Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Ben Cherington has had a busy offseason.<\/p>\n
The Pirates boasted one of the most promising young pitching staffs in 2025, headlined by NL Cy Young award winner Paul Skenes, but needed to make improvements to their offense this winter.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh has done just that, adding the likes of All-Star second baseman Brandon Lowe<\/a>, All-Star first baseman Ryan O\u2019Hearn<\/a> and highly-touted outfield prospect Jhostynxon Garcia<\/a>.<\/p>\n MLB senior writer Jim Bowden of The Athletic included the Pirates on his list<\/a> of the \u201c7 most-improved teams so far this offseason\u201d on Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe industry, media and fans alike have been clamoring for them to add more offense for the last three seasons and they finally did it this offseason, as GM Ben Cherington has been the most aggressive he\u2019s been since he won a World Series running the Red Sox,\u201d Bowden wrote. \u201cThe Pirates\u2019 offense looks much more competitive than it did at the end of last season and they appear to be going from pretender to contender thanks to the solid work of their GM.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Pittsburgh was even reportedly in on<\/a> NL MVP runner-up Kyle Schwarber before the designated hitter re-signed with the Philadelphia Phillies.<\/p>\n The Pirates haven\u2019t made the playoffs since 2015 but could be a dark horse<\/a> in 2026.<\/p>\n More MLB: Will Pirates Pivot To All-Star Slugger After Missing Out On Kazuma Okamoto?<\/a><\/p>\n The post MLB Insider Says Pirates \u2018Appear To Be Going From Pretender To Contender\u2019<\/a> appeared first on SportsNet Pittsburgh<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Ben Cherington has had a busy offseason. The Pirates boasted one of the most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402],"tags":[5,6547,1751,19257,3804,81,4,877,25,10,776,64,4297,89],"class_list":{"0":"post-507169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-pirates","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-ben-cherington","10":"tag-brandon-lowe","11":"tag-jhostynxon-garcia","12":"tag-jim-bowden","13":"tag-kyle-schwarber","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-paul-skenes","16":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","17":"tag-pirates","18":"tag-pittsburgh","19":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","20":"tag-pittsburghpirates","21":"tag-red-sox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115845456573095544","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}