Rosternomics
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Pirates PIT

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GM: Neal Huntington (since 2008)

2018 roster — every player, value & surplus

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+5.8
WAB — wins above budget
+4.7
TAB — roster Talent above budget
82–79 (0.509)
record
+28M
surplus $M (value/$)
33.7
roster fWAR
$86.8M
payroll
PlayerAgeServiceGfWARSalary $MSurplus $M
Starling Marte 29 FA-elig 145 4.1 7.8 +6.0
Jameson Taillon 26 pre-arb 32 3.6 0.6 +11.7
Corey Dickerson 29 arb 135 2.9 6.0 +4.0
Gregory Polanco 26 arb 130 2.8 4.1 +5.5
Trevor Williams 26 pre-arb 31 2.7 0.6 +8.5
Joe Musgrove 25 pre-arb 20 2.3 0.6 +7.2
Felipe Vázquez 26 arb 70 2.1 3.0 +4.1
Francisco Cervelli 32 FA-elig 104 2.0 10.5 -3.8
Jordy Mercer 31 FA-elig 117 1.9 6.8 -0.2
Adam Frazier 26 pre-arb 113 1.8 0.6 +5.7
Elias Díaz 27 arb 82 1.7 0.6 +5.2
Josh Bell 25 pre-arb 148 1.5 0.6 +4.6
Richard Rodríguez 28 pre-arb 63 1.3 0.5 +3.9
Kyle Crick 25 pre-arb 64 1.0 0.5 +2.9
David Freese↔ LAD 35 FA-elig 94 0.9 3.5 -0.4
Chris Archer↔ TBR 29 FA-elig 10 0.8 2.4 +0.2
Pablo Reyes 24 – 18 0.7 0.1 +2.4
Edgar Santana 26 pre-arb 69 0.7 0.6 +1.7
Iván Nova 31 FA-elig 29 0.7 9.2 -6.9
Colin Moran 25 pre-arb 144 0.5 0.6 +1.3
Chad Kuhl 25 pre-arb 18 0.5 0.6 +1.1
Austin Meadows↔ TBR 23 – 49 0.5 0.1 +1.4
Jordan Luplow 24 pre-arb 37 0.3 0.1 +0.9
Keone Kela↔ TEX 25 arb 16 0.3 0.4 +0.6
Tyler Glasnow↔ TBR 24 pre-arb 34 0.2 0.4 +0.4
Ryan Lavarnway 30 pre-arb 6 0.2 0.1 +0.5
Michael Feliz 25 arb 47 0.2 0.6 -0.0
Enny Romero↔ KCR 27 arb 2 0.1 0.1 +0.3
Josh Harrison 30 FA-elig 97 0.1 10.2 -9.8
Jung Ho Kang 31 arb 3 0.0 3.0 -3.0
Adeiny Hechavarría↔ NYY 29 FA-elig 15 -0.0 0.9 -1.0
Casey Sadler 27 – 2 -0.0 0.1 -0.1
Alex McRae 25 – 2 -0.0 0.0 -0.2
Christopher Bostick↔ MIA 25 – 2 -0.0 – –
Max Moroff 25 pre-arb 26 -0.1 0.2 -0.3
Nick Burdi 25 – 2 -0.1 0.5 -0.8
Jacob Stallings 28 pre-arb 14 -0.2 0.2 -0.7
Tanner Anderson 25 – 6 -0.2 0.1 -0.6
Clay Holmes 25 – 11 -0.2 0.2 -0.9
José Osuna 25 pre-arb 51 -0.2 0.2 -0.9
Steven Brault 26 pre-arb 46 -0.2 0.6 -1.3
Josh Smoker↔ DET 29 pre-arb 7 -0.3 0.5 -1.4
Nick Kingham 26 pre-arb 18 -0.3 0.3 -1.2
Sean Rodríguez 33 FA-elig 66 -0.3 5.8 -6.8
George Kontos↔ CLE 33 FA-elig 21 -0.5 2.0 -3.7
Kevin Kramer 24 pre-arb 21 -0.6 0.1 -2.0
Dovydas Neverauskas 25 pre-arb 25 -0.6 0.6 -2.5
Kevin Newman 24 – 31 -0.9 0.1 -3.3

48 players appeared (WAR is complete); salary & surplus are on record for 47 of them (98%). 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.