Pirates Brighten Up their Offense With a Fresh Coat of Paint

The Pittsburgh Pirates spent part of deadline day sprucing up their offense by acquiring outfielder Bryan De La Cruz from the Miami Marlins and infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa from the Toronto Blue Jays. Neither hitter provides the superstar impact to fully rehabilitate Pittsburgh’s fixer-upper lineup. Instead, they yield an effect similar to tearing out the wood paneling, scraping the popcorn ceilings, and applying a couple coats of paint in a shade called something like Chantilly Cream to zhuzh up the place. Perhaps this offseason, Pirates’ GM Ben Cherington will put in a call to Chip and Joanna Gaines to facilitate a full renovation, but until then, this certainly makes the space the Pirates currently occupy nicer.

De La Cruz and Kiner-Falefa join the Pittsburgh clubhouse amidst a handful of other additions and subtractions over the last few days. The team acquired two lefty relievers in Jalen Beeks and Josh Walker alongside Nick Yorke, a post-hype hitting prospect who is ready to compete for big league playing time, according to Eric Longenhagen’s breakdown of all three acquisitions. Additionally, the Pirates dealt from their starting pitching depth by sending Martín Pérez to the Padres in exchange for Ronaldys Jimenez, an 18 year-old left-handed pitcher currently in the DSL.

On the whole, Pittsburgh’s deadline activity amounts to a series of one-for-one trades that marginally improve their current situation, without upsetting their long-term construction plans for building Barbie’s Dream Roster in the future. (Or because it’s the Pirates, whatever ownership deems is Kenough.)

For his part, De La Cruz gives Pittsburgh the option to consistently roll out a Bryan-with-a-y at both corner outfield spots. Both Bryan Reynolds and De La Cruz have largely played left field this year. Neither Bryan plays dazzling defense, but De La Cruz has the stronger arm and has been slightly more serviceable in right than Reynolds has this year. With De La Cruz in the fold, the Pirates now get to field a pretty consistent trio of outfielders — with Reynolds in left, Michael A. Taylor in center, and De La Cruz in right — rather than cycling through different combinations of Jack Suwinski, Edward Olivares (both of whom are back at Triple-A), Connor Joe, and Joshua Palacios.

At the plate, De La Cruz has been roughly the same hitter all four seasons he’s been in the majors. Year-over-year, his performance fluctuates gently within the range of his true talent, but the profile remains steady and the production remains firmly average. This season, De La Cruz has posted a 96 wRC+. His strikeout rate is on the higher side compared to his career numbers (26.0% relative to 24.4% overall), but he’s also hitting at the upper end of his power potential (.172 ISO compared to a career mark of .161). Furthermore, De La Cruz may be due some positive regression, as his batted ball characteristics have him currently underperforming all of his expected stats (.245 AVG vs .257 xBA, .417 SLG vs. .465 xSLG, .305 wOBA vs .327 xwOBA). He struggles to hit breaking pitches, but lays off them well enough to minimize the potential damage of such an easily spotted weakness.

Though his hitting profile sounds fairly vanilla (another potential wall color), compared to the outfield production posted by the Buccos thus far, De La Cruz is a needed sweetener in an otherwise bland offense. To date, Pirates outfielders rank 25th in the majors in wRC+ with a combined mark of 83. They rank 28th by ISO at .125, making De La Cruz and his 18 HR on the season a definite upgrade.

To get De La Cruz, who will eligible for arbitration for the first time next year, the Pirates sent Jun-Seok Shim and Garret Forrester to the Marlins. Shim is a 20 year-old right-handed starter who opted out of the KBO draft to sign with the Pirates in January of 2023. Due to injuries, he’s only made four starts in affiliated ball and none this year, but he still grades out as a 40 FV pitcher. Here’s Longenhagen’s evaluation of Shim from the Pirates Top 40 Prospects list last month:

When healthy, Shim’s fastball sits 95 with above-average life. His slow, mid-70s curveball is easy to identify out of his hand, but it has lovely shape and depth of break, so perhaps it can be sculpted into a more traditional big league breaking ball because of his proclivity for spin. Opinions on Shim vary because he offers less physical projection than is typical for a 20-year-old pitcher, but there’s big arm speed here and big riding life to Shim’s fastball. The effects of a pro strength and conditioning program might kick-start him down the path toward finding a more consistent release and sustaining the big velocity as a pro starter, which he might even be able to focus on during this injury rehab period. That’s a very walkable path. Still, the teenage pitcher demo is bust-prone and, anecdotally, this seems especially true when the prospect in question already throws really hard at age 17 or 18 and immediately gets hurt multiple times once turning pro. Those risks apply here.

