Pittsburgh Pirates 2025 preview
The 2025 season is a big one for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Armed with arguably the best pitcher on the planet, the team needs to show some signs of prosperity. If we want to count the 2013 one-game NL Wild Card “Series,” that is the organization’s only postseason series victory since 1979. Pittsburgh made the playoffs in three straight years from 2013-15 after not making it in more than 20 years.
With a very cheap owner in Bob Nutting, fans and baseball enthusiasts are correct to question whether or not the Pirates will capitalize on the time that they have Paul Skenes. Nutting became the principal owner in 2007. The Pirates have had four winning seasons in that time. If this offseason is any indication, Nutting remains unwilling to spend and the clock has started ticking on Skenes, who earned a full year of service time by winning the NL Rookie of the Year.
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The worst division debate centers around the Central in both leagues (though I could argue AL West pretty hard), and it wouldn’t take a lot of investment for the Pirates to feel like more of a contender in the NL version. They were 76-86 last season for the second straight season, though they overachieved by a few games according to the alternate standings metrics. To go 76-86 again with Skenes and also about half of a season from Jared Jones is kind of appalling, but the offense scored 27 fewer runs.
And that will be the most important part of the future for Pittsburgh. Skenes’ health is obviously critical, but this team needs to find some offense. They’ve surpassed 700 runs just twice since 2008 one of those was the Juiced Ball season of 2019. PNC Park is not a great hitters’ venue, but they have to find run production somewhere.
2025 Pittsburgh Pirates Odds
(odds from DraftKings as of Feb. 20)
World Series: +12000
NL Pennant: +6000
NL Central: +800
Win Total: 77.5 (-110/-110)
Make Playoffs: Yes +360 / No -475
Pittsburgh Pirates Preview: Offense
Building a rotation around Skenes will be very important going forward because the Pirates are showing very few signs of life on offense. After finishing 22nd in runs scored in 2023, they finished 24th in 2024. They were one of six teams with a wOBA under .300 and finished 28th in that department. They struck out too much, didn’t walk enough, and didn’t hit for nearly enough power.
There were a few positive developments. Oneil Cruz stayed healthy enough to have 599 plate appearances and posted a 110 wRC+ with 21 homers and 22 steals. Joey Bart, acquired just a few days after the season started, looked like a legitimate Major League bat with a 121 wRC+ and a .347 wOBA in 282 PA. He led the team in wRC+ and wOBA and could be a long-term solution at the catcher spot as a former first-round pick who just never materialized in San Francisco.
Beyond that, the only other hitters above league average by wRC+ with at least 20 plate appearances were Bryan Reynolds and Andrew McCutchen. Cutch only batted .232, but drew a lot of walks and popped 20 homers. While those things were positives, there were negatives, too. Ke’Bryan Hayes was awful over 96 games and Jack Suwinski bottomed out. Suwinski had a 112 wRC+ with 26 homers in 2023. He had nine homers with a 62 wRC+ in 277 PA last season.
The Pirates will hope for Spencer Horwitz, who was acquired in a quasi three-team deal that wound up with Andres Gimenez in Toronto and Luis Ortiz in Cleveland, to keep growing as a hitter. He’s hit at every level and had a 127 wRC+ last season, playing more than half the time for the Blue Jays. His season will be off to a delayed start due to injury. The other addition is Tommy Pham, who has been a decent big leaguer. Otherwise, this is a lot of the same personnel that was part of a bottom-five offense in 2024.
Termarr Johnson might make his debut at some point this season, but help is not coming from below for the offense. It wouldn’t take a lot for this group to be better than last season. Guys like Horwitz and Hayes can elevate the ceiling of the lineup, but this will be a bottom-10 group again in all likelihood.
Pittsburgh Pirates Preview: Pitching
The Pirates are ready to take a leap on the pitching side because of a young phenom. One could argue that they made the leap already. A guy who posted a 1.83 ERA at Triple-A with a 2.78 FIP over seven starts. Yes, I’m talking about Bubba Chandler.
