Will the Pittsburgh Pirates be playoff bound in a few years?

The Pittsburgh Pirates haven’t been in the playoffs since 2015, and that was led by star center-fielder Andrew McCutchen.

Since 2015, the Pirates have gone through a complete rebuild. From trading McCutchen, Gerrit Cole, Charlie Morton, Mark Melancon, Austin Meadows, Tyler Glasnow, Shane Baz, and Jameson Taillon, the Pirates easily could’ve built a top team around all of these players. The problem is, the team didn’t want to pay them. However, from all of these trades, the Pirates received a bunch of prospects, such as their star centerfielder, Bryan Reynolds.

Pittsburgh Pirates may have path out of NL basement

Trading top tier players for prospects is a good idea, but it is very risky. Many players may not live up to their potential, and very few will. However, due to all of the trades they have done, they have been able to secure several top draft picks. Since 2015, the Pirates have selected two of their starting players in Ke’Bryan Hayes and Travis Swaggerty.

They have also drafted some of their current top prospects, Quinn Priester, Henry Davis, Nick Gonzales, and Termarr Johnson. As these players have a few more years of development until they come to the majors, there is something going on in the Pirates organization that is mindboggling to any professional sports team: the lack of spending in the offseason.

From trading Gerrit Cole in his final year of his contract, Joe Musgrove in the final year of his contract, and Tyler Glasnow still in arbitration, some of the moves just haven’t made sense. Any team would dream to have three star starting pitchers in their rotation, and instead of paying them, they ended up trading them for more prospects. It has become a never-ending cycle of trading players in the last year of their contract, and this method is incredibly hard to win.

But now, maybe the Pirates are making a change to this, as they have extended Hayes and Reynolds this season. Hayes to an eight year contract and Reynolds for another two years. Nearly everyone on their team this season is either on arbitration or pre-arbitration, meaning that they will have the money to spend in free agency. The problem is that the Pirates rarely do that.

But this offseason may be the time. Looking at the NL Central, the top two teams are pretty obvious: the Cardinals and the Brewers. Between the Cubs, Reds, and Pirates, they really can go either way. And with the extended playoff format, where there are three wild card teams, this should be the offseason that the Pirates splurge in free agency. Right now, the Pirates’ biggest need is pitching. So signing some of the league’s best available pitching free agents should be their target.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are not a playoff team yet. Maybe in a few years. But with their seventh ranked farm system, a young core to build around with Hayes, Oneil Cruz, and Bryan Reynolds, the future of this team is bright. They just need to be willing to spend in free agency to help their weak rotation.