Over the last three seasons, General Manager Ben Cherington has given utility infielder Jared Triolo about every chance imaginable to find a way to earn and keep his role on the team.
After an outstanding start to his career in the later part of 2023, where he hit .298 in 54 games and showed off his defensive skills, he earned the starting second base job to begin 2024 after a strong Spring Training as well. But once his offensive slide began, Nick Gonzales came up and became the full time second baseman.
Despite this,Triolo was never sent down and continued to be a tremendous utility man defensively, especially at his natural third base position. Triolo ended up winning the utility Gold Glove award last year.
But he didn’t bounce back offensively for most of this season, in fact, his numbers were way worse. Triolo’s batting average remained below the Mendoza line from Opening Day all the way until the Pirates finally sent him down to Triple-A in July to hit the reset button.
Since coming back up on Aug. 1, Triolo has gotten most of his playing time at shortstop and has all of a sudden been producing at the plate. Going into the weekend series, he was hitting .270 this month, a far cry from where he’s been over the last year and a half, and is now hitting .324 after a monster series against the Rockies, where he hit home runs in back-to-back games (Saturday and Sunday).
Shortstop is a wide-open position going into next season. If Triolo continues to produce over the next several weeks at the plate, he may be the frontrunner to be the Opening Day shortstop next season. This also depends, of course, on whether the Pirates would want to sign a shortstop this offseason.
Although he hasn’t been exactly perfect defensively at a position that isn’t his natural position, his range and arm would work as an everyday shortstop if it becomes his focus in the offseason. Even now, Cherington and the Pirates trust Triolo more than Liover Peguero, who hasn’t been great defensively throughout his professional career. Assuming Triolo finishes the year strong, the Pirates may hope that he can provide stronger defense and about the same batting average as IKF with a little more power to be the stopgap at the position next year until the arrival of Konnor Griffin.
Obviously, if you move off of Ke’Bryan Hayes, you need to make a significant upgrade offensively at a premium power position, so Triolo isn’t the answer at third, but at shortstop, his offensive output could be standard enough if he provides strong defense. But even if the Pirates take that risk, they have to make legitimate upgrades at third base, catcher, outfield, and potentially add a right-handed 1B/DH option to make a lineup that can legitimately compete. And we know the chances of that actually happening are extremely low with the current regime.
