Are the Pirates Still Contenders?
After dropping below .500 and potentially losing Ryan O'Hearn, an objective look at the Pirates as contenders is needed ahead of the trade deadline.
Ryan O’Hearn was hurt in the ninth inning of last night’s game.
The injury didn’t look good at the time, and reports from the clubhouse said he was on crutches after the game.
With their loss last night to the Reds, the Pittsburgh Pirates dropped to 55-56 on the season. The MLB Trade Deadline is in two days.
At this point, I think you have to take an objective look at whether this team is actually a contender.
They have a losing record. That’s still good enough to be 2.5 games back in the Wild Card race. However, there are five teams ahead of them, battling for three spots. There are also three teams behind them within two games. The Pirates do not stand out as top contenders.
Losing O’Hearn would make the team weaker. They do have Spencer Horwitz on rehab assignment, potentially returning soon. That will help soften the blow. The team will also get Oneil Cruz back after the deadline. The offense has been playing short-handed without those two, and if O’Hearn needs to miss extended time, they will continue playing short-handed the rest of the season.
Any hope for a boost from Horwitz and Cruz, helping to push the Pirates closer to true contending status without any outside additions, was likely just wiped out with the O’Hearn injury.
There are also concerns from the rotation.
Paul Skenes continues to struggle. He allowed five runs in four innings on Friday night. I wrote about Skenes recently, noting how he’s been hurt by his defense, while also noting some changes that haven’t seemed to work out this year.
Braxton Ashcraft is now up to 122.1 innings this season. That’s more than he’s ever thrown in a single season, eclipsing the 118 innings he threw last season between Triple-A and the Majors. He has also struggled in his recent starts, and could be showing some fatigue as he entered uncharted waters with his workload.
Mitch Keller has been better his last two starts, but has otherwise had one of his worst seasons of his career. If the Pirates can’t rely on Skenes or Ashcraft to lead the rotation, they would need Keller turning things around just to keep them afloat.
Jared Jones is pitching well, but he’s on an innings limit. Bubba Chandler isn’t quite in Ashcraft territory, but he’s at 104.2 innings and hasn’t pitched more than 131 in a season. He’s also been league average at best as he adjusts to the big leagues in his first full season.
Once the strength of this team, the starting rotation is now filled with question marks. If the Pirates are buyers at the deadline, they might need to add starting pitching depth.
For the longest time, the bullpen looked like the biggest area of need. That’s still an area of need. The Pirates might need offensive depth in addition to rotation depth. They’ve gone from looking like a real contender all summer to a team that has needs all over the roster just to remain a contender.
If the Pirates did buy, they’d have to trade prospects. They have prospects to trade, but you have to wonder if this is the team you want to go all-in with. It might make more sense to add players who can help this year and beyond, versus adding two-month rentals.
On the flip side, the Pirates have some players who could bring back value if they sold. They could definitely get a return for Brandon Lowe, though trading Lowe with O’Hearn out would be waving the white flag on the season. They might also be able to dump the salaries of Gregory Soto and/or Marcell Ozuna. The latter would be a win if the Pirates could simply clear his salary off the books. Keller might even be a cost-saving option to move at the deadline.
Last year the Pirates made similar cost-cutting moves, and it led to spending this past offseason. I’ll note that the spending increase wasn’t significant, and was more a reshuffling, with a slight increase in spending.
The Pirates have been in cost-cutting mode all year, dating back to the offseason. There have been so many moves that make you wonder how tight they’re operating.
They didn’t hire a scouting director for the 2026 draft.
They’ve made zero waiver claims this season.
They traded the 34th pick in the draft, plus $500,000 in international bonus pool space to add Jacob Gonzalez, Brandon Eisert, and Ron Marinaccio. That cut down their amateur spending pool by nearly $3.4 million this year.
They’ve made moves to urgently dump MLB depth players like Alika Williams ($780,000), Justin Lawrence ($1.225 M), Joey Bart ($2.53 M), and Jose Urquidy ($1.5 M).
All of this raises the question as to whether Pirates’ General Manager Ben Cherington even has the authorization to spend at the deadline, and even if he had that authorization, would it be enough to add pieces to help them contend?
Even with the growing list of needs?
What’s the argument for buying at this point?
The Pirates might be a few games out of a Wild Card spot, but they don’t stand out as strong contenders. They keep falling further behind with injuries and struggles from the pitching staff.
Help is needed in the rotation, with a few relievers, and possibly some position player depth. The Pirates aren’t a contender looking to strengthen their position. They’re a declining team that needs to add to remain on the fringes of contending.
One of the biggest arguments to add might be the other type of need. This is the best Pirates team that has taken the field under Ben Cherington in seven seasons, and waiting for next year to possibly be better gets old. Aside from the fact there might not be baseball next year, I don’t think the Pirates should inflate their own odds simply because this is the closest they’ve been under Cherington.
This raises another concern. Does any of this logic matter? Is Cherington going to add simply because his job at this point might be in danger? Or do the Pirates have the excuse they need to call this a good season ruined by injuries, while giving him another season to finally put together a winning team?
It’s entirely possible that Cherington is doing the job he was hired for in keeping this team on the verge of contending while keeping costs down and providing the narrative that the team actually spent money this season.
If you remove the urgency to finally see the Pirates contending, I think it would be difficult to argue this team currently looks like a contender.
I had them as a 78-win team at the beginning of the year, and a big reason for that was a lack of depth. This has mostly been shown on the pitching side, where they do not have an internal answer for their bullpen.
With a lack of depth, urgency gets placed on adding help from the outside. If the Pirates don’t have money to raise payroll, then the quality of those outside additions might be no better than the Eisert and Marinaccio types, or at best, a Gonzalez type player who is more of a lottery ticket than a sure thing.
I’d love to see the Pirates make a real contending move like adding a Mason Miller type. At this point, it feels like any type of addition they make would just be making a move to say they added. And the team they’d be adding to is looking less like a contender by the day.
Until the trade deadline shows their direction…
-Tim Williams