Top Offseason Options for Pittsburgh Pirates to Finish off Winter Plans

This winter has been one of the busiest of Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Neal Huntington's career, as a number of offseason transactions have rounded out his team's roster.

While the Pirates have improved (on paper) with the signings of players such as Francisco Liriano, A.J. Burnett and Jung-ho Kang, there remain a few options for the Pirates to explore before camp opens up in Florida.

Let's take a look at two main options that still exist for the Pirates:

Acquire a Starting Pitcher

Whether it comes via free agency or through a trade, the reality is the Pirates could greatly benefit from landing another starting pitcher.

Gerrit Cole and Francisco Liriano will pack a pretty heavy one-two punch at the top of that rotation, but from there exist three potential question marks.

First, will the aging A.J. Burnett (who told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Travis Sawchik that this will be his final professional season) return to form and pitch similar to how he did in two seasons with the Pirates prior to signing a one-year deal with the Philadelphia Phillies in 2014?

John Bazemore/Associated Press

Burnett went 26-21 with a 3.41 ERA in two seasons with the Pirates from 2012-13, and his efforts helped lead the Pirates to the postseason in 2013 for the first time in over two decades.

On the contrary, could Burnett end up pitching like he did last season, when he lost a dismal 18 games and pitched to a 4.59 ERA?

Then there is the combination of Vance Worley and Jeff Locke, who have both shown flashes of greatness at times with the Pirates.

In 17 starts in 2014, Worley went 8-4 with an impressive 2.85 ERA.  However, in five major league seasons, he has never made more than 23 starts in a single one.

Al Behrman/Associated Press

Could 2015 be the year that Worley puts it all together and makes somewhere around 30 starts?  Of course it could, but considering the fact that we have never seen that from him, his durability throughout a full season must remain a question mark.

Locke, on the other hand, looked like the future ace of the staff in the first half of the 2013 regular season before he completely fell off during the second half.

In 30 starts in 2013, Locke went 10-7 with a 3.52 ERA, which looks like a pretty solid year for most players, until we examine the splits in his statistics.

During the first half of that season, Locke went 8-2 with a 2.15 ERA in 18 starts.  Then came the turning point, when he suffered a back injury while lifting weights in July.  Locke was forced to miss the All-Star Game, and during the second half of the season, he went just 2-5 with a 6.12 ERA.

This past season, Locke made only 21 starts, as he came off the disabled list in the middle of April and was option to Triple-A Indianapolis, where he spent the majority of the spring before being permanently called back up to pitch for Pittsburgh.

It is fair to say that this current pitching rotation has some major question marks that remain to be answered as the season progresses, but the Pirates could avoid some of those doubts by going out and acquiring another reliable starter.

James Shields is still available out there on the market, but it is unlikely that the Pirates are seriously pursuing him.  Then again, why wouldn't they be at least considering it?

Elsa/Associated Press

The Pirates are currently stacked with talent around the diamond on offense.  Just about every position is covered by a player who is currently in or entering the prime of his career.  Wouldn't bringing in a guy like Shields, who managers know is going to take the ball and start every fifth day, be a move that could potentially put you above everyone else in that division?

The Pirates also have a farm system that is in great shape with two potentially dominant aces in Jameson Taillon and Tyler Glasnow.  However, neither of them is likely to make the team out of spring training, as Glasnow is only 21 years old and Taillon has not pitched since undergoing Tommy John surgery last April.

Within the next two to three years, the Pirates could have one of the best young starting rotations in baseball, but with the offense they have right now, they should be concentrating on this season, not the future.

There also is the possibility that the Pirates go out and trade for a starter.  Consider a guy like Stephen Strasburg, who could be an interesting trade piece for the Washington Nationals after they went out and signed Max Scherzer to a blockbuster seven-year contract, according to The Associated Press (via ESPN.com).

That may be even more of a stretch than the potential signing of Shields, as the Pirates would have to give up substantial talent to reel him in.  However, considering what he would do for the rotation, it would probably be worth it.

Jordy or Jung-ho?

In the matter of about a month, Pirates shortstop Jordy Mercer went from having solidified his role as the starting shortstop to possibly being out of a job.

OK, we won't go that far just yet, but what if Jung-ho Kang lives up to the expectations he set when he blasted 40 home runs in the Korean Baseball Organization in 2014?  There is no way that Kang and Mercer would be splitting time at the position, even if Kang hits half as many home runs as he did last season.

Although Mercer did not provoke anything, there may even already be a bit of tension between the two players, as Kang said, according to the Yonhap News Agency (h/t Rob Biertempfel of the Tribune-Review), "If I get an opportunity to play consistently, I think I can play better (than Mercer)."

It simply may not be possible for the Pirates to make a definite decision on who will be the starter prior to the start of spring training, as the two sides will likely have to battle it out for the job.

Still, something must be done to address the situation, if it hasn't been done already, by both manager Clint Hurdle and the rest of the organization.

*Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.