What’s the plan for Bryan De La Cruz?

The Pittsburgh Pirates lost 3-4 Monday night to the Texas Rangers. Starting pitcher Luis Ortiz’s day was mixed; he made two gargantuan mistakes to Ranger’s shortstop, and two-time World Series MVP Corey Seager, and Seager took him deep both times. A solo shot in the first inning off a middle middle cutter, and then a three-run shot in the third on a first pitch slider left up and out over the plate.

Ortiz otherwise pitched well and did a good job of preventing the game from running away from him. He completed six innings of work and struck out seven, but the two big mistakes were enough for him to get tagged with the loss.

Dennis Santana was excellent in his four outs of work, a first pitch ball to the second batter of the seventh inning being all that stood between him and an immaculate inning.

The offense managed just three runs, all of which came via a Jared Triolo three run home run in the third off of a hanging breaking pitch from Dane Dunning. Bryan Reynolds collected one hit in what has become something of a lull for him the past two weeks, Joey Bart put in another multi-hit effort, and Rowdy Tellez’s OPS on the year dropped to .681 after an 0-4 night continued what has been a return to form in an August that has again seen his production sink well below replacement level. Ho-hum.

The Pirates drop to 58-66 in what has rapidly become another lost season. If you’re still talking about playoffs, or even a winning record, you’re wasting your breath.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s another unremarkable game of Pirates baseball. I wasn’t sure there was going to be much to talk about, until around the fifth inning when I realized that Bryan De La Cruz was on the bench. It’s concerning how quickly he’s become an afterthought.

Acquired at the MLB trade deadline a little under three weeks ago from the Miami Marlins in exchange for prospects Jun Seok Shim and Garrett Forester, he’s hit just .196/.224/.196. That’s not a typo, he really has a slugging percentage of .196. He doesn’t have single extra base hit since being acquired. His total 2024 fWAR is -0.6.

He was on the bench for a game in back-to-back series earlier this month, sitting versus the Padres at home and during the series against the Dodgers in Los Angeles. Ji Hwan Bae, a player who’s been worth -0.4 fWAR and has an OPS of .484 on the year, played right field both times De La Cruz sat.

Even with Andrew McCutchen on the IL opening up the reps at designated hitter and with the team having an off day last Thursday, De La Cruz sat Monday night. Joey Bart was the designated hitter and Billy McKinney, a journeyman outfielder on his seventh different organization who turns 30 this Friday who just got added to the roster got the nod over De La Cruz in right field. Unless there’s some kind of nagging injury we don’t know about, I don’t quite see how De La Cruz would be due for an off day for rest reasons.

Bae and McKinney aren’t part of this team’s future, does them getting reps over De La Cruz not say quite a bit about how the team feels internally about him and his fit on this roster? What’s the plan for De La Cruz here in 2025? Is he a starter? Is he a bench player? Is there a plan? Is he even going to be here? I truly have no idea.

Headed into his first year of arbitration, De La Cruz is set for a mild salary increase over league minimum, they could non-tender him. I can’t say it would break my heart or that it wouldn’t make sense. A wRC+ of 85 isn’t exactly palatable for a player with an awful glove (-7 OAA) who makes an outfield that was already struggling defensively even worse.

But would the Pirates, a team that rarely dips into the free agent market for any kind of competent Major League asset, really consider opening up yet another roster spot to fill, even if it’s hard to argue that De La Cruz would be worth the small raise he’s about to receive?

2024 now seems likely to mark the third year in a row that he’s regressed offensively. De La Cruz is working walks at a career low rate of 5.3 percent while striking out at a career high rate of 27.1 percent. His current batting average of .240, on base percentage of .282 and slugging of .392 are all career lows. Do the Pirates believe they can turn this around? Headed into his age 28 season and having never put up a full season of above average production are they convinced they can make De La Cruz into something that he’s never been at this level?

It’s another large, confusing question mark seemingly without any good answers on a roster full of such things as the team now looks towards a pivotal 2025 campaign.