For a .500 team, the Pittsburgh Pirates have way more going for them than anyone would have thought. Remember last week when only 1 all-star rep and people just sort of motioned to the team, where Brandon Lowe, Braxton Ashcraft and Bryan Reynolds were absolutely holding court? Well, Ashcraft's made it on, but the other two are arguably even more worthy. Bryan Reynolds is having a comeback season for the ages, with excellent run production and 57 RBIs already. Lowe has 21 homers, 64 RBIs and so far has been extremely healthy and reliable. And now we've got O'Hearn heating up, hitting .289 with 16 homers and 61 RBIs. O'Hearn is a messier player overall than his contemporaries, and his defense has really taken a hit since playing predominantly right field, but he's a very sturdy power bat with a lot more overall value than that, uh, higher profile DH they also got this year. This is a case of filling a team with non-overwhelming practical free agents rather than flooding the base with stars that are too big. Nick Gonzales and Spencer Horwitz and Bryan Reynolds fit right in with Lowe and O'Hearn, there's not a disconnect.
And even with the loss of Konnor Griffin, at least for a few weeks, the youth of this team is taking enough shape to not be much of an issue. Esmerlyn Valdez has only been here for 25 games, and he has 7 home runs and 18 RBIs. That's a .993 OPS, and that's gonna be a problem for other NL Central teams going forward. Keep in mind, they already know that Jhostynxon Garcia will be back at some point with a vengeance, and now they've got this guy too. Meanwhile, Jared Jones was looking pretty perfect the other day against the A's, and might finally be getting his groove back, and Ashcraft and Skenes are still very steady. It's really just Bubba Chandler whose inexperience is really showing right now, velocity notwithstanding.
The thing you have to remember, ultimately, is that at the end of the day this is the Pirates. As good as they can be, for as long as they can be, there are still obvious flaws. The bullpen is bad enough that taking out Jared Jones after 6 perfect innings means we're not getting 3 more, almost automatically. Tyler Callihan, Billy Cook and Nick Yorke are still somehow not MLB ready. Mitch Keller really is struggling out there. There's also the issue of just not having the infrastructure and depth a lot of other teams have, which is why it's very much a cycle of scrubs trying to not be 26th in terms of usefulness. There's a way around it, and it does involve buying, but will this team be in position to do so in a couple weeks? I don't think they're sellers either, which is nice. But they're still in this grey area, where they could be good but can't completely commit because they're the Pirates.
For now, the offense can keep telling the real story, but if they want to beat the Cardinals and Cubs it's gonna need to be more than that.
Coming Tomorrow- The second most popular member of the 2025 Yakult Swallows to make the MLB this year.
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