The Pittsburgh Pirates didn’t have a whole lot of success on the field in 2025 but the future is very bright in the steel city. Pittsburgh had a few of their prospects finally make their mark in 2025,
with pitchers like Braxton Ashcraft, Hunter Barco, Mike Burrows and Bubba Chandler. The Pirates will be going into the 2026 season with a young pitching staff with potential of being one of the best in the entire league.
Ashcraft and Chandler look like locks for the rotation next season. Chandler is a highly anticipated pitcher who we saw a little bit late last season. Barco is looking like he could be a rotation piece as well with Paul Skenes, Jared Jones and Mitch Keller. Burrows was traded, but landed the Pirates a three-player haul from the Tampa Bay Rays in power-hitting second baseman Brandon Lowe, versatile outfielder Jake Mangum and left-handed relief pitcher Mason Montgomery.
The Pirates could have even more players make their debut and improve throughout the 2026 season, one where they are aiming towards postseason contention. The pitching for the most part was a bright spot last season and with all the young arms in their system, that seems like that will continue, but the Bucs have some hitters that could make a big splash in the 2026 season.
Sam Dykstra of MLB.com named the nine most improved farm systems in baseball and placed the Pirates among those teams. He also named the Arizona Diamondbacks, Athletics, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants and Toronto Blue Jays in that group. Dykstra also praised Konnor Griffin and his development saying he is one of the best prospects in baseball. He also mentioned the surprise breakout seasons of outfielders in Esmerlyn Valdez and Edward Florentino.
“The Bucs oversaw Konnor Griffin’s development from a tooled-up shortstop/center fielder with some hit-tool questions to a full-blown five-tool superstar and the No. 1 prospect in baseball, and that alone would be enough to get on this list,” Dykstra wrote. “But nice breakouts by Edward Florentino and Esmerlyn Valdez helped matters further .”
Dykstra also talked about the potential of Bubba Chandler and waht other young pitchers could step up for the Pirates.
“Bubba Chandler’s season felt like one of peaks and valleys at Triple-A, but after flashing good stuff in his first MLB turn, he still has as much upside as any arm in prospectdom. Similarly, the Pirates reached for more ceiling by taking top prep pitcher Seth Hernandez sixth overall. Surrounding Paul Skenes with more talent in Pittsburgh should be a high priority, and the chances that some of that help could arrive internally is higher now than it was in March”.
The last couple of years the Pirates have had high draft picks and have had the opportunities to build their farm system and they have fallen short in doing that. I feel like they have been doing a better job at developing young talent, especially pitchers. Hernandez and Chandler have potential in being top pitchers alongside Skenes but the question is can the young batters we have in the system make an impact as well.
The Bucs are a young team and they should be focusing on building around their better players with young talent coming up from the farm. Pittsburgh has made some nice moves in the offseason, like bringing in Ryan O’Hearn and trading for Brandon Lowe, and if they can build around those guys and get consistency from the offense and the farm system the Pirates can snap their playoff drought.
