Morning Rundown: Pirates ZiPS projections out
ZiPS projections out, and hirings
FanGraphs annual ZiPS projections came out for the 2025 Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday. You can read the full write-up here on FanGraphs.
Here are some notable things from the major league side (I’ll have a write-up that delves a little deeper into the prospects):
ZiPS is very high on Spencer Horwitz. They project his fWAR to be 2.6, tied for the second most on the team (Nick Gonzales), only behind Oneil Cruz. Bryan Reynolds is third at 2.4.
He also has the highest OPS+ at 118. One of his age-hitting comps is Doug Mientkiewicz.
It’s also high on a potential Jack Suwinski bounceback, listing him at a 111 OPS+. They also have Joshua Palacios (104) and Henry Davis (101) slightly above league average.
On the pitching side, to no one’s surprise, Paul Skenes is very highly regarded, with Caleb Ferguson (127 ERA+), Jared Jones (108 ERA+), and Dennis Santana (110 ERA+) among the other standouts.
According to John Dreker on Twitter, the Pirates made some hires throughout the system. A couple of names were recently with a familiar team.
Margaret Zimmer was brought on as a Scouting Operations Specialist. She had previously worked for the Boston Red Sox. Her journey into the baseball world was chronicled in this Baseball America article.
Another move including the Red Sox, the Pirates hired Marks Sluys as an Area Supervisor. He had spent the last five years as a scout for the Red Sox.
They also brought back Dominican scout Victor Santana, who worked for the team from 2011 to 2021 before joining the Phillies.
Everett Ciccirelli was hired as a Pro Evaluation Specialist on the scouting side. He worked four months for the Los Angeles Dodgers as an Amateur Scouting Intern and nine months for the Miami Marlins as a Player Development Analyst Fellow before joining the Pirates this month.
Finally, former big leaguer Eric Patterson was brought on as a bench coach with Indianapolis. He has spent the last five years in the Cubs system as a hitting/bench coach.
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This Zips article is one of the better statements on the state of the Pirates that I have read. I agree completely with these gems...
"Moving Oneil Cruz to center field isn’t the worst idea around, but you’d like to see the organization’s grand plan involve something more ambitious than Isiah Kiner-Falefa playing shortstop every day."
"A reclamation project or a gamble or two, rather than filling out the roster with known quantities, would have been a lot more interesting at some of these positions."
"Considering this, if the Pirates aren’t going to spend more — which they surely will not — they should instead roll the dice a little bit more to get some low-cost, high-upside players. As of now, though, that isn’t what they’re doing, and that’s a shame... "
The only hitter projection that drew even mild disappointment from me was Nicky Yorke. I’ll take the heavy over on that one.