The NS9 Report is the start to your week. Posted bright and early every Monday morning, I’ll break down the three things that I’m looking for each week in Pirates land.
Will the Pirates Continue to Add?
Ben Cherington talked about being more aggressive this offseason and they’ve certainly had the most active offseason of his regime. First, the Pirates went out and acquired Jhostynxon Garcia and then they traded more pitching for Brandon Lowe, Jake Mangum and Mason Montgomery, they signed free agents Ryan O’Hearn for the lineup and Gregory Soto for the bullpen. They were reportedly in on Eugenio Suarez, Munetaka Murakami and Kazuma Okamoto, but came up short as those players all signed elsewhere and it left the Pirates waiting to cap the offseason with one more impact bat. That bat came earlier this week in the form of Marcell Ozuna. They have dramatically improved this lineup, but will they continue to add even as spring training gets underway?
With pitchers and catchers reporting today and games starting in a couple weeks, what’s next? There’s still a hole at third base if they’re not content to roll Jared Triolo out each day at the hot corner. Will Cherington continue to be aggressive and acquire Astros slugger Isaac Paredes on the trade market? The Bucs would be a better team if they go and get a third baseman which allows Triolo to bounce around and play that super utility role to provide great defense all of the diamond.
The Pirates also have been known to add a veteran starter to the rotation as well in recent years and it would make sense to bring in one especially a southpaw with this young and primarily right-handed staff the Pirates have. There are quite a few vets still available in free agency, so it’ll be interesting to see if the Pirates pursue one like a Tyler Anderson or Patrick Corbin, (Anderson also played for the Bucs in ‘21). I’d have to think the Pirates are close to maxed out with their payroll so acquiring a third baseman and starting pitcher would likely push the payroll to $110M and beyond.
Best Shape of their Lives SZN
Of course the start of spring training coincides with articles from beat writers about who’s in the best shape of their lives and I’ll tell you, I’m here for it. I can’t wait to see who’s in great shape, who may have slacked off in the offseason and needs work, who has a new pitch, who’s working on what, who shows up early, who’s battling an injury that popped up in the offseason, etc. I’m looking forward to all of it.
This spring’s story lines will be very different from past years. The Pirates are truly going for it. They recognize that they have Paul Skenes and now is the time. It’ll be intriguing to see how the vibe is in camp fresh off the Ozuna signing news earlier this week. We’ll have the excitement of Konnor Griffin coming off his first professional season where he lit three levels of the minors on fire and that question that will follow him all spring—Will he make the Pirates 26-man roster out of camp? Griffin already is at camp early and has faced Skenes a couple times already so yeah…this will be fun to follow. And NS9 will be there in Bradenton for the first two weeks of games with plenty of content coming.
Jared Jones progress
One of the pitchers that I’m looking forward to getting an update on once spring training gets rolling and seeing the progress is Pirates SP Jared Jones. Jones underwent surgery on May 21 last year to repair a torn UCL. The expected recovery time was announced as 10-12 months so the earliest part of that time frame would be in March. Jones attended PiratesFest in January and talked with reporters about how he already had thrown two bullpens and was throwing hard again. That’s all good news so far, but I’m sure we’ll find a lot more over the next week once the pitchers start getting ramped up in Bradenton. If he continues to progress ahead of schedule to where we could see Jones on the mound in PNC Park by mid-to-late April, I think that’ll be a huge win for the Bucs this season.
We will see where this week goes as baseball activities finally get going. This is Ryan signing off for The NS9 Report.
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