The Pittsburgh Pirates are getting better.
They traded future value on Friday to acquire Brandon Lowe, Mason Montgomery and Jake Magnum. All of a sudden, their lineup has some real juice to it.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Noah Hiles projected out a positional arrangement for the Pirates after the deal, which is helpful:
Right now, the lineup looks like this...
— Noah Hiles (@_NoahHiles) December 19, 2025
C -- Davis/Bart
1B -- Horwitz
2B -- Lowe
3B -- Triolo
SS -- Gonzales/Luciano
LF -- Garcia/Mangum
CF -- Cruz
RF -- Reynolds
Add one more 20+ homer bat and Konnor Griffin to this, and you might have something decent.
We can use that to put together a possible batting lineup.
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Pittsburgh Pirates projected lineup
This is how a Pirates batting lineup might look on 2026 Opening Day:
- Oneil Cruz
- Bryan Reynolds
- Brandon Lowe
- Jhostynxon Garcia
- Spencer Horwitz
- Jared Triolo
- Joey Bart
- Nick Gonzales
- Joey Bart
Once you can plug in top prospect Konnor Griffin, it gets a little deeper. There's also a lot of options in the top half, where we've currently got the right-handed Garcia breaking up a couple lefties.
The Pirates' rotation is strong. They just need to grow the lineup a bit more to be in a good spot.
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