With Opening Day hurtling towards us at an alarming speed, the Pirates have finalized their bullpen one day after giving Juan Nicasio the final rotation spot. The obvious spots are filled by the obvious pitchers (Melancon, Watson, Caminero), and with Jared Hughes on the disabled list, the final four spots will go to Neftali Feliz, Ryan […]

If you operate every spring with the broad assumption that spring training stats don’t matter, you will both be mostly correct and prevent yourself from stressing out over roster decisions too much. There are some exceptions to that axiom, though. For example, if you pitch 15 shutout innings over five appearances (four starts), scatter ten […]

It’s hard to believe that a year ago, no one was sure if Jung Ho Kang was really going to deserve the roster spot that the Pirates announced that they were going to give him, despite a dismal spring training. In early April, Kang looked well out of his depth with the Pirates. He hit […]

I think that if you asked most Pirate fans which Pirate starter was most in danger of losing his job (or in need of being replaced), Jordy Mercer’s name would be the first to pop into a lot of minds. Somehow, though, the Pirates have pretty decent prospects at almost every position other than short […]

The last two days in the Gulf Coast League have featured more or less one non-Juan Nicasio highlight for the Pirates: Andrew McCutchen is mashing taters all over the place. Yesterday in Sarasota he sent a Kevin Gausman pitch nearly into orbit, and it landed well beyond all seating and stadium structures. Today in Bradenton […]

One of the questions that I’ve been asked maybe more than any other question this winter is whether or not the Pirates should expect anything from Jameson Taillon. In general when talking about pitchers that could help the Pirates in 2016, I mention Tyler Glasnow for obvious reasons and Nick Kingham pending his TJ rehab, […]

It was immediately obvious to anyone at Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota this afternoon that Juan Nicasio was making the Orioles look stupid. He made Manny Machado and Adam Jones look really bad by mixing a mid-90s fastball (generally 92-94, but I saw it hit 95 at least once on the scoreboard) and got Pedro […]

With all of the furor surrounding the Neil Walker trade over the winter, this one thought kept sticking out in my head: Josh Harrison didn’t actually hit that much worse than Neil Walker did in 2015. Certainly, Walker hit for more power than Harrison did, but Harrison hit .287/.327/.390 and Walker hit .269/.328/.427. By wRC+, Harrison […]

There’s a really interesting story in the Providence Journal (punchline, courtesy of my uncle: Interesting? About Daniel Bard? How?) about Bard’s journey back from thoracic outlet syndrome surgery and how the Pirates are reconstructing him this spring. Here’s a part Pirate fans will love: Bard signed a minor-league contract with the Pirates in January at […]

Last year on the Fourth of July, I sat on top of the right field wall at PNC Park and talked quite a bit to my dad about Gregory Polanco. I said that it was hard to find a whole ton of evidence that Polanco had improved much at the plate in the year-plus since […]

Apparently the Pirates weren’t quite done with their off-season shuffling: last night Rob Biertempfel reported that

Here’s something you might not expect: by at least one measure (Baseball-Reference WAR), Starling Marte was the best player on the Pittsburgh Pirates last year. The reason is in the defense, of course, and Baseball Reference uses DRS, which gives more value to Marte’s defense in and less to Andrew McCutchen’s in center. It’s not […]

A couple of years ago, Baseball-Reference added a cool feature to each team’s Franchise Encyclopedia pages; 20 pictures of the 20 greatest players in each franchise’s history by WAR. If you go to the Pirates’ page, here are the first 13 faces you’ll see: Honus Wagner Roberto Clemente Paul Waner Arky Vaughan Willie Stargell Max […]