The Pittsburgh Pirates are baseball’s lovable losers. They’ve won only one playoff round in the past 45 years – a memorable wild card win against the Cincinnati Reds in 2013. More than that, the Pirates only have three playoff appearances since 1993.
Simply put: the Pittsburgh Pirates have been very bad for a very long time.
Since the COVID lockdown shortened the 2020 MLB season, the Pirates have displayed an interesting pattern of progress. In the 2021 and 2022 seasons, Pittsburgh recorded two near-identical records of 61-101 and 62-100. They improved slightly in 2023, winning 14 more games to go 76-86. However, despite the hope that fans had going into 2024, the Pirates ended up with the exact same win-loss total.
One of the biggest gripes Pittsburgh’s fans have with the team is their lack of spending in the free agent market. Even though Pittsburgh is a small-market team, the feeling remains that ownership should be doing more to help improve the team.
Well, those fans will remain unsatisfied, as the Pirates were once again quiet in the offseason. The Pirates were able to bring back the majority of their core from last year but hardly brought in anybody new. Most notably, they acquired infielder Adam Frazier, a former all-star who played for Pittsburgh from 2016 to 2021, and left-fielder Tommy Pham, the 37-year-old journeyman who posted as many strikeouts as he did hits last season. First baseman Spencer Horwitz was Pittsburgh’s best signing; he had a .357 on-base percentage and a 1.2 WAR in his second season with the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Pittsburgh Pirates could have one of the strongest rotations in baseball; Paul Skenes won the NL Rookie of the Year Award last season thanks to his 1.96 ERA and .947 WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched), and Mitch Keller and Jared Jones are solid second and third options. Thus, Pittsburgh’s problems are with their bullpen and, most importantly, their lack of run support. The front office failed to address either of these issues in the offseason.
So, with all this in mind, what can Pittsburghers expect from the Pirates this season?
The Pirates play in an open division, but it’s extremely unlikely they’ll win the NL Central, as the Milwaukee Brewers have taken the pennant three of the last four seasons. If the Pirates hope to make the playoffs, they’ll have to win around 85 games. Since the MLB expanded the number of Wild Card teams in 2022, no team has had less than 84 wins. Once we remove the statistical outliers of the 2022 Mets (101 wins) and the 2023 Rays (99 wins), the average record of a Wild Card team over the past three seasons is 88-74.
It’s possible, but unlikely, that Pittsburgh will hit this mark. The Pirates have always struggled to stay consistent from March to September. They’ll get hot with the weather in June or July but fail to win elsewhere in the calendar, or they’ll get out of the gates quickly but stumble by the end of May. Why is this? The Pirates rely on a lot of “fringe players” – guys that bounce around from Triple AAA to the Majors’ and struggle to hit above .200. When your roster is built around players who may not even be in the MLB if they were a part of a different franchise, it’s hard to sustain success.
Despite the uphill battle the Pirates face for the foreseeable future, it’s imperative that they make a playoff appearance soon. In the MLB, every playoff team gets a cut of the postseason profits. That money can make a difference for a smaller team like Pittsburgh. Beyond that, the Pirates should want to make the most of their ace Paul Skenes while they have him. He won’t be a free agent until 2029, but he’ll be eligible for arbitration after next season. The Pirates have to give Skenes an incentive to stay in Pittsburgh, or they may be forced to trade their superstar in order to get some kind of return before he leaves of his own accord.
Still, Pittsburgh fans can still find some silver linings in the upcoming season. The Pirates made the decision to move Oneil Cruz from shortstop to centerfield. Cruz, a decent power hitter, has a canon of an arm but was susceptible to errors when playing in the infield. This position switch will help to improve Cruz’s all-round game. Bryan Reynolds, who made his second All-Star Game last year, is a steady presence in Pittsburgh and always a joy to watch.
The Pittsburgh Pirates open their season in Miami on March 27th. They’ll stay in Florida to visit the Tampa Bay Rays before heading back home to face the New York Yankees on Friday, April 4th.