A little tongue-in-cheek perhaps, but honestly, Chandler’s profile excites me and he was added as a non-roster invite to Spring Training. The 22-year-old was the first pick of the third round in 2021 and the Pirates kept him from going to college with a $3 million signing bonus. And now Chandler is one step away from the big leagues, where he’ll join Skenes and Jones. Chandler has 336 strikeouts against 120 walks in 272 minor league innings and a 3.61 ERA.
So, the future is exceptionally bright for the Pirates. Skenes very well could have won the Cy Young in his rookie season, but had to settle for simply being the Rookie of the Year. He had a 1.96 ERA with a 2.53 xERA and a 2.44 FIP in his 133 innings of work. He made a pretty big workload leap, but he’s got clean mechanics and a big, strong lower half, so hopefully he’ll be able to stay intact throughout this season and his career.
Jones was unable to do so in his age-22 season, as he made 22 starts and worked 121.2 innings at the big-league level. He finished with a 4.14 ERA, 4.05 xERA, and a 4.00 FIP with over a strikeout per inning. He missed nearly all of July and August and didn’t look terribly sharp when he came back, but he’s another hard thrower with good stuff and a really good projection moving forward.
As Skenes dominates, Jones progresses, and Chandler graduates to the bigs, a guy like Mitch Keller takes on less responsibility. And that’s a good thing for the Pirates because he’s a very reliable starter and he’s been extremely durable the last three seasons with over 530 innings pitched. But, he’s also basically a league-average ERA/xERA guy whose FIP is helped by a low walk rate. I’m not disregarding what Keller provides by any means, but with an anemic offense like this, the idea of Keller being a No. 3 or No. 4 starter is a really nice luxury to have.
For now, Johan Oviedo and Bailey Falter look like they’ll fill out the rotation. Even with Skenes’ heroics, the Pirates were 20th in ERA, but they were 14th in FIP. Falter really improved his home run prevention last season and Oviedo is good at keeping the ball in the park as well. Those guys are not going to set the world on fire, but they’ll need to stay healthy since there’s virtually no depth here.
The bullpen is likely to be below average like it was last season. A bounce back from David Bednar would be nice, especially for trade purposes. The Buccos will miss Aroldis Chapman’s 68 appearances and have some decent middle relievers, but limited upside.
Pittsburgh Pirates Player to Watch
3B Ke’Bryan Hayes
The Pirates invested a lot in Hayes, who is signed through 2029. For an organization that acts like spending money is a cardinal sin, this is a huge year for the third baseman. Hayes was awful in 2024. He was a league-average bat in 2023 and posted 3.2 fWAR. He was a well-below-average bat in 2022 and still posted 3.1 fWAR, as the league-wide offense was down and his extreme defensive value carried the day.
Hayes has accumulated 57 Outs Above Average and 75 Defensive Runs Saved in his career. He’s also a .258/.313/.385 hitter with a .304 wOBA and an 89 wRC+. For the Pirates to succeed, and maybe even contend, he cannot just be a gloveman. He needs to hit, too. Even pulling himself up to his 2023 numbers would do it.
I’m skeptical. Hayes has had back problems each of the last two seasons. He had two IL stints in 2023 and only played 96 games in 2024. His defense does carry a ton of value, but his offense could carry the Pirates to contention.
Pittsburgh Pirates Season Win Total Odds & Prediction
This is such an interesting win total to handicap. You only need the Pirates to win two more games than last season and they’re likely to get 8-9 more starts from Skenes and, ideally, somewhere around 20-25 more starts combined from Jones and Chandler.
Bart was the regular catcher throughout the second half and I think Horwitz is actually a really good hitter. I like a lot of the underlying metrics with him. Cruz is a candidate for a big leap under new hitting coach Matt Hague. There are tools to build around here, as the Pirates were in the top 10 in Hard Hit% and Hague’s offensive philosophy is to be more aggressive early in counts and put balls in play.
I think the Pirates are ready to take a big step forward. Another underrated element is that the Pirates hired Brent Strom as assistant pitching coach. He’s done a lot of fine work in his career. I like this team to surpass expectations.
Pick: Over 77.5
