Murphy: Deep dive preview into the 2025 Pittsburgh Pirates season

Opening day thoughts, observations, and bold predictions for the 2025 Pittsburgh Pirates.

Photo Credit: WTM

The Pittsburgh Pirates will begin their 2025 season today against the Miami Marlins. Many questions remain heading into the season, including whether they can improve upon the 76 wins they have won in the previous two seasons.

That’s coming off a mostly quiet offseason, but also knowing you will have Paul Skenes for an entire season.

We did our predictions article yesterday, where some of the writers combined to give their picks for pitcher, hitter, and breakout player of the year, as well as how many wins the Pirates will finish with.

Today, I wanted to explore the Pirates' 2025 season a little more, including the keys to success, questions I have, and players to watch.

How will the pitching depth hold up?

We’ve already seen why they say you can never have enough pitching, as the Pirates are expected to be without Jared Jones for a chunk of the season. Even if he doesn’t return until around the All-Star break, that still feels like a better-case scenario than it could have been.

The rotation was expected to be the team's strength, but that was with a healthy Jones, so now they must adjust.

Carmen Mlodzinski will step in as the fifth starter to begin the season, having started his pro career in the rotation. Behind him will be some of the best collection of upper-level pitching prospects in baseball—Bubba Chandler, Thomas Harrington, Braxton Ashcraft, and Mike Burrows.

They were all current or former top 100 prospects at one point or another, but they are still prospects. Jones was worth about two wins last year, and you are hoping that any combination of this group and Mlodzinski will be able to replicate that until he can return.

Having a group full of prospects as your primary pitching depth is one thing when you are rebuilding, but it’s a little more risky in year six when you are trying to climb out of the basement.

Considering that two have a previous injury history, it will be interesting to see how the depth holds up if it continues to be tested.

Where is the offense going to come from?

I picked Bryan Reynolds as my hitter of the year because of the consistency he has brought to the table over the past couple of seasons. Finding that kind of consistency is rare, which is good, seeing as searching for someone outside of Reynolds is a little harder.

Oneil Cruz will be a 20/20 threat, and he may even push it further this year. Joey Bart was an incredible addition, but he must prove he can do that for more than a year. Getting positive value is going to come solely on his bat, which even in that, there are some underlying data points that should be of concern.

Nick Gonzales showed improvements, and a slight improvement from 2024 should push him to league-average wRC+. Tommy Pham didn’t hit much in spring, but hit 17 home runs despite other counting numbers decreasing around him.

The biggest early-season blow is losing your key offseason offensive addition in Spencer Horwitz. How long it takes him to get on the field will be huge for the Pirates’ offense.

I’m a big Endy Rodriguez fan, and I believe he’ll establish himself as a legitimate major leaguer this year. I don’t buy the bat enough to believe he’ll bring too much value at first base.

There’s more wiggle room in his profile as a catcher, and I feel like the most value he’ll bring is behind the plate. He’ll get some hits, but the longer he’s at first, the easier it’ll get to see the difference.

Overall, it’s an approach that seems all too familiar, needing too many players to take a step forward at the same time, when that isn’t realistic. Then you have players with extremely capped upside (IKF, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Pham, and even Andrew McCutchen).

Even with the addition of Horwitz, the offense doesn’t have the feel of one that is going to jump from the basement into the realm that could make them competitors, unless all the pieces fall into place.

Defense, Defense, Defense

This has been a sore spot for the Pirates the last couple of years, and it doesn’t appear to have gotten any better, especially in the outfield. Cruz has the tools to be a good center fielder, but he is flanked by two of the worst defensive outfielders, according to statcast.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa will play in his perhaps ‘worst’ position, and Bart was below-average behind the plate.

The good news is they have two former Golden Glove winners on the roster, one of whom was an utility player. The bad news is that one has been incredibly injury-prone the last few years.

Leaning into the pitching thing isn’t a bad idea, I actually like it, but you have to give them the defense behind it.

It may not appear immediately on the scoreboard on a daily basis, but it will appear in 162 games.

What does Paul Skenes do for an encore?

It’s crazy to think it hasn’t even been two years since the Pirates drafted Paul Skenes. He’s already been a starter in the All-Star game, Cy Young finalist, Rookie of the Year, and opening day starter—all without playing a full season in the majors yet.

Skenes came as advertised, but to truly ascend to that ‘Ace’ status, and one of the best in the game, he will have to do it for multiple seasons.

The talent is obviously there to do that, and while posting a sub-2.00 ERA over the course of a full season will be hard, it’s not unprecedented.

Since 2000, six pitchers have posted an ERA under 2.00 and made at least 30 starts. Four of those six won the Cy Young that year (Roger Clemens finished with 2.0 WAR more than Chris Carpenter, the NL Winner that year). The other (Zack Greinke, 2015) finished second behind Jake Arrieta, one of the six.

