Pirates Make Some Sneaky Nice Moves for Now and 2025

The Pittsburgh Pirates flew under the radar as sneaky winners at this year’s MLB trade deadline.

They might not have been involved in any of the blockbuster deals, but they made a handful of moves within the margins to improve their roster as they gear up for a postseason push.

Not only did the Pirates boost the quality of their big league roster for the remainder of this season, but many of their moves improved the ballclub’s outlook heading into 2025 as well.

Specifically, they traded from their ample amount of pitching depth to gain offensive depth at the upper levels of the minors, which was a glaring weakness of their farm system.

Now, the impact these moves will have in increasing their chances of sneaking into the postseason is yet to be seen. Yet, at the very least, the Pirates are in a position to be playing meaningful baseball in the final months of the 2024 season.

Pirates Trade Deadline: Minor League Additions

As mentioned, the Pirates did a nice job of addressing areas of weakness both on the big league roster and in their farm system.

They have numerous exciting arms flying through their pipeline, but they lack impact bats at the upper levels of their minor league system.

With the moves Ben Cherington and Co. made at this year’s trade deadline, it’s clear the front office made it a goal to address this hole by trading from their surplus of arms.

Pirates Acquire Nick Yorke from the Boston Red Sox

The Pirates kicked off their trade deadline activity with an exchange of two former highly-regarded prospects within their respective organizations. Pittsburgh traded right-hander Quinn Priester to the Boston Red Sox for second baseman Nick Yorke.

Priester, Pittsburgh’s first-round draft pick back in 2019, simply hasn’t been able to settle in at the big league level. He’s shown flashes of potential throughout his young major league career, and there are aspects of his game that made him an intriguing trade chip. However, the results have just not been there for Priester.

Across 44.2 innings of work with the Pirates this season, Priester pitched to an ERA just over five to go with a WHIP of 1.46. In his MLB career, he is sporting an ERA of 6.46 and a FIP of 5.83 in 94.2 innings pitched.

On the plus side, he’s demonstrated an ability to generate groundballs at an extremely high rate (career 54.2%), and he’s cut his walk rate nearly in half this season. That said, he has allowed far too much loud contact, including a HR/9 of 2.16 last season and a HR/9 of 1.41 in 2024.

Priester has the potential to become a fine major league starter, but it was clear that he wasn’t going to reach that potential with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He now gets a much-needed fresh start in Boston.

Yorke, Boston’s first-round selection from the 2020 draft, has had a rather up-and-down professional career himself.

He brings some enticing potential and is a reinforcement at an area of need within the Pirates’ organization, but injury concerns and offensive inconsistency have prevented Yorke from building any sort of momentum toward being a big league contributor.

Still, Yorke is swinging a very hot bat in the meantime. In his 169 plate appearances with the Red Sox’s Triple-A affiliate this season, Yorke slashed .310/.408/.490 for an OPS just shy of .900 and a 136 wRC+.

He also had a strikeout rate under 19% while walking at a whopping 14.2% clip, which is an extremely encouraging improvement in his approach from previous seasons. What’s more, he made such improvements while boosting his power metrics (.179 ISO, .490 SLG). Overall, it’s been his most productive performance since his time in High-A back in 2021.

For Pittsburgh, while it stings to move on from Priester, it was becoming clear that he was soon to be phased out of the rotation. They were willing to part ways with some pitching depth in order to gain some much-needed offensive depth, as Yorke slides in as Pittsburgh’s No. 5 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline.

Yorke has a runway for playing time at the major league level and could be making an impact for the Pirates sooner rather than later.

Pirates Acquire Billy Cook from the Baltimore Orioles

A slightly lesser move than the previous one, but noteworthy nonetheless, the Pirates also picked up versatile utilityman Billy Cook from the Baltimore Orioles.

Cook, 25, played six different defensive positions during his time with Triple-A Norfolk this season. While most of his playing time in 2024 has come at first base, he has plenty of experience playing all three outfield positions.

On top of his defensive versatility, Cook can contribute in many ways offensively. He launched 24 homers and swiped 30 bases in Double-A last season, and he’s built upon that production following his promotion to Triple-A in 2024.

In 70 games with Triple-A Norfolk this season, Cook slashed .279/.372/.485 for an .856 OPS, a 120 wRC+, and an isolated power (ISO) of .206. Moreover, he has racked up 11 homers and 12 steals while walking over 11% of the time.

Cook has been a steady offensive producer throughout his time in the minor leagues, and he brings even more offensive depth and versatility to the upper levels for the Pirates.

In exchange for Cook, the Pirates traded 22-year-old righty Patrick Reilly, the club’s fifth-round draft choice in last year’s MLB draft. Reilly was pitching to a 3.38 ERA across his 19 starts with High-A Greensboro this season.

The trade is a good example of the Pirates exchanging some lower-level pitching depth for a bat that can contribute at the big league level in the near future. It won’t generate the most excitement amongst the Pirates fanbase, but it could end up becoming a sneaky valuable transaction when all is said and done.

