Jake Mangum was supposed to be the kind of player who fades into Triple-A depth, the sort of outfielder teams keep around because he can run, handle center field and switch-hit. Instead, he has pushed his way into a real major league role for the Pirates, who needed help after their outfield was thinned by injuries and absences.
That matters now because the Pirates were 55-52 on July 27, tied for the last NL Wild Card spot and sitting about a 48.6% bet to make the playoffs. For a club that had literally zero Playoff Odds one year earlier, and had not been this good on this date since 2018, every useful bat and every competent glove in the outfield carries more weight than it would in a lost season. Mangum is no longer just a useful name in the background. He is part of the reason the Pirates still have something to play for.
The case for him starts with what he already did for the Rays. Last year he logged 428 plate appearances in 118 games and hit.296/.330/.368, numbers that translated to a 95 wRC+ and 1.8 WAR. That 1.8 WAR led Rays outfielders by more than a win, which is a strong return for a player who was once easy to project as a Triple-A veteran type. He played at Mississippi State, went through the Mets and Marlins as a player to be named later, and then reached Tampa Bay in a way few expected to matter this much.
And yet his profile still looks like a throwback in a sport that usually rewards louder power and harder contact. Mangum can run. He can cover center. He can switch-hit. Those traits are useful, but modern baseball does not usually treat them as enough on their own. That is why his rise is a little strange: the same player who fit the old-school label in FanGraphs headlines has also been valuable enough to keep earning chances, even after being traded again in the three-team deal that sent Brandon Lowe to Pittsburgh.
The Pirates’ own situation explains the opening he has found. Oneil Cruz was the Opening Day center fielder, but he could not get through the first inning of the regular season and has not played in nearly two months. That is the gap Mangum is filling, and it is a real one. Pittsburgh does not need a perfect outfielder right now. It needs someone who can keep the position from becoming a problem while the team tries to hold onto a postseason spot it has not realistically held this late in a season for a long time.
The unanswered question is not whether Mangum can help in short bursts; he already has. It is how long the Pirates can keep leaning on a player whose game has been treated as inefficient for the modern era and still expect it to hold up in a race this tight.
