BRADENTON, Fla. -- As the Pirates took the field at Ed Smith Stadium ahead of a 9-5 win over the Orioles on Thursday, they unofficially crossed into the second half of Spring Training. That sweet spot of the schedule where they’re three weeks removed from pitchers and catchers reporting and three weeks away from Opening Day against the Marlins at loanDepot park.
As we look towards the second half of the spring, let’s break down four key takeaways from February and early March.
1. It’s OK to exhale about first base
The Pirates were thrown a late curveball this offseason when Spencer Horwitz underwent surgery on his right wrist, leaving them in an awkward spot for first base. Horwitz is very unlikely to be ready for Opening Day, which meant the Pirates had to look internally for a short-term solution.
The competition is still ongoing, but just about everyone in the mix has had some good swings thus far. Nick Yorke doubled off the wall on Thursday, DJ Stewart and Matt Gorski have shown plenty of pop, and Billy Cook and Jared Triolo offer defensive versatility that could make plugging them in at first base fine in the short-term.
It’s Horwitz’s job long-term, but the Pirates have options until he’s healthy.
2. Henry Davis and Jack Suwinski look more confident
There were many reasons why the 2024 Pirates offense ranked in the bottom third of the league in terms of runs and OPS, so you can’t put too much of the onus on Suwinski and Davis. That said, Suwinski was coming off a 26-homer season and Davis was the No. 1 overall Draft pick in 2021, and they combined to be worth -2.3 WAR in 2024 and spent a large portion of the season in the Minors.
They’re just spring swings, but both have looked better mechanically and mentally in the box thus far. Davis is spraying the ball to all three fields -- a very good sign after working to become less pull-heavy this offseason -- and Suwinski has six hits in 16 at-bats and is averaging an 100.4 mph exit velocity on his tracked batted balls. Of course, it’s a small sample size, but it’s not the batting average that’s really encouraging.
“I mean that ball can be hit hard and someone can catch it or it could easily be an 0-fer day,” Suwinski said last week. “The good feelings and the quality at-bats are a little more sustainable.”
3. Not having Johan Oviedo is a bummer
The Pirates knew they probably needed to add a starter whenever they traded Luis Ortiz this winter, and they’re probably pretty happy they added Andrew Heaney after Oviedo suffered a lat injury after his last live batting practice, which landed him on the 60-day injured list. New imaging will be done on his lat and surgically-repaired arm in late March or early April, but it’s likely going to be at least six weeks until he can restart a throwing program with plyo balls.
Oviedo might be overlooked after the Paul Skenes and Jared Jones hype from last year and the excitement surrounding Top 100 prospects like Bubba Chandler (No. 15) and Thomas Harrington (No. 79) being on the precipice of the Majors, but Oviedo showed great stuff and growth in 2023. He flashed a 3.72 ERA and held hitters to a .210 batting average across 14 starts in the second half of that season, marks that would fit right into this rotation.
4. Skenes’ cutter is intriguing
Skenes had one of the most ruthless pitch mixes in baseball last year. So what does he do this winter? Naturally, add two more pitches: A two-seamer and a cutter.
His “splinker” was a sinker more than a splitter in his mind last year, so we can take a guess at how a two-seamer could play. But the cutter? That’s mostly uncharted territory in terms of velocity and movement compared to the rest of his arsenal.
“I didn’t have anything like that before and it was kind of like, ‘Well, I throw 100, why don’t I throw a 90 mile-an-hour slider, basically? Why don’t I throw a breaking ball that’s around 90? Because I can,’” Skenes explained. “My sweeper was around 85 last year, and so that’s part of it, but the sweeper is so big that if I don’t get any swings on the cutter, it’s still going to get me swings on the sweeper.”
We don’t have pitch data on the cutter yet, and he’s still figuring out how to use it, but yet another potential plus pitch could only be beneficial.
Alex Stumpf covers the Pirates for MLB.com.