Since the Pittsburgh Pirates made a change at manager, the team is 52-55 on the year. Don Kelly has gotten what he can out of a roster that has some bright spots, but certainly still needs work in the upcoming winter.

In my opinion, at or just around .500 is where this Pirates team should have been all season. Yes, the offense is abysmal, but the pitching is just so darn good, it makes losing a ton of games almost impossible…unless your name was Derek Shelton this year.

But just .500 isn’t going to cut as the Paul Skenes window already starts to dwindle. The offense has to be better.

Luckily for the Pirates, it does not need wholesale change. The organization doesn’t have to pull off a worst-to-first stunt in order to get into postseason talks. It just has to be average.

Between how good the pitching is, and banking on a bounce back from a guy like Bryan Reynolds, a league average offense would have this team firmly in the playoff race, and getting two quality MLB bats would help drag the offense out of the basement and into “good enough” territory.

That will be the job that the general manager of the Pirates has this winter, whether that still belongs to Ben Cherington or someone else. Obviously, the easiest way to do that would be to throw a ton of money at the problem come wintertime and see what happens.

But, you and I both know that it’s far more likely the Pirates pursue a pitching-for-batting trade. For as much as the current management regime has gotten wrong, they do deserve credit for the pitching depth they’ve assembled.

Led by their crown jewel and ace in Skenes, the Pirates have a plethora of options to fill out their rotation next season.

• Paul Skenes
• Mitch Keller
• Bubba Chandler
• Johan Oviedo
• Mike Burrows
• Braxton Ashcraft
• Carmen Mlodzinski

And that’s just guys who have started games for them this season. That does not include someone like Jared Jones, who will return midway through next season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. It also doesn’t include a prospect like Hunter Barco, an impressive lefty who will break into the bigs soon and the left-handed free agent signing that the team usually makes each winter.

Look, pitching depth is great, but there’s only so many rotation spots to go around. Injuries do happen, but there’s still multiple names who won’t be used to their full potential with this current configuration.

We’re already seeing the Pirates have to shift starters around and make them temporary long relief relievers, with too many starters to accommodate for.

The most common name fans go to when talking about a pitching-for-batting trade is Mitch Keller.

Keller is the longest tenured pitcher on the roster, playing in Pittsburgh since 2019 and closing in on 900 career major league innings. Over the last four years, Keller has been remarkably consistent, pitching to a 4.14 ERA and never deviating more than 24 points away from that mark.

Given how well he has shown his reliability and durability over that time, he would certainly have takers.

But, I have a sleeper pick for who the Pirates could deal for bats in the offseason: Mike Burrows.

Burrows made his MLB debut in the season finale in 2024, but started getting full-time major league time back in May of this year. After his start last night, Burrows has a 3.99 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, and a 2.93 strikeout-to-walk ratio through 20 games, 17 starts, and 85.2 innings.

Among the 20 qualified rookie pitchers in MLB this season, Burrows ranks in the top half in ERA, opposing average, and WHIP, where he is fifth best.

The big knock on Burrows, obviously, is his relatively small sample size in the big leagues. However, for what Burrows lacks in terms of established MLB production, he makes up for in other ways.

First: his potential.

What you see is what you get with Keller. The 29-year-old deserves credit for being a remarkably consistent arm over the last four years, but it means that there really is no surprise or mystery when it comes to his game at this point.

Burrows, meanwhile, has the allure of a younger, lesser-known hurler. Yes, he’s shown capable of performing at the highest level. But is there more in there? Is there a better than just capable or league average pitcher in him? He’ll turn 26 in a few months, leaving plenty of time to develop the arm even further.

Second: his salary.

Keller topped Pittsburgh’s payroll this season at a $15 million cash total. That will increase to $16.5 million next year. His salary is often tied to the reason why he is mocked in trades. Not only does Keller bring back some offense as a result, but the shedding of his salary would also, in theory, allow the team to reallocate their money better.

Given the way the Pirates operate, Keller’s salary is far more cumbersome in Pittsburgh than it would be in many other cities. But, that’s not to say that his salary is a huge selling point. Yes, he does provide cost certainty at an affordable rate, but his contract is not some crazy good bargain.

Burrows, by comparison, still has two pre-arb years left to his name. One of his greatest values to an inquiring team is how cheap he is against the payroll, especially for the numbers he has put up so far.

But the Pirates have not made it a priority that he still get starts, unlike some of their other younger arms. To accommodate for the return of Oviedo and the transition of Ashcraft back to starter, Burrows was pushed back to a long relief role at times as the team tries to limit the innings of most of their guys.

His appearance on Monday night was the first time he started a game since August 23rd.

In this rotation shuffle that the Pirates have done over the last few weeks, I do find it slightly interesting that Burrows was the one to (sort of) lose his spot in the rotation. Maybe that’s a tell as to how the team views Burrows. Maybe it’s not.

In my opinion, Keller holds more value to the Pirates than he does to other organizations. He’s their most experienced pitcher by far, and already has a firmly entrenched role in the rotation. The same can’t be said for Burrows.

Trading Keller also leaves the Pirates with an incredibly young rotation. Skenes becomes the elder statesman at just his third season in the league, and Oviedo becomes the oldest current Pirate starter, at 27.

Burrows doesn’t have that same standing. However, to a team that is built in the opposite way of the Pirates, he does represent a young and cheap arm to help build out your rotation.

I don’t know for certain how close the markets would be for Keller as opposed to Burrows. And maybe they both end up getting traded, who knows?

But if I was looking at an under-the-radar arm on the trade market this season, I would look to Burrows.