Pittsburgh Pirates Late Christmas off-season wish list

What Santa Claus can bring the Pirates this Christmas to cap off the off-season

Photo Credit: WTM

Today is Christmas Eve, and while you do some last-minute shopping, I figured I’d put out my wish list of things I would like to see from the Pirates before the end of the off-season.

Some of these are obvious, as the year is winding down, the off-season is closer to being finished than not.

Sign another starting pitcher

To an extent, you can’t fault the Pirates for what they have done this off-season when it comes to adding to the rotation. It was the position of biggest need, even before it was discovered that Johan Oviedo would miss the entire season due to Tommy John surgery.

The Pirates added Marco Gonzales through a trade and signed Martin Perez to a one-year deal so far, both soft-tossing lefties profiles they have loved pursuing in previous years.

While they have added bodies that can eat up some innings, their overall upside seems limited. So, even though we are at Christmas, another pitcher has to be at the top of the list, maybe one of significance.

They won’t be in play for someone like Jordan Montgomery, and I don’t believe they are in a position to dump the farm for someone like Dylan Cease, but they don’t have to swing for the fences here.

Just something more than inning fillers.

Extension for Mitch Keller

The Pirates have extended a player to a franchise-breaking contract in the last two offseasons. They started with Ke’Bryan Hayes before breaking the $100 million mark on Bryan Reynolds.

Could they make it three straight and lock up Mitch Keller?

It’d make for a great story, locking up the guy who overhauled himself on the mound into an All-Star pitcher. Keller set a career-high in wins, innings pitched, and strikeouts, among other things, and put together a 3.3-win season (WAR).

There are a lot of questions about the Pirates rotation; Keller isn’t one of them.

Starting center fielder, moving Suwinski to right field

I wasn’t the biggest of fans leaving Suwinski in center field going into last year, but there wasn't any other option when it came down to it.

Bryan Reynolds and Henry Davis were two of the worst defensive outfielders regarding Outs Above Average on Baseball Savant, so he was left out to dry a little bit at times.

With Davis moving back to catcher for the upcoming season, the best guy to fill the space in right field would ideally be Suwinski, but that would involve the Pirates adding a legitimate center fielder to the mix.

This puts less pressure on Suwinski in the field and lets him focus more on his offense, but it also keeps Andrew McCutchen as the DH and allows Edward Olivares to platoon against lefties.

It also adds another positive defender on the field among a group with a reasonably considerable drop-off after Ke’Bryan Hayes.

This is the least likely of the three to happen, as the Pirates seem more than happy to allow Suwinski to continue to grow at the position, but it should at least be discussed.