Nutting Ventured, Nutting Gained: the PITTSBURGH PIRATES

https://i.imgur.com/pOr49sH.gif https://i.pinimg.com/originals/72/a7/9c/72a79c02418c6125656901c11861c860.gif

here is a place where we (probably mostly me) can complain about the buccos and isn't the 'why are they bad at home' or NL Central threads

anyway tonight they played in a single-a ballpark and *didn't* get walked-off. instead they managed four hits and, in five games, have demonstrated nothing beyond 'bullpen bad', 'can't hit' and 'paul skenes good'

i already regret that second gif

Jared Jones also good but 60 day IL. Bubba Chandler also good? Feels like the 2008 Giants after Bonds and they had good young pitching and not very much in the way of a lineup.

Liked this from an article about Skenes in The Athletic

Skenes’ start days are an event in Pittsburgh. Last summer, taxi drivers and store clerks talked about attending their first Pirates game in years. They had to see the new kid, the talk of baseball. When Leyland dropped in, he was asked to compare the current Pirates to his early 1990s teams. “They probably don’t have a Barry Bonds,” Leyland replied. “They’ve definitely got a Doug Drabek now.” (This is, by Leyland’s standards, a supremely high compliment. Drabek won the Pirates’ last Cy Young, in 1990.)

i have to admit i'm surprised that ke'bryan hayes has out-WARed his old man...and that he's still only 28!

unfortunately it's almost entirely from his defense

meanwhile, reliever dennis santana:

https://i.imgur.com/Iq9zHGI.png

*liquid liquid cavern bassline*

get higher baby
and don't never come down!

Kebryan was the NL platinum glove wasn’t he

Are The Pittsburgh Pirates Really In Dire Straits?

https://i.imgur.com/zFPyQCa.jpeg

noodly guitar line

https://i.imgur.com/zFPyQCa.jpeg

this is unforgivable:

https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/1jsetr5/the_pirates_appear_to_have_replaced_the_roberto/

a *lot* of yankee fans in pittsburgh

https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/pirates-statement-missing-bucco-bricks/

this feels bad and shameful

i feel like i need to make it out to three rivers stadium soon before they blow it up or something

(i know the original three rivers stadium was already blown up i mean the new one that has the big spiral slide)

utterly classless organization

batting .194/.287/.299 (67 OPS+) as a team for a collective -0.6 bWAR in 14 games

the worst qualifying hitter in MLB last season had a 72 OPS+

i mean yes 14 games is a small sample, but that's still 534 really bad plate appearances

scenario a: oneil cruz becomes such a beast that no one cares about his defense; bryan reynolds rediscovers himself as a league-average corner outfielder; ke'bryan hayes piles up dWAR while hitting circa 91 wRC+; the pirates sneak into the last playoff spot by winning 82 games

scenario b: they trade paul skenes for some team's entire farm system. (and they've no idea which farm system to pick.)

obviously neither scenario works, so they'll deal with skenes exactly as they did with cole, and issue bobbleheads precisely as long as it makes people come to the park

scenario c: they win 71 games, develop nothing and no one, and continue doing nothing until the next lockout

https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/1k39eii/tommy_pham_who_batted_5th_today_in_pirates/

none of these flair options seemed appropriate

https://www.theringer.com/2025/04/25/mlb/pittsburgh-pirates-awful-ownership-bob-nutting-paul-skenes

4/17, 6:03 AM

Still in boot

Nick Gonzales (ankle) is still wearing a boot but is partially weight bearing, MLB.com reports.
Advice: Gonzales fractured his left ankle on Opening Day while rounding the bases after hitting a home run. He can play catch from a seated position and has been cleared to run on an anti-gravity treadmill, but his return to game action remains at least a few weeks away.

i don't actually follow the pirates or pirates social media that closely (why would anyone bother?) but nevertheless i have never seen longtime fans as utterly bleak as they are now

this is ben cherington's sixth season as general manager, and he's parlayed having a ton of high draft picks into paul skenes and nothing else at all

(see david roth on the mets developing on the margins, which the pirates have completely failed at)

the pirates haven't won a playoff series in 34 years. that's almost two full generations of people, and their children, understanding that the team is a joke.

they should probably trade skenes now, except that no single team has enough assets to make it worthwhile and nutting would never take the PR hit to do so. so they'll trade him in two years, for less, and pittsburgh will completely give up on the team. pirates bloggers are all like 'this ends with nutting moving the team out of town despite having a top-three ballpark'

it's pretty depressing! but tbf if i were an orioles fan i'd be even more irate about their signing of charlie morton and kyle gibson (and sugano, whose 4.8 K/9 bodes very poorly)

habemus don kelly

https://i.imgur.com/sfwsgtK.jpeg

was there more to Skenes' bobblehead fiasco aside from him getting roughed up?

