GM Ben Cherington says Pirates don't expect to add any players through free agency, trades

General manger Ben Cherington warned that the Pittsburgh Pirates probably won’t add any new players to their 30-man major league roster through free agency or trades before next week’s season opener at St. Louis, despite having the third-lowest payroll in the majors.

“I would expect that the players who are in Pittsburgh right now would be the ones to make up the Opening Day roster,” Cherington said Wednesday in a Zoom call with reporters. “Doesn’t mean there won’t be changes over time but not expecting anybody who’s not currently in Pittsburgh.”

One of the top free agents, outfielder Yasiel Puig, reportedly agreed to a deal with the Atlanta Braves after Nick Markakis chose to not play this season. Only the Baltimore Orioles and Miami Marlins have lower payrolls than the Pirates.

With two spots available on the 60-man player pool, Cherington picked a pair of top prospects who play the same position to go to their alternate training site in Altoona. Shortstops Nick Gonzales and Liover Peguero will join the 20-player group training at Peoples Natural Gas Field, home of their Double-A affiliate, the Altoona Curve.

“We’d expect to add a couple guys soon,” Cherington said. “Our hope is that it’s soon.”

Cherington said Gonzales and Peguero “are on the way to being on the 60,” pending the results of their covid-19 tests. The Pirates had two openings on their 60-man roster after reliever Edgar Santana received an 80-game suspension for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs and pitcher Hector Noesi opted out because of family reasons.

“We hope to put them on the 60 soon,” Cherington said. “They’re not quite on the 60 yet, but that’s our expectation.”

Gonzales, 21, was the Pirates’ first-round pick (No. 7 overall) in the MLB Draft last month out of New Mexico State and signed for a $5.4 million bonus. The 5-foot-10, 190-pounder was the 2019 NCAA batting champion, with a .432 average. This past spring, he slashed .448/.610/1.155 and led the NCAA in home runs (12), RBIs (36), runs (28) and total bases (67) in 16 games.

The 19-year-old Peguero was part of the return from Arizona in the Starling Marte trade in January, along with pitcher Brennan Malone. Considered a top-10 prospect for the Pirates, the 6-1, 160-pounder slashed .326/.382/.485 with 11 doubles, five homers and 38 RBIs in 60 games split between low-Class A and rookie ball.

Cherington said the Pirates have prescribed workout plans for minor league pitchers and position players, and the baseball operations staff continues to evaluate the best way to use its player pool to support a major league roster that will open the season with 30 players but will be reduced to 28 after two weeks and 26 after a month. That also helps explain why the Pirates didn’t add a pitcher, such as 19-year-old right-handers Malone or Quinn Priester, their 2019 first-round pick, to the 60-man player pool.

“I think in Nick and Liover’s case, we felt like as we looked through potential additions with those spots that we had open, maybe weighing a little bit more the position player,” Cherington said, “believing that with the pitcher, at least in theory, we can create practice remotely that is a little bit closer to what we create in Altoona. It’s harder to do that for a hitter.

“That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t add pitching over the summer, also, but that was a factor. Obviously, both of those guys are important players for the Pirates, so we wanted to make sure we got a chance to spend some time with them in person.”