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First Pitch: Previewing the 2016-17 Pirates Off-Season

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The Pirates are already in their off-season, although we’re still about a month away from when players start officially becoming free agents, and maybe another month after that until the big free agents start to sign with teams to open the market. But we don’t need to wait that long to see what the needs are for the Pirates heading into the 2017 season.

Some of the 2017 shopping has already been completed. At the start of the season, the big question mark about 2017 was the catching situation, with Francisco Cervelli set to become a free agent, and Elias Diaz dealing with an injury. The Pirates solved that issue by signing Cervelli to a three year extension.

They also saw prospects arrive to fill some positions. Josh Bell arrived for the first base spot. Jameson Taillon and Chad Kuhl stepped up as MLB-ready rotation options. Adam Frazier looks like a lock for the 2017 bench as a utility guy. They extended David Freese to lock up another bench spot. And they traded Mark Melancon, who would be a pending free agent right now, and got Felipe Rivero for the next five years.

The Pirates made a lot of moves during the season that were focused on the future, whether it was extensions, trades, or calling up prospects and giving them playing time to win a job. As a result, a lot of their off-season shopping is already completed. But there is still one glaring hole on the team: Pitching.

Between their poor off-season approach last year by going with low upside pitchers, and watching pretty much every pitcher in the rotation fall short of projections, the Pirates were seriously derailed by their rotation this year. And despite making so many moves during the season to fill 2017 needs, and even with the additions of Taillon and Kuhl, the Pirates will need at least one starter to help them avoid what happened in 2016.

The off-season preview here could be simple: They need one starter and a late inning reliever to pair up with Tony Watson, Felipe Rivero, and Juan Nicasio. There might be a lot of smaller moves, such as non-tenders, minor trades and signings, and other moves focused on depth. But in terms of bigger impact moves, a starter and a reliever stand out as the two glaring holes on the team.

Things could get a bit more complex if the Pirates decide to trade Andrew McCutchen. I’ve written about that, and believe they have the pieces in place already to replace him on offense if they make that move. I also believe they should only make that move if it helps their pitching situation, which takes us back to that one big focus of the off-season.

In previous years, an off-season preview would include a starting position, a few bullpen spots, a few rotation spots, and then the depth additions. This off-season would have included a lot of that if it hadn’t been for the in-season moves. Instead, there’s a very specific focus on the rotation. I’ll take a deeper dive into the potential free agents later in the week, but at first look, the group doesn’t look strong, and a trade might be a better option for the Pirates if they can’t sign one of the few interesting arms, or bring back Ivan Nova. Whatever they do, the hope is that they will have better results this year, compared to their moves last year.

**AFL: Surprise Wins Big on Opening Day. The AFL started today, and John Dreker has the first recap.

**2016 Catcher Recap: The Injury Bug Hit the Pirates Hard This Year. I started my MLB reviews by taking a look at all of the injuries that impacted the catching position, along with the future of the position after the Cervelli extension and the Reese McGuire trade.

Tim Williams
Tim Williams
Tim is the owner, producer, editor, and lead writer of PiratesProspects.com. He has been running Pirates Prospects since 2009, becoming the first new media reporter and outlet covering the Pirates at the MLB level in 2011 and 2012. His work can also be found in Baseball America, where he has been a contributor since 2014 and the Pirates' correspondent since 2019.

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