The Pirates 2014 Roster (As of today)

There will surely be a lot of changes over the next couple months but until then the Pirates do have most of their 2014 roster in place.  Some of the pieces can be moved around but for now let's look at where things stand today with a couple assumptions in place like who we can expect to not be offered arbitration and that none of the free agents come back.

C - Russell Martin
1st - Gaby Sanchez
2nd - Neil Walker
SS - Jordy Mercer
3rd - Pedro Alvarez
LF - Starling Marte
CF - Andrew McCutchen
RF - Jose Tabata
Bench - Andrew Lambo (RF/1st?)
Bench - Tony Sanchez (or McKenry)
Bench - Josh Harrison
Bench - ?
Bench - ?

SP -Francisco Liriano
SP - Gerrit Cole
SP - Charlie Morton
SP - Wandy Rodriguez
SP -  Brandon Cumpton
RP - Jason Grilli
RP - Mark Melancon
RP - Justin Wilson
RP - Tony Watson
RP - Vin Mazarro
RP - Brian Morris
RP - Jeanmar Gomez

Here are the things that really stand out to me:

- First Base is a gaping hole.  I like Gaby as a platoon guy but unless Lambo really can play 1st there has to be a body brought in there.  While Right and Shortstop have some issues they at least seem to have better than replacement player options and in RF you do have a solid guy in AAA as a backup plan.

- That bench is really thin.  SS will need some additional depth if not a new starter.  When I was thinking about adding Chase d'Arnaud instead of the question mark you know there are issues.  I'd be a little surprised if they keep Snider at this point and obviously I think Jones is gone.

- There is a pretty big hole at the 5th spot in the rotation especially if Wandy is not going to be healthy for at least half the year.  You have a lot of options for the 5th spot (stretch out Wilson, Locke, Taillon mid-season, Cumpton, etc.) but none are sure fire.

- The bullpen is really deep.  I'm almost positive someone is getting dealt or Wilson is moving to the rotation.  Even with this roster you would be losing a guy like Pimentel and of course doesn't include any type of shrewd minor league free agent or minor trade they tend to make that works out.  Based on the strengths of the pen I'd predict it's Melacon but who knows.

I honestly think as constructed right here this team could win 85 games or so.  That of course is taking into account guys like Gregory Polanco and Jameson Taillon.  It is a better position than they've been in recently but there are still some pretty big holes that need to be filled.  The payroll is probably going to be in the low $60M range before any moves are made.  If they went a whole season with this group their out of pocket would probably end up near last season.  So now the question is how much do they have to spend?  If they want to end up in the $90M range then they may only be able to add $20M or so worth of salaries.   If that's the case I can understand why they may not want to tie up $14M in AJ Burnett.