I'm not super infatuated with Osuna, to be honest. I agree he should play, but I don't know that it's an imperative. I think the basic problem is a very typically Pirates one, which is that there's a lot of mediocrity mixed in with the various guys who have potential. And I mean "a lot" also in a literal sense of us having a fair amount of relatively interchangeable depth. A number of these guys can be pretty useful complimentary players, but there's little improvement overall without a few impact guys popping up.
A boring take probably, but we're just where we were with Marte but a fairly big step back. If you had his bat and speed at the top of the lineup and Reynolds and Bell were actually hitting, the offense wouldn't be half bad.
The priority needs to be on finding out if anybody can pop up and actually provide some impact. I think that's where Tucker comes in: it's obviously speculation-driven right now, but if he can hit for some power, including XBH, then with his speed, he can give you a little more than just the average offensive production. As much as I don't like him, Moran is likely the best candidate for the latter on the team, in the sense of consistency. I think Osuna can give you some of that with a bit more power, but he gets exposed when he plays too regularly IMO. In an ideal world you only have one or two guys like that playing regularly.
Frazier isn't good. I wouldn't be shocked if his HR the other day is the only hit he has for another week. I'd love to see him shipped out for whatever we can pry, but I wouldn't get my hopes up about it being much. If Oakland is still infatuated and willing to give up Jonah Heim, that might be a plunge worth taking.
Beyond that, I just don't trust Newman as such a contact-heavy guy. Yet again, it's not the end of the world if he's in the lineup, but it's just not ideal without standout guys. I have much more confidence in Reynolds, but I don't know if he has another gear in him to step forward. I think he can be a consistently useful everyday OF, providing 2.5-3 WAR in a normal season, and it's definitely an encouraging sign that his defense is showing another gear.
I've mostly defended Bell for a long time, but he's clearly out of sorts so far. That's not really unique if you look around at the entire league – Yelich this week is a case in point. I remain very skeptical of the idea that he could have been traded at one point for a giant haul, but his trade value was certainly higher than it is right now, and it's hard to be optimistic about his future either as a cornerstone or big trade piece.
At the end of the day it's a collection of players that can be more than the sum of its parts when things are going well. It's a sort of testament to Huntington in terms of the 'pursue competitive .500' approach, but .500 teams have a pretty obvious and clear ceiling most years. I don't think in today's MLB that a straightforward path exists in terms of emulating successful tank and rebuild teams – and even if there were, the fact that the teams who did so have huge financial resources and are willing to spend them is always downplayed.
I think the strategy going forward has to prioritize sorting out whether any impact players exist who can be built around. Reynolds, Musgrove, and Keller are the closest I see to that in the current group. We need some others to rise into that group, and then we need a strategy that prioritizes a local ability to outclass the divisional opponents over the next several years.
