Pirates: 3 early 2023 MLB trade deadline targets for Pittsburgh

It has been a month of treading water for the Pittsburgh Pirates. After a blistering April in which the club won twice as many games as it lost, the Pirates lost 11 of their next 12 games, which was more expected for baseball fans in the Steel City.

Since that nasty losing streak, Pittsburgh has been just about a .500 baseball club. With competition from the Milwaukee Brewers and the St. Louis Cardinals, conventional wisdom says the ballclub should be far from divisional contention. Instead, like the Pirates, the rest of the NL Central has been unable to generate any sort of maintained success.

And thus, as the standings stood a month ago, the Pittsburgh Pirates are still a half-game ahead in the NL Central. The Pirates have gotten by on the strength of their pitching staff. The team has a 3.92 ERA, led by All-Star candidates Mitch Keller (7-1, 3.25 ERA, 11.2 strikeouts per nine innings) and David Bednar (1.13 ERA, 13 saves, 30 strikeouts to one walk).

Offensively, Pittsburgh has gotten by on small ball, but Bryan Reynolds — who has also cooled down after a hot start — is an All-Star in left field, while Jack Suwinksi has been a surprising source of power in center field.

The Pirates cannot continue to rely on the underperformance of the teams around them to stay in first place. The club needs more power offensively and could use more depth in its starting rotation. Given these needs, here are three players the Pittsburgh Pirates should target ahead of the trade deadline.

The Pittsburgh Pirates desperately need a catcher that can get on base. Austin Hedges is one of the best defensive catchers in baseball (98th percentile in framing, plus a great blocker), but he probably couldn't hit the ball if it was on a tee. Hedges' career batting average over nine seasons is .189, and this year he is batting .184. Backup Jason Delay hit .383 through the first five weeks of the year, but is a .167 in the month since then.

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Colorado's Elias Diaz offers great offense while not compromising on the defensive end. He currently leads all MLB catchers with 2.2 WAR and would be a great pickup for the Pirates.

The Pirates have hit the sixth-fewest home runs of any MLB team. While they make up for it with a healthy rate of doubles and triples, it is no substitute for the guaranteed RBIs of a home run.

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Josh Naylor left the park 20 times last season in his first full year as an MLB regular and is on pace to surpass that mark in 2023. He's also among the best at driving home runs, doing so 41 this year in 51 games. He does all of this while striking out just 16% of the time.

Aside from 43-year-old Rich Hill, this is a young Pirates starting rotation. Johan Oviedo, Roansy Contreras, and Luis Ortiz are all 25 years old or younger while Mitch Keller is just 27.

Eduardo Rodriguez is the ace on a mediocre Tigers pitching staff and is in the midst of a breakout season. He has a 2.13 ERA and leads the league in ERA+ (which takes into account a pitcher's performance relative to ballpark factors). Rodriguez would be a great pickup for the Pirates ahead of the MLB trade deadline.