I know WAR is a heavily debated stat but it is a stat that if being used to directly compare two players playing the same position can be useful. It is also an independent look at players without a fan's biased eyes.
That being said let's look at how the 2014 Pirates stack up against the league based on last year's stats. First let's look at the group that we know will be back next year. Here is where each starter ranked in terms of WAR at their position versus all of MLB.
Catcher - Russell Martin - 7th
2nd Base - Neil Walker - 7th
SS - Jordy Mercer - 18th
3rd Base - Pedro Alvarez - 11th
Left Field - Starling Marte - 1st
Center Field - Andrew McCutchen - 3rd
What jumps out to me is that there is only one player coming back at those six positions that you would consider "below average" and even with Jordy Mercer that probably is not fair in comparison to how he played. WAR is a cumulative stat so if you give him a full season of 500 AB's or so he would project to be around 10th or so.
It is pretty obvious that these positions are all relatively secure and nothing we need to worry much about heading into 2014. Even with the complaints that seem to reign down on Pedro Alvarez and Neil Walker they are still pretty good even if not always living up to expectations. The only question which might be a different debate, is can Mercer actually handle that full 500+ AB's or is it worth overpaying Barmes to be a nice handcuff? But we can leave that for another day.
Now onto what the Pirates had to end 2014.
1st Base - Justin Morneau - 16th
Right Field - Marlon Byrd - 5th
I have not added Garrett Jones because he is 12 spots below Gaby Sanchez who is 24th and so I think a bit of an afterthought at this point. This point has the resources, has a long-term gap at 1st, a limited number of holes in the lineup and is a true contender. So no need to aim for average at any position.
Marlon Byrd appears to be an obvious candidate to at least try to retain to fill that RF hole but as Absolute pointed out yesterday there are some obstacles in that. Right field is also unique because you have a player that might be able to help as much as Byrd by the end of the year at quite the discount. This would allow you to possibly go out and spend big cash at 1st.
So we come to 1st base. Gaby Sanchez at 24th in limited AB's shows that he can be quite valuable off of the bench but I think we would all agree if he had to play more versus RHP that, like Jones, that number would start to plummet.
I believe this will be the main debate all off-season (or until Neal Huntington finds solutions)... What do you do with 1st base and right field? I know we have seen these names before but here are the free agents that might seem to make sense:
First Basemen
Casey Kotchman
Adam Lind *
James Loney
Kendrys Morales
Justin Morneau
Mike Morse
Mike Napoli
Mark Reynolds
Kevin Youkilis
Jose Abreu
Outfielders
Norichika Aoki *
Carlos Beltran
Shin-Soo Choo
Coco Crisp *
Nelson Cruz
Rajai Davis
David DeJesus
Curtis Granderson
Franklin Gutierrez
Corey Hart
Raul Ibanez
Reed Johnson *
Jason Kubel *
Nate McLouth
Mike Morse
Marlon Byrd
I left in a lot of long-shots as well as a couple guys that would be short-term platoon options. So... what would you do?