I hope the holidays were wonderful for everyone and that no one received a lump of coal in their stocking. If you did, I would advise going outside and using a baseball bat to smash it. I might not be speaking from personal experience here.
The end of 2023 has brought some clarity to the Pirates’ intentions for the upcoming year, which is quickly approaching. To increase the depth of their starting pitching and position players, they have made a number of trades and free-agent acquisitions. The team’s face, Andrew McCutchen, was re-signed. In addition, they are bringing on Sarah Gelles as an assistant general manager. With her extensive history in analytics, she will benefit the company both now and down the road.
However, there are still a lot of unanswered questions, particularly about general manager Ben Cherington’s plan to strike a balance between the possibilities for top prospects and these new arrivals. Notably, there are a few extremely notable prospects who could play in the Major League Baseball next season.
In keeping with the New Year’s theme, let’s take a peek at 2024.
The most important query to resolve before to Spring Training
What is the alignment of the initial rotation? There are still two rotation positions available outside of Mitch Keller, despite the fact that everything is falling into place following the trade for Marco Gonzales and the alleged agreement reached with MartÃn Pérez (which has not been confirmed by the club). Cherington’s first answer when asked last week which areas he still thought might use some upgrades was the rotation. However, in Spring Training, may young internal prospects like Quinn Priester or Jared Jones establish themselves?