Pittsburgh Pirates: Team preview and prediction for 2020 season

One of the most dysfunctional teams now marches into 2020 refreshed. Can the Pittsburgh Pirates contend now that they’ve left behind their demons?

The Pittsburgh Pirates certainly made an impact on the baseball world in 2019, but unfortunately, the actual playing of baseball was not exactly what put them on the map. I don’t really know where to start with these guys, but from everything they’ve had go on with Clint Hurdle and the managing of pitchers to the fighting within the clubhouse to Felipe Vazquez landing himself potentially in prison, to the front office bungling trade after trade, it’s evident that the Bucs have turned into a quite toxic organization.

First, we have everything that went down with the Pirate pitchers throwing inside too much which led to several rumbles with the Reds throughout the course of 2019. Granted, the Bucs actually led the league in the least hit-by-pitches (7), but the aggressiveness showed by Clint Hurdle in his older-school implementation of pitching inside clearly rubbed teams the wrong way and put the Bucs in the firing line and gave them the perception of being “dirty.”

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Their reputation put them in a spot where they played with a chip on their shoulder for most of the season as we saw Kyle Crick, Keone Kela, and Jose Osuna all get handed down suspensions for their roles in brawls with the Reds with key players like Felipe Vazquez and Chris Archer also getting themselves in the middle of stirs.

Then we had the in-fighting within the walls of the clubhouse, which I believe was connected to the Felipe Vazquez situation where he was charged with solicitation of a child. Vazquez and Kyle Crick reportedly threw down towards the end of the season which was believed to have been started because of a difference in opinion over locker room music.

If you ask me, the weight of losing as much as they did was a big factor as we see teams in that boat experience similar tensions throughout the course of a year. Couple that with what Vazquez was being accused of and I could very well see his teammates being extremely bothered by his presence.

Pittsburgh Pirates: 2020 Preview, Prediction

But it’s not all doom and gloom for the Bucs. In fact, I’d say they’re pretty much out of the woods on this and should be able to start the process of turning things around very soon.

Like I said before, this team has a handful of really good young players, but they’ve also cleaned up their management by replacing Clint Hurdle as well as cleaning house in the front office. New manager. New GM. New president. Good job to the Bucs for finally making those moves after everything fell apart last year.

As for the product that will be on the field, Derek Shelton is a former big-league catcher who will be taking the reigns as the manager for the foreseeable future. With a catcher’s perspective in the dugout calling the shots, I think we’re going to see the pitching staff start to turn things around.

Chris Archer has been terrible since coming over from Tampa, but make no mistake about it, he is still as formidable as they come and continues to possess number one quality stuff. He may be starting 2020 as the second or third in the Pirate rotation, but by years end, don’t be surprised to see him back at the top of the rotation racking up his usual numbers he had in Tampa.

Joe Musgrove is in a similar boat in that I think he’ll be able to take another step in his progression now that his environment will be cleaned up. Musgrove came out strong in 2019, but gradually faded back into the pack and wound up with an ERA of 4.44 by the end of the season. With another year under his belt, I think we’re going to see him finish 2020 strong.

Mitch Keller is another guy I’m excited about. Keller is the Bucs’ top pitching prospect who came up in 2019 and made 11 starts in which he didn’t exactly set the world on fire, but the fact that he’s in a similar boat as everyone else in the pitching staff with a fresh start, I think we’ll see him slowly get into a groove as the season progresses.

Pittsburgh Pirates: 2020 Preview, Prediction

As for position players, it’s hard not to recognize Josh Bell as one of the premier talents in the game right now. Bell drove in about 16% of the Bucs’ runs last year and smashed 37 homers with a .936 OPS. And for a pure power hitter, as he is, Bell doesn’t strike out a ton with only 118 punch-outs in 613 plate appearances in 2019. Bell is playing on a bad team right now, but make no mistake about it, he is very much in the MVP conversation as a legitimate dark horse to pull it out.

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I also like Kevin Newman and Bryan Reynolds as far as the Pirates offense is concerned. Reynolds was very impressive last year hitting .314 and Newman wasn’t too far behind hitting .308. This team doesn’t have a lot of power outside of Bell, but with this trio of Bell, Newman, and Reynolds moving forward, the Bucs have a solid foundation of players to build off of.

What’s going to be interesting is seeing who else comes up and establishes themselves as another piece of the core. I happen to believe Ke’Byan Hayes will come up at some point in 2020 and solidify his place at third base with only Colin Moran (who has really struggled since joining the Bucs) blocking his path.

Will Craig is another guy to watch as Craig hit 23 home runs last year at Triple-A Indianapolis. The problem with him is that first base is blocked right now by Josh Bell, so something would have to give and somebody would have to move to the outfield.

Regarding how exactly the Bucs will do in 2020, other than the few guys I’ve talked about, this group seems to be a little undermanned compared to the rest of the division. The Pirates have a knack for hanging tough with teams better than them and stringing together wins, but at the same time, I think this is the least-talented team they’ve had in quite a while.

They have a handful of nice players, but they don’t hit very much for power outside of Josh Bell and their pitching staff isn’t quite equipped to contend in 2020. I think this team needs at least this year to get more acclimated to their new system and more talent needs to find its way to the show before they start getting back to winning. I’d like to see an infield of Cole Tucker, Kevin Newman, Ke’Bryan Hayes, and Josh Bell settle in; and if Gregory Polanco can reinvigorate his career, that would be great too.

The Pirates have done well by resetting the clock on their franchise, but at least for the time being, they lack the players to keep up with some of the bigger dogs in the National League. For that reason, I have them finishing in last place in the NL Central (62-100 if they had played 162 games).