Just How Awful Are The Pirates Right Now?

Consider this post just a general bitch session, the rantings and ravings of a frustrated Pirates fan looking for a place to just get a few random thoughts off of his chest.

Here goes....

From Jason Mackey article in those morning's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

"....the latest bit of futility - Ji Hwan Bae, Jack Suwinski, Rudolpho Cstro, and Austin Hedges have combined for one (!) hit in their past 101 at-bats..."

Sit back and try to let that statistic sink in on you.  I can't even wrap my arms around that one.  And, yes, these guys are still playing every day.

What we saw in that weekend series in Miami, where the Bucs somehow managed to win one out of four, boggled the mind in terms of futility with runners in scoring position.   This was best exemplified when at one point late in one for those losses, the Pirates had runners on first and second, no outs, and Connor Joe's bunt attempt on the first pitch was popped up to the pitcher,  no runners advanced, and both of them died on the bases.  The Bucco announcers then informed that in his five year MLB career, Joe had NEVER laid down a successful sacrifice bunt.  Not one.  Where were the Pirates analytics nerds when they sent down that order to Sheltie and his sixteen man coaching staff?

As far as I know, "Pitch framing" was a concept that didn't even exist five years ago.  (Was Johnny Bench, the best catcher that I have ever seen play, ever lauded for his ability to "frame pitches"?)  Yet it is that very concept that is keeping this guy, Austin Hedges, in the every day lineup for this bunch.

 

Going into tonight's game with the Padres, Hedges is batting .160 - that's a one a six and a zero - in 131 AB's.  His On Base percentage is a paltry .231.   If you are a major league team, you don't have to have Johnny Bench or Yogi Berra as your catcher, you don't even have to have a guy like Russell Martin or Jason Kendall, but you absolutely cannot have a guy like Austin Hedges coming to bat 3 or 4 times a game either, no matter how well he "handles the pitching staff" because he stinks with a bat in his hands.

Hedges has become the negative face of the franchise during the Pirates decline in May and June.  Given how unproductive the rest of the team has been (see above), that may not be totally fair, but it's not totally unfair either.

And what about that decline in May and June?  We all know that in April the Pirates were the talk of MLB, they were 20-8 in first place in the NL Central, and only the Rays had a better record  This was right before the Rays convincingly swept a three game series against the Pirates doing the first week of May.  

Today the team is 35-42 (.455) and 5.5 games out of first and in fourth place in the division.  Since that 20-8 start, the team's record is 15-34 (.306), a pace that would produce a 50-112 record over 162 games.  That's not just bad, it is historically bad for this franchise.

Prior to the season, the Over/Under on Pirates wins was set at 67.5.  As I never want to be in a position of rooting for them to lose games, I placed a modest wager on the OVER.  This would represent a six game improvement over the 2022 season, and I figured we wouldn't know the result until the last week of the season.  At 20-8, this bet looked like a sure fire win for the OVER betters,  At 35-42, not so much.  For those betters to cash  awning ticket, the team will need to go 33-52 (.388) the rest of the way, and given how they've been playing the last two months, that is far from a sure thing.

In a team that specializes in public relations disasters, two juicy ones loom ahead, possibly.  

First, the Pirates hold the overall #1 pick in the upcoming amateur draft.  It is gospel among those who know that that pick will be either LSU outfielder Dylan Crews or LSU pitcher Paul Skenes, each of whom are said to be ready NOW to play in the big leagues.  Will the team select one of these sure fire players, or will they avoid Scott Boras and draft yet another high school short stop?  Pirates fans are on the edge of their seats.

Second, and this is probably just sports talk radio bullshit, but it has been reported that other teams have expressed interest in acquiring Andrew McCutchen in a possible deadline deal.  Back in January, when the Pirates re-signed Cutch, I wrote the following:

And don't think that this might not possibly occur.  Let's say that McCutchen discovers the fountain of youth (possibly from one of the new bars the team is putting into PNC Park) and by the All-Star Break has 15 HR, 50 RBI and is hitting in the .270 range.   The team still stinks and is headed for a 90-95 loss season.  Will GMBC then try to trade Andrew McCutchen to a contender in need of a hot bat in exchange for a basket full of prime prospects?  Will the Pirates become the first franchise in history to be pilloried TWICE by its fan base for trading the same player?

Personally, I find it hard to believe that even the Pirates would risk the PR nightmare that this would create, but would I be totally surprised if it did happen?  Nah!

Okay, that's enough for now.  My head is starting to hurt.