Forrester was a third round pick by the Bucs in 2023 out of Oregon State. He played first base in college, but upon turning pro, it initially appeared the plan was to convert him to catcher. However, since returning earlier this month from an eight-week stint on the IL, Forrester has played mostly at third. He’s posted a respectable .390 wOBA in A-ball, and though Longenhagen describes him as a “complete all-around hitter” in the Prospects of Note section of the Pirates list, he also suspects Forrester is taking advantage of pitching that is beneath his skill level. Given that the Marlins have acquired over a dozen prospects via their deadline moves, where they choose to roster Forrester and how they choose to deploy him defensively will likely be impacted by the deluge of other roster decisions awaiting Miami.

For the Marlins, this particular trade takes place in the context of a week or so in which they traded five pitchers who are collectively responsible for just over a quarter of their total innings pitched, in addition to their only three hitters to reach 400 PA on the season. The next closest are Jake Burger with 342 PA and Jesús Sánchez with 333 PA. Heading into Tuesday night’s game, Miami’s active roster contained 23 players, rather than the allotted 26. While they’re sure to fill the remaining roster spots at some point over the next day or so, it’s difficult to avoid using tired clichés to describe the roster’s demolition as selling anything not nailed down. Still, it does appear the Marlins have quite a bit of construction in their future.

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh’s reno continued with the addition of Kiner-Falefa to the infield. IKF has logged roughly 40 games each at second and third, with 15 games at shortstop. According to OAA, his defense has been slightly above average at both second and third. There is a dip in quality when he stands in at short, but that’s unlikely to be a role he’s asked to fill with the Pirates as long as Oneil Cruz stays healthy. And since the Bucs have Ke’Bryan Hayes locked in at third, Kiner-Falefa should get most of his playing time at second, particularly with Nick Gonzales on the IL for the next few weeks. Jared Triolo has logged 39 games at second this year, but given his 56 wRC+, he seems unlikely to meaningfully compete with IKF for playing time.

During the first four months of the season, Kiner-Falefa has posted some of the best offensive numbers of his career. His 116 wRC+ puts him above average for the first time in his career, beating his previous best of 91 (achieved over 228 PA in 2020) by 25 points. Compared to his 2023 season in New York, he’s dropped his strikeout rate by 6%, and he’s surpassed his home run total in 80 fewer plate appearances (granted, that puts him at seven long balls on the year, but seven remains larger than six, and only one shy of his career high in 2021, which took 677 PA to reach). Kiner-Falefa’s batted ball data shows he’s making more contact and hitting the ball in the air more, while maintaining his usual HR to fly ball rate, which translates to more dingers and extra-base hits. His expected stats do trail his IRL stats, so there may be some luck involved and perhaps some negative regression coming, but not enough to make him less productive than the Pirates’ existing options at second.

To get Kiner-Falefa, who remains under contract through 2025 (with a $7.5M AAV), Pittsburgh parted ways with outfielder Charles McAdoo (plus cash considerations), who made the aforementioned Prospects of Note section of the Pirates list as a power-first hitter, with questions around his ability to make enough contact to stick in the big leagues. In the updated notes that Longenhagen provided for this piece, he reiterated McAdoo’s plus power, but voiced concerns that,“His swing’s length will make him more vulnerable to velocity versus upper-level and MLB arms.” And though he has posted solid contact and hard-hit rates this season, most of those numbers were generated at High-A. The real test for McAdoo will come at the upper levels of the minors.

For Toronto, like Miami, this trade is one of many over the last week or two. The Blue Jays traded away five pitchers and four position players and received 15 minor leaguers in return. Though the quantity of the players moved is high, the now-former Jays are largely of the relievers and role players variety (aside from Yusei Kikuchi), so it would be an exaggeration to say Toronto is stripping it down to the studs. But even if the electrical and plumbing look okay, they’re definitely redoing the bathrooms and replacing the appliances in the kitchen.

Pittsburgh, Miami, and Toronto are all in very different phases of their roster construction projects. But the Pirates have decided their house is ready to live in, though they continue to put the finishing touches on the remodel. With De La Cruz stabilizing the outfield and Kiner-Falefa firming up the infield, Connor Joe and Rowdy Tellez can settle into a more standard platoon at first base, while Triolo and Palacios can return to roles as backups on a bench with freshly stained pine.