Rosternomics
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Pirates PIT

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GM: Cam Bonifay (since 1993)

1998 roster — every player, value & surplus

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+0.9
WAB — wins above budget
+1.9
TAB — roster Talent above budget
69–93 (0.426)
record
+11M
surplus $M (value/$)
23.0
roster fWAR
$14.4M
payroll
PlayerAgeServiceGfWARSalary $MSurplus $M
Jason Kendall 24 pre-arb 149 5.8 0.6 +5.6
Francisco Cordova 26 pre-arb 33 3.2 0.5 +2.9
Jon Lieber 28 arb 29 2.7 1.4 +1.4
Jason Schmidt 25 arb 33 2.5 0.5 +2.2
Chris Peters 26 pre-arb 39 2.1 0.2 +2.1
Jason Christiansen 28 arb 60 1.8 0.3 +1.6
Jermaine Allensworth↔ KCR 26 pre-arb 69 1.7 0.1 +1.7
Jose Silva 24 pre-arb 18 1.7 0.2 +1.7
Kevin Young 29 FA-elig 159 1.7 1.6 +0.2
Mike Williams 29 FA-elig 37 1.5 0.3 +1.3
Turner Ward 33 FA-elig 123 1.2 0.8 +0.5
Todd Van Poppel↔ TEX 26 FA-elig 18 0.7 0.2 +0.5
Ricardo Rincon 28 pre-arb 60 0.7 0.2 +0.5
Tony Womack 28 arb 159 0.7 0.3 +0.4
Esteban Loaiza↔ TEX 26 arb 21 0.5 0.3 +0.3
Rich Loiselle 26 pre-arb 54 0.4 0.3 +0.2
Freddy Garcia 25 arb 56 0.3 0.2 +0.2
Adrian Brown 24 pre-arb 41 0.3 0.2 +0.2
Manny Martinez 27 pre-arb 73 0.3 0.2 +0.1
Marc Wilkins 27 pre-arb 16 0.1 0.3 -0.2
Lou Collier 24 pre-arb 110 0.1 0.2 -0.1
Tim Laker↔ TBR 28 – 14 0.1 – –
Steve Bieser 30 – 13 0.0 – –
Elmer Dessens 27 pre-arb 43 0.0 0.2 -0.1
Emil Brown 23 – 13 -0.1 – –
Abraham O. Nunez 22 – 24 -0.1 – –
Jeff Tabaka 34 arb 37 -0.1 0.3 -0.4
Keith Osik 29 pre-arb 39 -0.1 0.3 -0.4
Sean Lawrence 27 pre-arb 7 -0.3 0.2 -0.4
Jeff McCurry 28 arb 16 -0.3 0.2 -0.6
Javier Martinez 21 pre-arb 37 -0.3 0.2 -0.5
Jose Guillen 22 pre-arb 153 -0.4 0.3 -0.7
Kevin Polcovich 28 pre-arb 81 -0.4 0.2 -0.7
Chance Sanford 26 – 14 -0.7 – –
Mark Smith 28 arb 59 -0.8 0.3 -1.1
Al Martin 30 FA-elig 125 -0.8 2.6 -3.5
Aramis Ramirez 20 pre-arb 72 -1.0 0.2 -1.2
Doug Strange 34 FA-elig 90 -1.8 0.6 -2.5

38 players appeared (WAR is complete); salary & surplus are on record for 33 of them (87%). 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.