Perrotto: Pirates Infield Has More Questions Than Answers

The Pittsburgh Pirates’ biggest hole is in right field.

However, that isn’t the only position where the Pirates have question marks. The projected starting infielders — first baseman Spencer Horwitz, second baseman Nick Gonzales, third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes and shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa — all have questions.

Let’s start with Horwitz, who was acquired from the Toronto Blue Jays last month in a trade at the Winter Meetings in Dallas.

The biggest thing to like about Horwitz is the .355 on-base percentage he has compiled in 425 career plate appearances over the last two seasons with the Blue Jays. The Pirates are perennially challenged in that category and their OBP was just .301 last season.

However, Horwitz does not have the home run power teams prefer at the position. He has 13 homers in the big leagues after going deep just 42 times in 448 games over five minor-league seasons.

The Pirates believe Horwitz is a late bloomer and will benefit from his close relationship with hitting coach Matt Hague, who was hired from the Blue Jays this offseason.

Will general manager Ben Cherington and manager Derek Shelton be proven right? We’ll see.

Nick Gonzales is the presumptive starter at second base after hitting .270/.311/.398 with seven home runs in 94 games last year. It was a solid season but Gonzales’ OPS+, which accounts for park factors, was 96, 4% below the MLB average.

Fielding is concerning with Gonzales, who was drafted as a shortstop in the first round in 2020 but was shifted to second base in the minor leagues. He had minus-4 defensive runs saved last year.

Gonzales will get a spring training challenge from rookie Nick Yorke, acquired from the Boston Red Sox at last year’s trade deadline for fellow first-round pick Quinn Priester.

Yorke made his major-league debut last September when he hit .216/.286/.378 with two homers in 11 games. That came after he posted a .355/.431/.507 slash line in 40 games at Triple-A Indianapolis while homering twice and stealing seven bases.

Yorke is just 22 and Baseball America ranks him as the Pirates’ No. 6 prospect and second among hitters behind shortstop Konnor Griffin, last year’s first-round pick.

The Pirates could play Yorke at various positions. In the big leagues, he started seven games at second base, two in right field, one in left field, and one at third base.

Yorke made a strong impression during his late-season cameo.

“He can really hit,” Shelton said during the Winter Meetings “He controls the (strike) zone. He has the ability to drive the ball to the right-center field as a young hitter. He controls the middle of the diamond.

“He is a bona fide gap-to-gap guy. You like to talk about the ability to stay in the middle of the field. He has it. I don’t know if we’ve had a young hitter over the last couple of years that controls the at-bats as well as he does at such a young age. It was a good trade for us. We got an impactful guy.”

Third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes can be an impactful player when healthy. He was the National League Gold Glove third baseman in 2023 when he hit .299/.335/.539 and 10 home runs after the All-Star break in 49 games.

However, Hayes has been on the injured list with lower-back problems five times combined in the last three seasons. Hayes had his worst year in 2024 when he slashed .233/.283/.290 with four homers in 96 games.

Shelton said last month that Hayes is doing well with an off-season back-strengthening program. We’ll find out if Hayes stays on the active roster more in 2025.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa is expected to be the starting shortstop and leadoff hitter. The Pirates got Kiner-Falefa from the Blue Jays at last year’s trade deadline then moved shortstop Oneil Cruz to center field a month later.

Kiner-Falefa hit just .240/.265/.322 with one home run in 50 games. The Pirates plan to bat the veteran at the top of the batting order despite his .313 career OPS in seven seasons and 780 games.

The last time Kiner-Falefa played shortstop regularly was in 2022 with the New York Yankees and he had 10 DRS. Yet the Yankees weren’t sold on defense and made rookie Anthony Volpe their starter at the beginning of the 2023 season.

Kiner-Falefa had one DRS in 28 games at shortstop for the Pirates.

“We are confident in him in 2025,” Shelton said. “He’s got one year left on his deal, so we feel very confident that he stabilizes the position and has played that position really well in the past. Certainly, longer term, it’s still something we need to solve. But for 2025, we feel like he puts us in a strong spot.”

Perhaps.

Yet it’s hard to say with certainty that any of the four projected starters will put the Pirates in a strong spot in 2025.