistency from a group of largely inconsistent career hitters.

Who knows? Maybe some torpedo bats could help.

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The Pirates won 5-4 in 11 innings on Sunday, thanks to a walk off hit by offseason free agent outfielder Tommy Pham.

Lost in the extra inning win? Another meltdown by the bullpen.

This time it was Ryan Borucki, who blew a 4-1 lead in the 9th inning, sending the game to extras.

Former closer David Bednar has already been sent to Triple-A this season, after starting with the same struggles he faced last year. The Pirates will hope that Bednar can get back on track. Until then, their bullpen is a big question mark, and only adds to the issue of a weaker offense.

Last year, the Pirates signed Aroldis Chapman, who was able to provide a strong shutdown presence, even when Bednar struggled. There was no support brought in this year, outside of middle relief help from the likes of Justin Lawrence and Caleb Ferguson. The Pirates have done well the last few years finding cheap middle relievers. They haven’t done as well finding shutdown relievers.

David Robertson is a free agent, currently in his age-40 season. Age is just a number, says this 41-year-old writer. Robertson’s numbers last year back that up, with stuff and results that would allow him to lead this bullpen.

Most of the early season discourse on this team has been about the reported financial loss of over $2 million last year. This shouldn’t be seen as a significant amount, and one-year losses shouldn’t be isolated as an entire picture of a franchise’s financial state. Having said that, I doubt the Pirates are going to be adding from the outside while also crying poor about their financial situation.

The bullpen, like the offense, will need internal players to step up to take this team into contender status.

It’s a tall order. The same demands for ceiling production likely led to Chisholm struggling for years with the Marlins — though I don’t think the Pirates have the toxic clubhouse which assisted toward those struggles.

The Pirates are 3-7, with the Cardinals coming to town for the next three days.

Maybe the win on Sunday against the Yankees can provide a spark which they can carry into the second full week of the season.

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I’m going to leave you with a programming note. I’ve been working on a feature on the Pirates financials for over a month.

This feature is currently on its fourth and final draft. The previous draft was around 6,000 words, and wasn’t completed when I started a new draft.

My goal is to have this completed in the upcoming week. This feature will run on Pirates Prospects, which will be home to my long-form and more produced work.

What you’re going to get is the most comprehensive look at the Pirates’ situation that anyone could provide. This isn’t going to be a black and white situation, but will have many shades of gray.

Truthfully, I don’t have a conclusion to the article written yet, because there is no conclusion. There is only the situation as it exists.

My goal is to bring a better level of understanding of this situation to Pirates fans, while also maintaining the accountability on the Pirates.

Until then, you can find me here at Pittsburgh Baseball Live, whenever I go live…

-Tim Williams