Pittsburgh Pirates
Best-case scenario: The Pirates’ hopes for 2025 boil down to the top of their rotation. Paul Skenes, 2024 NL Rookie of the Year, is a valid Cy Young prospect. Mitch Keller and Jared Jones carry that ‘potential’ label, with the latter going largely overlooked in 2024 due to his arriving in the shadow of Skenes.
If those three can take their talents to the field game after game, the Pirates can be a daunting foe.
Beyond that, Pirate fans hope that somebody can hit. They were 13th in the NL last season in runs per game. Are you listening, Ke'Bryan Hayes and Oneil Cruz? If those two young stars fulfill long-held expectations, the Pirates can dream of contending for the first time in nearly a decade.
Worst-case scenario: The true nightmare would be a shoulder or elbow injury to Skenes. He has to hold up for Pittsburgh to be credible.
Setting that unthinkable thought aside, where will the Pirates produce offense? The current projected lineup includes Joey Bart, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Spencer Horwitz, Nick Gonzalez, Tommy Pham and Bryan Reynolds. With due respect to Reynolds, nobody’s pitching around any of those guys.
The 2024 Pirates finished 14th, 14th and 15th in the NL in the slash line categories. The major every-day additions were Pham, Kiner-Falefa and Horwitz, who as a trio combined for 29 home runs last season. It’s hard to win if you don’t score.
Most likely scenario: Since Skenes demonstrated last season that he is a front-rank arm, the interesting question will be the extent to which Jones can develop into a solid No. 2 starter.
But what the Pirates really need is for Cruz and Hayes to mature into offensive threats on a level with their established defensive abilities. If they don’t, it’s hard to see the Pirates keeping pace, even in the winnable NL Central.