Many if not most of analysts and fans are saying the Pirates should blow up their roster to do a full on rebuild. A handful are saying we should fill in a couple positions and make a push.

I am one of the ones that say they should make a push as I mentioned in other posts. The team has a quality core. A new coaching staff and a new front office. They would have to try to be worse in 2020 than they where in 2019. Their biggest problems where Pitching and Catching which are very much tied together.

There are indications that through trade and/or free agency they are looking for catching and pitching that is controllable or near term quality prospects. Suggests that they either want to make a small push in 2020 and shoot for 2021 to start ramping up.

There are also suggestions that the team is in fact looking to blow up the roster. Marte and Frazier with the major highlights in reputable sources. Bell and Musgrove have also been brought up. It seems they’re actively shopping Marte while the others they are listening on.

So far there hasn’t been a lot of movement on any of them on the surface. In the background probably a lot more talking but not much heard. Mets and Padres seem to be the biggest suitors for Marte.

If they do “blow it up” going for 2022 and beyond at that time we will be talking about trading our younger core and trading Bell and much of the pitching. So in the end, we’ll get more of the same as we saw with Neal Huntington.

As far as building, it appears that there is a mutual interest between Jason Castro and the Pirates. Jason would greatly improve the situation at catcher and also the pitchers. Given a 3+ year affordable contract is not out of the question seems like a great buy.

Really that is the only rumor that suggest they might be looking at 2020/21 as a time to compete.

What have they done so far? Other than working on filling the coaching staff and talks, not much either way. They signed a handful of players to minor league deals and a catcher for less than $1 million who will likely be MiLB depth at around $300-400k.

Just speculation, but it seems that Ben is waiting to see what happens with Marte or if they do get someone like Castro before deciding what to do in what ever budget Bob has given him. If he gets some pretty good prospects, then try to blow it up for what ever value they got. If he can get some 2020/21 prospects or MLB players with control then work on building with some quality players for 2021 especially while we have this solid core and hopefully get Taillon back.