The Pirates' 40-Man Roster: Who Will Stay and Who Will Go
A lot of movement seems likely in the offseason.
The Pirates currently have 45 players on their 40-man roster. Of course, that includes players on the 60-day injured list.
As we all know, the process of paring down the roster happens in stages. Some players will become free agents (unless extended, of course). If there isn’t enough room, some players have to be removed as injured players return. Typically, some have to be removed so the team can protect prospects from the Rule 5 draft, but that’s a very small issue this year, and players have to be removed by the non-tender date if the Pirates don’t want to go to arbitration with them.
Beyond all that, some players will get DFA’d gradually as the team acquires new players. That’s a process that can go on throughout the off-season and into spring training.
Below is a list of all the players currently on the roster, along with my guesses about their ultimate fates. I’m not trying to guess which players the team will try to re-sign, although we all know they’ll re-sign Andrew McCutchen.
Braxton Ashcraft - Safe
David Bednar - Safe
Jalen Beeks - Free Agent
Ryan Borucki - Free Agent
Mike Burrows - Safe
Aroldis Chapman - Free Agent
Baily Falter - Safe
Marco Gonzales - Gonzales has a team option for 2025 with no buyout. Bob Nutting loves him some free stuff.
Ben Heller - Heller fanned 15 per nine innings in AAA and looked way better in his second call-up than his disastrous first one, but then he got hurt. Still seems intriguing. He could hang around as they see what other relievers they can dig up. He’s out of options.
Colin Holderman - Safe
Daulton Jefferies - Jefferies has spent most of his pro career injured, including 2024. He didn’t pitch well in his limited time with the Pirates or Indy. Can’t see him lasting long on the roster. He also has no options.
Jared Jones - Safe
Mitch Keller - Safe
Isaac Mattson - Probably in a similar situation to Heller. He seems decent, but they should be trying to upgrade. If I had to cut one of the two, it’d be Mattson.
Carmen Mlodzinski - Safe
Dauri Moreta - Safe
Kyle Nicolas - Safe
Luis Ortiz - Safe
Johan Oviedo - Safe
Dennis Santana - Safe
Paul Skenes - Safe
Hunter Stratton - Safe
Joey Wentz - Probably safe. He pitched well for the Pirates late in the year. And he’s a lefty, and Borucki is a FA. Another guy with no options.
Joey Bart - Safe
Henry Davis - Safe
Jason Delay - Probably safe. He has multiple options left and makes a very useful depth catcher. He even hit respectably in AAA this year.
Yasmani Grandal - Free Agent.
Endy Rodriguez - Safe
Tsung-Che Cheng - Probably safe, but he did not have a good year in AA. Upper-level pitching so far seems too much for him.
Billy Cook - Safe
Oneil Cruz - Safe
Nick Gonzales - Safe
Ke’Bryan Hayes - Safe
Connor Joe - Obvious non-tender candidate. Joe was awful the last four months of 2024, he’s 32 and arbitration-eligible. Cook and Yorke are obvious potential replacements.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa - Safe, except he’s probably a trade candidate given the $7.5M he’s owed.
Liover Peguero - Probably not safe. The team’s disinterest in calling him up was telling, and he didn’t exactly knock the door down. He’d be a better use of a roster spot than Williams, but the Pirates don’t seem to like him anymore.
Jared Triolo - Safe
Alika Williams - Any other team would designate him for assignment. He’s the sort of guy you have in AAA on a minor-league deal.
Nick Yorke - Safe
Ji-Hwan Bae - Probably not safe. His AAA hitting just isn’t translating to MLB.
Bryan De La Cruz - Another guy where, if this were any of the other 29 teams, he’d be gone for sure rather than getting an arbitration salary. He was a bad player before the Pirates got him and probably the worst player in MLB after they did.
Andrew McCutchen - Free Agent
Joshua Palacios - Even though he’s 29, the Pirates seem to think he’s still a prospect. He could stay on the roster until they find a better alternative, which would be easy on any team not run by Ben Cherington.
Bryan Reynolds - Safe
Jack Suwinski - Safe. Spring training will probably be an important test for Suwinski.
So, right off the top, there are five free agents plus Gonzalez. That puts the team under 40 already.
There are also the depth-type relievers: Heller, Jefferies, Mattson, and arguably Wentz. One or more may make it to spring training, but certainly not all. It’s possible for any of them to get designated for assignment and re-signed to a minor league deal with a spring training invite. Palacios is in the same boat on the position player side.
It’s really hard to imagine even the Pirates hanging onto both Joe and De La Cruz. Williams, too. But this is the Pirates.
Finally, there are the prospects who haven’t been overly impressive, mainly Bae, Cheng and Peguero.
Bottom line: The Pirates could get down very nearly to 30 spots pretty painlessly.
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I've been meaning to mention this, just as an interesting aside. BA has a detailed article about how the Red Sox are overhauling their hitting development system. It talks about the four things they're focusing on -- bat speed, swing decisions, etc. The substance isn't exactly earth-shattering, but that's not my point here.
What's striking to me is that Boston folks talked to BA about all this. The Pirates claim to have this super-advanced "process," but have you ever seen anybody with the team talk about the details, even very broad details? Any specifics at all? I sure haven't. If it's so vital to keep all this stuff a secret, why are the Sox willing to talk about it? Are they stupid? Hmm, lessee . . . since Cherington became GM, Bos is two games under .500 in by far the toughest division in MLB. The Pirates are 120 under in a middling division in the weaker league. So who's stupid?
I think it's because the Pirates don't acutally have a coherent "process." It's just a mantra they repeat to explain obviously idiotic decisions. What they have is a legion of non-baseball dweebs whose job is to tell Cherington what a genius he is, and who sit around looking for "data" like, "Hey, Bryan De La Cruz had a game in 2022 where he had an EV over 95 in three of four ABs. If he could do that consistently, he'd be a bargain!"
There's no process, no plan. There's just a bunch of overpaid nobodies building Fortress Non-Accountability while Nutwit counts his nickels.
That write-up just screams for the old Chuck Noll response.
Q: Was it difficult to make all those cuts?
Chuck: No, stopping was the difficult part.