Pirates Acquire Josh Walker from the New York Mets

The final minor league transaction the Pirates pulled off at this year’s deadline was the acquisition of southpaw Josh Walker from the New York Mets in exchange for lefty Nicolas Carreno. Walker has waffled between the majors and the minors for the vast majority of his past two seasons with New York.

Walker features a three-pitch mix, including a four-seam fastball, sinker, and curveball. He’s put together successful performances in Triple-A but has yet to figure it out at the major league level.

In 29.1 innings of work with Triple-A Syracuse last season, Walker pitched to a 1.84 ERA with a 33.3% strikeout rate and an opponent batting average of .181. That success didn’t translate to the big leagues, however, as in his 13 appearances with the Mets last season, Walker posted an ERA over eight with a WHIP of 1.80.

It’s been a similar story this season as well for Walker. He was sporting a 2.83 ERA and a 12.24 K/9 in 28.2 innings of work with Triple-A Syracuse but had an ERA of 5.11 in 12.1 big league innings.

Control has been Walker’s shortcoming in the majors, as he is sporting a suboptimal walk rate of 12.5% throughout his 24 career big league appearances.

Walker’s curveball has been by far his most effective pitch in his young big league career thus far. Last season, opponents hit just .188 against the pitch, and that number has dropped to .118 in a small sample size this season.

Conversely, major league hitters have hammered his four-seam. Last season, opponents hit .326 and slugged .615 against the fastball, and those metrics have ballooned to .412 and .824 this season, respectively.

The 29-year-old will likely just be a body to eat relief innings down the stretch for Pittsburgh. He has the stuff to be an effective reliever, but there is plenty to iron out before a team can rely on him in the big leagues. Perhaps a change in clubhouses will yield better results for the southpaw.

Pirates Trade Deadline: Major League Transactions

The Pirates made several sneaky big league transactions that helped address a handful of holes on the MLB roster.

The one notable departure was the trade of veteran starter Martín Pérez, who signed a one-year, $8MM deal with Pittsburgh this past offseason. Set to hit free agency come season’s end, the move was a salary dump to clear space for the club’s other big league additions.

Pirates Acquire INF Isiah Kiner-Falefa from the Toronto Blue Jays

The Pirates acquired utilityman Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who signed a two-year, $15MM deal with the Blue Jays this past offseason, in exchange for 22-year-old outfield prospect Charles McAdoo.

McAdoo was Pittsburgh’s 13th-round pick in the 2023 MLB draft. The Pirates elected to trade the power-hitting prospect, who spent the majority of his 2024 season at High-A, for a player in Kiner-Falefa who can fill a large need on the big league roster right away.

Defensively, Kiner-Falefa can play several different positions, all at a high level. On top of being able to play in the outfield as needed, his positional versatility in the infield will be a nice bonus for Pittsburgh. His primary home with the Pirates will likely be second base, which has become one of the team’s weak spots in the infield.

Second-year player Nick Gonzales has shined at points this season, but he recently hit the injured list with groin discomfort. His primary replacement, Jared Triolo, simply has not been able to build upon his strong rookie campaign from a season ago.

Triolo is hitting just .201 with an OPS south of .560 in 267 plate appearances in his sophomore season.

Kiner-Falefa can help fill the void while Gonzales works his way back to the diamond, and he can serve as a valuable bench piece heading into next season as well.

Offensively, Kiner-Falefa brings hardly any power to the lineup, but he limits the strikeouts with some extremely impressive contact rates.

Kiner-Falefa currently has an overall whiff rate that is in the 97th percentile (13.5%), according to Baseball Savant. He also has a zone contact rate of 90.8% (for reference, the MLB average this season is 82%).

In turn, he is sporting an incredible 13.8% strikeout rate, which is nearly a 6% drop from a season ago. That K-rate ranks in the top 10% of baseball.

Moreover, Kiner-Falefa is in the midst of the best offensive season of his seven-year career. To this point in the season, he has a career-high in wRC+ (116), batting average (.291), on-base percentage (.336), slugging percentage (.426), OPS (.762), wOBA (.332), and ISO (.136).

Clearly, Kiner-Falefa has figured something out offensively, and the Pirates are bringing him in at the peak of his offensive production. He may not be the most impactful major league addition, but this is a low-risk move that should help the Pirates this year and next.

Pirates Acquire OF Bryan De La Cruz from the Miami Marlins

If there was one thing the Pirates lacked heading into the deadline, it was power.

While the addition of Isiah Kiner-Falefa brings an element of contact consistency to the lineup, Bryan De La Cruz came aboard to be a big-swinging slugger in the heart of the batting order.

What’s more, the Pirates had a roster need in right field, and De La Cruz, while defensively limited, should be able to help fill that hole.

Edward Olivares was optioned to Triple-A back at the beginning of July, and Joshua Palacios recently hit the injured list with a strained hamstring. Consequently, the Pirates have featured a revolving door of players in right field.