they initially only promised bobbleheads to the first 20K fans or something, and then put out a story that when owner bob nutting saw the massive line of fans crossing the clemente bridge he personally decided to make sure that every fan got one

which could be worse, of course, but was also very obviously a lie

Impressive supply chain gymanastics imho.

what a moment for gritty gutty dawnie kelly

– The Pittsburgh Pirates, according to information received by the players union and confirmed by several owners, are one of the most profitable teams in all of baseball, stashing a huge chunk of their revenue sharing monies instead of investing in their team year after year.

now 3-6 in skenes’ starts

let us not even speak of jared jones

https://i.imgur.com/EDeMNXM.jpeg

Was looking over this thread for an assessment of the Pirates' prospects by 2030, when Skenes becomes a free agent. Not very promising, I gather.

well look who swept the phillies

+ rapidly extinguishing arguably the most hyped rookie debut of 2025...

lol i grew up across the river from oakmont

‘Sell the team, Bob’ chants at Pirates’ owner Bob Nutting repeatedly heard on U.S. Open broadcasts

mitch keller is a league-average MLB pitcher; maybe even a touch better. he has a 4.02 ERA, doesn't give up many homers

also he is 1-10 lol

from various posts:

We’re at the exact halfway point of the Pirates season, and folks… it’s not good!

Your Pirates are on pace to score only 530 runs, by far the lowest for a 162-game season in franchise history (currently held by the 1963 Pirates with 567 runs).

I hope run support gets better for Mitch Keller, I really do. But if not, he is on pace to be baseball’s first 20-game loser since Mike Maroth in 2003.

He’d be the first 20-game loser with a K/BB ratio higher than 3 since Turk Farrell in 1962.

Here's one for you: Only one Pirates position player is on pace for 2.0+ bWAR, and it's Isiah Kiner-Falefa (currently 1.1 bWAR), who is probably going to get traded in July.

The last time the Pirates didn't have any 3-win position players? 1956, when Bill Virdon led the charge with 2.7 bWAR.

this is ben cherington's sixth season in charge! i mean yes nutting is the ultimate problem but then there's the matter of being completely unable to develop hitters despite favorable draft positions

https://i.imgur.com/2k3AOV2.png

i . . . do not think that is real

sorry FrostedPopTart96

Outscored the Mets and Cardinals 43-8 (!?) and Mitch Keller is now 3-10.

it's v. strange

https://sny.tv/articles/pros-cons-mets-trade-david-bednar

not too many teams could score nine runs in the first, and 16 total, and still lose

this, however, is one of them

i’m told the nine+ run thing is the third time it’s happened in the divisional era

one of the others was when pirates color commentator jim rooker promised to walk home from philadelphia in june 1989

not too many teams could score nine runs in the first, and 16 total, and still lose

this, however, is one of them

I’m genuinely shocked. I guess you really can see something new in baseball every day.

i saw it was 16-10 in the seventh inning and 99+% win probability and thought “there’s always a chance…”

Something Posanski wrote about last week: Paul Skenes' two seasons are an amazing example of the vagaries of W-L record.

2024: 23 starts, 133 IP, 1.96 ERA, 2.44 FIP, 94 H, 32 BB, 170 K, 6 HBP, 2 WP, 31 R, 29 ER
2025: 23 starts, 138 IP, 2.02 ERA, 2.41 FIP, 93 H, 34 BB, 154 K, 6 HBP, 2 WP, 34 R, 31 ER

11-3 last year, 6-8 this year.

Is it possible we're ... underrating Paul Skenes?

Lowest ERA, first 46 starts, since 1920

1.99 // Skenes
2.03 // Vida Blue
2.23 // Jerry Koosman
2.27 // Dwight Gooden
2.28 // Bill Singer
2.28 // Howie Pollet
2.31 // Orel Hershiser
2.33 // Gary Peters
2.34 // Lon Warneke
2.39 // José Fernández

Lowest OPS allowed in losses (min 10 L’s), since 1920

.574 // Skenes (2024-25)
.622 // Ray Fisher (1920)
.673 // Charles Wensloff (1943-48)
.689 // Justin Duchscherer (2001-10)
.689 // Elmer Ponder (1920-21)

pirates are 196-255 all-time against the brewers

that, over 30+ years, is roughly the same as the braves' record this year

also milwaukee is a smaller 'market' than pittsburgh

isiah kiner-falefa was the pirates' third-best position player by bWAR (at 1.5, which is not a great sign for your lineup!) he's on an expiring contract. he's obviously not a great hitter, but he's a solid shortstop and someone probably could have used that at the deadline

instead, the pirates waited an extra month and put him on waivers. toronto picked him up today; the pirates got nothing but saving $1.2m for not having to pay him in september

btw tommy pham is in the same position (apart from being their *second-best* position player at 1.7 bWAR) and hit .388/.446/.597 in july; they haven't done anything with him either

just a ridiculous organization

We've got a good multi-position guy, Ernie Clement, who's a little banged up right now, so IKF very welcome back.