The 2024 Pittsburgh Pirates - Requiem For A Season

I made the following post on Facebook last week.  I thought that it was a perfect encapsulation of the Pirates season, and I saw no reason to reinvent the wheel when writing this post, so here goes.

"So we took ourselves down to PNC Park on Thursday to catch the Pirates final home game of the season, a 5-2 loss to the Brewers (for the record, the Pirates were 5-5 in the ten games that I attended this year). The really sad part was that when the Bucs fell behind 3-0 in the fourth inning, you just knew that there was no chance, zero, that they would be able to overcome that deficit and win the game. In his always riveting post game presser, Sheltie said of his team that "we just have to get better." Sheltie has been saying that for five years now , and the team has not gotten better.

"In a perfect symbol of the season, the bottom of the eighth inning ended when the Brewers recorded the third out as a result of an Oneil Cruz boneheaded base running blunder.

"The hot dogs were good though."

Since I wrote those words, the Pirates have ensured further enmity from their fan base by announcing that both GM Ben Cherington and field manager Derek "Sheltie" Shelton will be back in those same roles in 2025.  Over the five years of this regime, the team has finished last in the NL Central four times, and next to last once.  Their record in 2024 was 76-86, the exact same as in 2023.

So what else can you say about the Pirates and this recently completed season?  I think I will defer to a discussion that took place at our Cranky Old Guys breakfast a few weeks ago.   What were three positive things, and what were three negative things (only three?) about the Pirates in 2024?

Not sure if I'll limit it to three, but here are some thoughts from this seat in the Grandstand.

Positive  

• Number One on the positive side was the arrival, less than a year after he was taken as the first pick in the first round of the Draft, of pitcher Paul Skenes.  He started in the All-Star Game, finished 11-3 with a 1.96 ERA, and 170 strike outs (11.5 per 9 IP) in 23 starts and 133 IP.  When he pitched, he was must see, and he attracted huge crowds, not only at PNC Park, but on the road as well.   He was taken out of games (got to watch those innings limits) not once, but twice, after pitching no hitters through six innings.  He received a standing ovation in a game he pitched against the Cardinals in St. Louis.  He had a dominating presence on the mound, and he appears to be a genuine Ace #1 starter for years and years to come.  We in Pittsburgh will fully enjoy watching and cheering for him for the next four to six seasons before he becomes unaffordable for our penny pinching home team.
• Before the arrival of Skenes in June, another rookie, Jared Jones, showed the signs of being an ace pitchers.  He can throw 99 mph routinely and accumulates strike outs in bunches.  A mid-season trip to the injured list slowed him down a bit, but he did have some strong appearances in September.  Then throw in flashes of greatness from Mitch Keller, and positive seasons for Luis Ortiz and Bailey Falter.  The Pirates problems are many going forward, but starting pitching does not appear to be among them.
• Brian Reynolds had another good season.  .275 BA, 24 HR, 88 RBI, leading the team in all three categories.
• Andrew McCutchen had 20 HR and 50 RBI as a 37 year old DH, and he's, well, ANDREW MCCUTCHEN.
• Joey Bart hit .265 with 13 HR and 45 RBI and established himself as the guy to beat out at Catcher come 2025.
• Former first round pick Nick Gonzalez hit .265 with 49 RBI in 94 games while playing well in the field at 2B, SS, and 3B.  He appears to be a solid player.
• Oneil Cruz has 21 HR and 76 RBIand was moved from SS to CF in mid-August.  He has a lot of raw talent, but continues to make some head scratching mental errors, as well as the physical ones.  

Negative

Where to begin?   And I'm not going to give any details here; it'll be too painful.

• The Bullpen, led by two time All-Star David Bednar, that crashed and burned as the summer wore on.
• Henry Davis.
• Jack Suwinski
• Ke'Bryan Hayes
• Too many games with starting line-ups with multiple guys hitting below .200
• Knowing that when the team fell behind by three runs or more, there was a seemingly 99% probability that the game was effectively over.
• Blown leads (see Bullpen).  How many leads did the Pirates have and then give up during that horrid stretch after the trade deadline, including that infamous ten game losing streak that effective ended the season?
• Using Rowdy Tellez as a relief pitcher three times in eleven games during blow out losses.  Using a position player once to mop up in a blow out loss is funny.  Doing it three times in eleven games is an embarrassment.  I would have fired Shelton on the spot after that.

The cherry on the sundae, though, was the Pirates decision to DFA Tellez with four games remaining in the season when he was four plate appearances short of earning a $250,000 performance bonus.   I shed no tears for Tellez, who made $3.2 million this season, and was, for the most part, not very good, but he seemed to be a decent guy and the proverbial "good guy to have in the locker room."  The Pirates were within their right to screw him out of those 250 G's, I suppose, but it was a cheesy and chintzy move, and when GMBC compounded the issue by saying that the bonus played "no role, zero" in the decision to DFA Tellez, well, that represented an new low for Bob Nutting and the front office minions who do his bidding.

We are now into the second week of the MLB Post-Season.  I haven't watched a much thus far, although I did enjoy seeing Shohei Ohtani blast one into outer space against the Padres last night.   I am sure that my viewing will pick up as teams advance to the LCS's and World Series, even though I know that the team for which I root, have rooted for since 1959, has slipped so deep into irrelevancy in the great scheme of things in Major League Baseball.

What a shame.