Rosternomics
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Pirates PIT

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GM: Cam Bonifay (since 1993)

1997 roster — every player, value & surplus

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+13.9
WAB — wins above budget
+2.5
TAB — roster Talent above budget
79–83 (0.488)
record
+13M
surplus $M (value/$)
20.8
roster fWAR
$10.7M
payroll
PlayerAgeServiceGfWARSalary $MSurplus $M
Jason Kendall 23 pre-arb 144 4.5 0.2 +4.3
Joe Randa 27 pre-arb 126 3.7 0.2 +3.6
Jon Lieber 27 arb 33 3.1 0.3 +2.9
Kevin Young 28 arb 97 3.0 0.4 +2.6
Francisco Cordova 25 pre-arb 29 3.0 0.2 +2.8
Esteban Loaiza 25 pre-arb 33 2.8 0.2 +2.7
Jason Schmidt 24 pre-arb 32 2.3 0.2 +2.2
Turner Ward 32 FA-elig 71 1.4 0.3 +1.1
Mark Smith 27 arb 71 1.3 0.1 +1.2
Ricardo Rincon 27 pre-arb 62 1.1 0.1 +0.9
Steve Cooke 27 arb 32 1.0 0.3 +0.8
Rich Loiselle 25 pre-arb 72 1.0 0.2 +0.9
Shawon Dunston↔ CHC 34 FA-elig 18 0.9 0.3 +0.6
Al Martin 29 arb 113 0.6 2.3 -1.7
Jason Christiansen 27 pre-arb 39 0.4 0.2 +0.2
Dale Sveum 33 FA-elig 126 0.4 0.4 +0.0
Abraham O. Nunez 21 pre-arb 19 0.3 0.1 +0.2
Kevin Polcovich 27 pre-arb 84 0.3 0.1 +0.1
Jose Silva 23 – 11 0.3 – –
Jeff Wallace 21 pre-arb 11 0.2 0.1 +0.1
Keith Osik 28 pre-arb 49 0.1 0.2 -0.0
Elmer Dessens 26 – 3 0.0 – –
Kevin Elster 32 FA-elig 39 0.0 1.6 -1.6
John Ericks 29 pre-arb 10 -0.0 0.2 -0.2
Marc Wilkins 26 pre-arb 70 -0.1 0.2 -0.3
David Wainhouse 29 FA-elig 25 -0.1 0.2 -0.3
Clint Sodowsky 24 – 45 -0.1 – –
Ramon Morel↔ CHC 22 – 5 -0.1 – –
Mark Johnson 29 pre-arb 78 -0.1 0.2 -0.4
Jason Johnson 23 pre-arb 3 -0.1 0.1 -0.3
Lou Collier 23 – 18 -0.2 – –
Matt Ruebel 27 pre-arb 44 -0.3 0.2 -0.5
Eddie Williams↔ LAD 32 FA-elig 30 -0.3 0.2 -0.5
Freddy Garcia 24 – 20 -0.4 – –
Paul Wagner↔ MIL 29 arb 14 -0.4 0.3 -0.7
Jeff Granger 25 arb 9 -0.4 0.2 -0.7
Emil Brown 22 pre-arb 66 -0.5 0.1 -0.6
Chris Peters 25 – 31 -0.6 – –
Midre Cummings↔ PHI 25 arb 52 -0.7 0.1 -0.8
Tony Womack 27 arb 155 -0.9 0.2 -1.1
Adrian Brown 23 – 48 -1.3 – –
Jermaine Allensworth 25 pre-arb 108 -1.4 0.2 -1.6
Jose Guillen 21 pre-arb 143 -3.1 0.1 -3.3

43 players appeared (WAR is complete); salary & surplus are on record for 35 of them (81%). Players without a salary show "–" — no single historical salary source is fully complete (especially 2020–2022).

WAR = FanGraphs (fWAR). Green = produced more value than paid (bargain); red = paid more than produced. Service: pre-arb (<3 yr) / arb (3–6) / FA-eligible (6+). Click headers to sort.

History: front-office performance & develop-vs-buy (1985–2024)

Trade ledger (realized WAR, all-time)

Best acquisitions
PlayerYearWAR for PIT
Andy Van Slyke198731.1
Brian Giles199825.4
Doug Drabek198621.4
Bobby Bonilla198620.6
Bryan Reynolds201820.0
Mike LaValliere198712.9
Josh Harrison200911.9
Jack Wilson200011.0
Ones that got away
PlayerYear tradedWAR elsewhere
Aramis Ramírez200325.0
Jason Schmidt200123.6
Brian Giles200317.1
Willie Randolph197514.7
Moisés Alou199013.8
John Tudor198412.0
Randy Milligan198811.9
Bip Roberts198511.1
Rosternomics — quantifying front-office skill, attribution-clean. Follow @rosternomics on X. Decision-makers on record back to 1933; resource-controlled metrics (WAR & payroll) cover 1985–2026.
Data: FanGraphs (WAR), Baseball-Reference & the Chadwick Bureau register (rosters, IDs), the Lahman Database, Baseball America prospect rankings (via The Baseball Cube), and public payroll records. Transaction and trade data was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Executive birth/death data via Wikidata (CC0); bios are original. Emoji graphics by OpenMoji (CC BY-SA 4.0).
All figures are franchise-level outcomes credited to the decision-maker in the acquisition year — not solely attributable to one executive.