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Christopher Boan has been covering sports and sports betting for more than seven years, including stops at ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.
Most Undervalued Pittsburgh Pirates On 2025 Roster
The 2025 MLB season marks a decade since the last time the Pittsburgh Pirates reached the postseason, with one season in the last 10 years with a record above .500, that being the team’s 82-79 run in 2018.
Entering Spring Training, such an outcome at PA sportsbooks seems unlikely for the Pirates, as oddsmakers from DraftKings Sportsbook give the NL Central franchise +360 odds of making the postseason in 2025, with a win total over/under of 77.5 in the Steel City this MLB season.
With that in mind, PennStakes.com utilized Fangraphs.com to gather the 2025 salary information and projected 2025 WAR. Once acquiring that information, we divided the salary by the player’s projected WAR to determine the players’ potential value.
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Most Undervalued Pittsburgh Pirates on 2025 Roster
Player | 2025 Salary | 2025 Projected WAR | Value* |
Paul Skenes (Pitcher) | $800,000 | 4.8 | $166,667 |
Oneil Cruz (Outfielder) | $800,000 | 3.3 | $242,424 |
Jared Jones (Pitcher) | $800,000 | 2.4 | $333,333 |
(Salary Per WAR) *
Note: Some players’ salaries are represented by their salary before arbitration. Only players projected on the Opening Day 40-Man Roster were included.
It's Paul Skenes' World
The top player on this year’s 40-man roster in Pittsburgh is 2024 NL Rookie of the Year Paul Skenes, who is projected to post a sophomore season that few in the Steel City will forget anytime soon, as his preseason WAR projection from Fangraphs.com is for a 4.8-WAR season.
The site projects that the former LSU Tigers star will make 31 starts this year, with a 3.01 ERA across 174 innings pitched, achieving a value (salary per WAR) of $166,667, thanks to earning the league minimum of $800,000 in 2025.
Last year, Skenes had a 4.3 WAR across 23 starts with the Pirates, posting a 1.96 ERA across 133 innings pitched while becoming one of the fastest rising stars on the bump in the Senior Circuit, though he’s far from the only Pittsburgh player that’s doing more with less, salary wise.
That’s because two more Pirates, in infielder Oneil Cruz (3.3 WAR projection/$242,424 value) and pitcher Jared Jones (2.4 WAR projection/$333,333 value) are the other noteworthy value plays for Pittsburgh this season, with both expected to anchor the team’s roster this year.
Cruz is projected by Fangraphs.com to finish the season with 26 home runs in 146 games a year after the 26-year-old from the Dominican Republic hit .259 with 21 homers and a 3.5 WAR, while Jones posted 1.8 WAR across 121.2 innings pitched for the club last year, posting a 4.14 ERA along the way.
This season, the second round pick in the 2020 MLB Draft is expected to toss 159 innings and lower his year-end ERA to 3.90, cementing his status as one of the Pirates’ top rotation arms behind Skenes in 2025, as baseball fans in the Steel City hope this year’s the one that sees the club return to the postseason after a decade of waiting.
USA Today photo by Brad Penner.
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