A few days ago, Matt Swartz and MLB Trade Rumors released their projected salaries for arbitration eligible players this year.

They aren’t official numbers, but at the very least, they provide a good baseline to go off heading into the offseason, which is especially crucial for the Pittsburgh Pirates and general manager Ben Cherington.

The Pirates have nine players are eligible for arbitration this year. Deciding whether or not to tender these players is the first of many steps in how the Pirates will attempt to revamp their roster ahead of next season.

So, it begs the question: who should the Pirates tender, and who should they let walk? I gave my takes on each player below.

Dauri Moreta ($800K)

We’ll start out with an easy one. Moreta certainly needs to have a bullpen role in 2025.

Morera spent most of this season still recovering and rehabbing from a UCL surgery that killed his entire 2024 campaign. Moreta first threw a recorded pitch on April 29th, and spent nearly two months working his way through a lengthy rehab assignment. Even after that wrapped up, the righty was kept in Triple-A for a few weeks longer, not throwing a major league pitch until August 2nd.

In limited MLB work down the stretch, he tossed 16.2 innings with a 3.24 ERA, 1.380 WHIP, and 2.71 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He looked pretty much like the reliever we knew from a few years back.

Two years ago, in his last full season in the big leagues, Moreta pitched 58 innings to a 3.72 ERA, 1.086 WHIP, and 3.17 strikeout-to-walk ratio. That’s solid work.

Plus, he’s a really fun presence in the club house and on the field. And at that price tag? There’s no way you don’t do it.

Justin Lawrence ($1.2 million)

It’a a shame that we didn’t get to see a ton of Lawrence this season, because of the little time we did see, he looked really good.

Lawrence was a waiver claim by the Pirates from Colorado before the year opened, and pitched only a total of 17.2 innings with a 0.51 ERA, 0.962 WHIP, and 2.88 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He was taken down by injury just a few games into the season, and only was able to return in the closing weeks of the year.

He’s got some truly nasty pitches in his arsenal, and the bullpen undoubtedly suffered from missing him basically the entire year.

At a cheap salary like that, keep him around for next year and bank on better health. He could be a big part of their bullpen in 2026.