4 players the Pittsburgh Pirates should acquire using their pitching talent
The Pittsburgh Pirates should try to use the copious amount of pitching talent they’ve built up to acquire Major League-proven hitters. The Bucs will likely have Jared Jones,
Pittsburgh Pirates
, and Mitch Keller penciled into three of the rotation spots for the foreseeable future. They will also have Mike Burrows return during the second half of this year after recovering from Tommy John surgery, along with Johan Oviedo, who will likely return from his own Tommy John surgery in 2025. Plus, they have Quinn Priester on the 40-man roster, who looks like he could turn into a solid #4-#5 type starter.
The minor leagues have even more talented arms. Bubba Chandler, Anthony Solometo, Thomas Harrington, and Braxton Ashcraft are all part of Double-A Altoona’s roster (Harrington is on a rehab assignment but will get sent back to Altoona once he builds up). Hunter Barco is likely on the verge of joining them. Then you have a handful of high school-aged arms at A-Ball and lower, like Michael Kennedy, Jun-Seok Shim, and Zander Mueth. There are a handful of other names that aren’t listed on most prospect lists that are worth watching, too.
This could become a good problem, but a problem nonetheless. While it would be unreasonable for any team to make every single one of their prospects good or expect them to all be starters, the Pirates already have three rotation spots potentially filled and will have three more starters on the 40-man roster healthy by the start of next season, and have a myriad of others that are going to be on the Pirates’ Major League door. Now would be the best time for the Pirates to use some of this talent to fix the holes in the lineup.