That’s rare company he can put himself in if he can continue that pace. He’s done everything possible to help head that direction, adding multiple pitches to his already deadly arsenal.

So, for someone who is already as decorated as Skenes is, would a Cy Young suffice? And what else could he accomplish?

Who will close games?

I have a hard time believing that David Bednar won’t get the first crack at being the closer, but it will be interesting to see how long they roll with that if he struggles again.

If it wasn’t for his 2024 season, I don’t think anyone even notates Bednar’s ERA this past spring.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ll buy stuff every day of the week, especially when it comes to bouncing back.

There doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with the stuff he’s throwing, at least this spring. One game looked rough on the box score, but it was the defense that let him down (see what I mean?).

If Bednar struggles, they didn’t bring in an Aroldis Chapman type who has a history of closing, so Dennis Santana or Colin Holderman may be the next man up. Justin Lawrence does have some experience, but he was a waiver pickup.

The rotation is the strength, but if a few guys don’t step up, how many games will slip away after the starter comes out of the game?

Keys to success

Rotation is as advertised

While the offense will ultimately decide how good this team will be, the rotation will still need to do its part. Mitch Keller can’t have another second-half collapse, and Andrew Heaney and Bailey Falter need to play their parts as back-end starters and have more positive outings than negative.

The bullpen was seen as the team’s strength last year, we saw how that worked out. Having Skenes make 30+ starts will help, but only so much if questions arise behind him.

Someone(s) step up on offense

They added Spencer Horwitz to the mix, but it’s unknown how long he will be out. When he returns, he needs to be that third/fourth option behind Reynolds, Cruz, and Bart.

Getting Gonzales to find his way to league-average or better would also go a long way. This offense receives a huge boost if Jack Suwinski finds just enough to provide some power off the bench. He doesn’t need to be a starter, and probably won’t be, but 10-15 home runs off the bench would be a big plus.

Nick Yorke has a chance to be that spark, it’s just a matter of finding out the best fit for him.

Key Players for 2025

I picked three of the less ‘obvious’ names here, as we know Skenes, Reynolds, and Cruz are all going to be key to any success the Pirates have. They are arguably their three best players on the roster. So, I looked a little deeper than that.

Spencer Horwitz

The Pirates need him to hit, possibly against lefties too. He’s not going to be your prototypical first baseman, but there is talent there, and he was a good hitter in 2024.

They’ll need more of that, and the hope is he isn’t out too long to begin the season.

Mitch Keller

The Jones injury puts more pressure on the rotation to maintain while he is out. This also means the Pirates really can’t afford another late-season collapse from Keller.

Keller’s final numbers never look awful, but when you start chopping up the season, it’s an alarming trend.

Ke’Bryan Hayes

I don’t even think Hayes has to play a lot. Give me 100 games with his usual defense and slightly below average offense, and the Pirates could be cooking.

It opens up Triolo to get some playing time elsewhere, while also being the primary backup to Hayes.

The roster flexibility issue clears up a little bit more the more games Hayes can play.

Prospect that will make the biggest impact

Prospect to watch: Nick Yorke

Bubba Chandler will be the best prospect to appear for the Pirates this year, but if the hitting is legit, Yorke may end up making the biggest impact.

The Pirates need offense, and I feel like it won’t take long for him to push his way onto the major league team.

His feel for hit, and budding positional versatility would be a great addition to the team.

Bold Prediction for 2025

Bednar finds old form, is All-Star

Again, I’m buying stuff here and it’s still there for Bednar. I don’t see how he doesn’t at least start as the closer, but he’ll need to hold it down.

If it clicks again, I can still see him being an All-Star.

I fully expect to go 0-3 here, but if you want bold, there aren’t many more bold predictions you could get here.

Final Analysis

I won’t be speaking any new words here—this team seemed so incredibly close that if they had invested just a bit more, this could be a completely different story.

Bringing Andrew McCutchen is fine, even if he limits roster flexibility (ironically, it always seems like such a big deal for them). What isn’t fine is him being a good chunk of their free agent dollars spent, as he doesn’t really feel like a free agent since we all knew he was returning.

The rotation is good, but it's not hard to crack some holes in it, even more so with Jones out for a while. The team is still going to need a lot of players to step up to make this offense even league average.

I also see a very likely scenario where three of the five in the Pirates’ rotation to start the year, don’t finish it. Some may not even get to the All-Star break.

The path is there, but there are a lot of questions they will have to answer along the way, even potentially from the strength of the team.

It just doesn’t seem like enough to win much more than they did last year, let alone push for a playoff spot.

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