De La Cruz helps bring stability to the position and immediately plugs into the lineup as one of the Pirates’ top power bats.

He joins the Pirates with 18 homers launched this season; only Bryan Reynolds has more (19). The Pirates only have two other hitters with double-digit homers (Andrew McCutchen and Oneil Cruz).

De La Cruz, 27, is still in pre-arbitration and has three more seasons of team control after this year. At the very least, he can be a power-hitting corner outfielder on an affordable contract.

As was just mentioned, De La Cruz doesn’t bring much outside of the power-hitting department, however. He’s currently in the third percentile in outs above average (-7), according to Baseball Savant, and he’s coming off a 2023 season in which he finished in the sixth percentile in that same metric with -7 OAA.

Likewise, being a lethal power hitter with such a big swing, he has immense swing-and-miss in his game. He’s currently sporting a career-high whiff rate of 29.4% and a career-low zone contact rate of just 78%. Those are obviously major contributing factors to his 26.3% strikeout rate.

Additionally, De La Cruz is chasing pitches outside the zone 32.3% of the time, and his inability to draw walks is contributing to his poor on-base percentage, which sits at just .285.

With that said, the Pirates brought him in to make loud contact, and he can do just that when he can generate his A-swing:

De La Cruz is near the top 25% of baseball in barrel rate (10.6%), and he’s currently sporting a hard-hit rate of 42.5%. In fact, he impressively ended each of his first three major league seasons with a hard-hit rate of 42% or greater, a streak he is on track to maintain this year.

There are holes in his game, but De La Cruz is a player who can be a much-needed spark plug for this offense. He didn’t come at a cheap cost, however, as the Pirates had to part ways with tantalizing right-handed pitching prospect Jun-Seok Shim and third base prospect Garret Forrester.

Still, the team control combined with his power potential made De La Cruz an intriguing trade target, and the Pirates will hope he can bring some offensive firepower to the lineup in 2024 and beyond.

Pirates Acquire LHP Jalen Beeks from the Colorado Rockies

Should the Pirates make a push for a Wild Card spot, they brought in southpaw Jalen Beeks to help fortify a bullpen that has been shaky to this point in the season. Among National League teams, Pittsburgh’s bullpen ranks 13th in ERA (4.35) and WHIP (1.36).

A team can never have too much pitching, and Beeks should be a valuable lefty out of the bullpen for the remainder of the season.

The 31-year-old had an ERA+ of 98 with the Rockies this season, but aspects of Beeks’ batted ball profile are encouraging.

Specifically, Beeks is allowing a hard-hit rate of just 32.1% on the season, which is in the top 10% of baseball, coupled with an impressive average exit velocity of 87 mph.

He’s not much of a strikeout artist, with a punchout rate of just 18.7%, but he is sporting an above-average groundball rate (45.1%) as well as a very strong barrel rate (6.2%).

In exchange for Beeks, the Pirates gave up 23-year-old hurler Luis Peralta, who was putting together a fantastic 2024 campaign thus far.

Peralta had a K/9 of 15.00 with an ERA of just 0.60 in 30 innings at High-A this season. He followed that up with a strong performance in Double-A, where he pitched to a 1.86 ERA with a strikeout-minus-walk rate of 27.5%.

Given that Beeks is set to hit free agency at the end of the season, it was somewhat surprising to see the Pirates part ways with Peralta in the deal. Still, the reliever market was extremely pricey at this year’s deadline, and Pittsburgh was in dire need of reinforcements in the bullpen given the injuries the relief corps has dealt with.

Interestingly enough, Beeks was pitching much better at home this season (3.52 ERA, 1.17 WHIP) than on the road (6.23 ERA, 1.66 WHIP), which is unusual to see given that his home ballpark was Coors Field.

Still, Beeks put together some strong seasons in his time with the Tampa Bay Rays a few years back, and the Pirates will hope that getting Beeks out of Colorado and into Pittsburgh can help him return to form.

Pittsburgh Pirates Trade Deadline Recap: Final Thoughts

All in all, the Pirates did a nice job of both rounding out their offensive depth at the upper levels of their minor league system and strengthening several areas of need on the big league roster. They made moves that will not only help them this season but can have a positive impact heading into 2025 as well.

Pittsburgh’s fanbase should be intrigued with what they’ve seen this season. The emergence of the three-headed monster at the top of the rotation – Paul Skenes, Jared Jones, and Mitch Keller –completely changes the trajectory of the franchise.

Establishing who was going to be a part of their core moving forward, specifically in the pitching staff, was a necessary goal for the Pirates heading into Opening Day, and they’re finally getting answers in that department.

Combine the young arms that are bursting onto the scene at the big league level with the myriad of talented arms headlining the farm system, and the pieces are starting to come together for the Pirates.

After years of turmoil near the bottom of the National League standings, the Pirates finally find themselves back in the midst of the playoff race with plenty to be excited about moving forward.

They didn’t make the flashiest of transactions, but the Pirates came away as under-the-radar winners at this year’s trade deadline.

Stats up to date through August 6.