The Pirates finished 23rd in baseball overall with their 76-86 record. All phases of their game were mostly in the bottom of the statistics. I am going to hit the same basic stats that I went through at various times during the season plus look at some additional stats. According to baseball reference the Pirates were the 7th luckiest team in baseball. They were fortunate to win 76 games with the way they played. The cold hard statistics will bear that out. The overall problem with this team is that they were never a very aggressive bunch. Let’s get to the data.
The offense was pretty much nonexistent all year. They finished 24th in runs scored with 4.1 runs per game. There were only 3 teams in baseball that struck out more than the Pirates. The Pirates struck out a whopping 1,506 times. That is an average of a little over 9 times per game. They finished 17th in walks with 485 for an average of just under 3 per game. The tradeoff for strikeouts is supposed to be home runs. That is the new baseball philosophy to swing for the fences despite striking out a lot. This did not work out for the Pirates. They hit only 160 home runs to place 25th in baseball. Wouldn’t you think management might figure this out and try to stress making more contact. Apparently not. The Pirates were 27th in on base percentage at .301 when the league average is .312. The Diamondbacks led all of baseball with .337. Seven of the top eight on base percentage teams are in the playoffs and the Diamondbacks just missed. In the league comparison stat of OPS+ the Pirates rank 28th with 87 where the league average is 100. One area where the Pirates did well but did not do it often enough was in stealing bases. They stole 106 bases ranking them 16th with an 85% success rate. With that much success, where 75% is considered very good, the Pirates should have been trying to steal more bases. Another management failure. Another indication of the overall lack of aggression with this team. The team needs to find a new identity. I wonder if anyone in the Pirate organization knows this. This is not a power laden team despite what they say in the broadcast booth. This team needs to start making more contact and be more aggressive on the bases to increase the run total next year.
The pitching was better than the offense but not by much. They were 21st in runs allowed. In fielding independent pitching the Pirates had one of their highest rankings coming in at 13th. Overall, they had a league average pitching staff with an ERA+ 101. The starting pitching ranked 7th and the bullpen ranked 21st. The pitching staff gave up 515 walks which was the 11th most in baseball. The bullpen seemed worse losing many games in the late innings. The bullpen will need to be revamped but more on that when I go through the players. A little better year for the pitching staff and at least something to build on.
When the Pirates are evaluated position by position with the rest of the league, they do not come out all that well. The highest ranked position is left field and that is 15th. The rest of their positions are ranked from 18th down to having the worst right fielder in baseball. Their pinch hitters were ranked 27th. On the defensive side of the ball the Pirates were really bad. Their defensive efficiency rating was 24th in the league.
It is obvious by now that the Pirates will need a lot of help if they are going to improve in 2025. This organization is one of the worst in baseball. Since 2000 the Pirates have only had 4 seasons where they won 80 or more games. The next closest to that mark are Colorado and Cincinnati with 6 seasons. There is one team in the American League with 7 and the rest of the teams have a lot more seasons with 80 wins. Bob Nutting has been the owner since 2007. Will he ever loosen the purse strings. With a couple of good free agent signings and building a bullpen the Pirates could go right to the top. They have a good but not great young core. When I evaluate the players in the next blog, you will see that most of the players on the Pirates are overrated thanks to the hyperbole in the Pirate broadcast booth. If you just listened to them and knew nothing else, you would have thought the Pirates won the division by 10 games. I do not see that much hope for the coming year unless Shelton and the coaches are gone. I think it would be really interesting if they gave the players a vote. As long as it would be secret ballot, he would be gone. It is this team’s only hope.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 