Pirates Futility - How long will this LAST?!

As the Major League Baseball season is now past its halfway mark, the Pittsburgh Pirates are once again headed for the inevitable…last place. Perhaps in 2025 there has been more grumbling among Buccos fans than ever before regarding the state of the franchise. You certainly can’t blame these Pirates fans. We as a fan base are tired of losing and even more frustrated that our team we follow is unable to even be a competitive squad.

2025 will be the second straight season of a last place finish in the National League Central division, and the fifth time in seven years they will go home at the end of the season with a basement finish. That is simply ridiculous. In the other two years of the past seven, the Pirates finished fourth in the five-team division. 

In those last seven seasons, the Pittsburgh Pirates when finishing in last place five times ended up 22, 15, 34, 17, and thus far in 2025 are 18 ½ games behind. Managers for these last seven years were Clint Hurdle, Derek Shelton, and now Don Kelly. You can’t blame the manager. It’s a talent issue and team owner Bob Nutting has taken plenty of heat for not making the team more competitive. General Manager Ben Cherington shoulders much of the blame as well. 

Recently ace pitcher Paul Skenes said he believes the team is close to being competitive. Say what? Come on man. The Pirates are NOWHERE near close to competing for a playoff spot. That opportunity seems light years away. 12 years ago, the Pirates seemed like they were in the right direction when in 2013 the Bucs finished in second place just three games out of first and after the historic “Cueto” wild card game they lost in the National League Divisional round to the St. Louis Cardinals.

The following season was a second consecutive runner-up finish in the Central division, but this time lost in the wild car round. 2015 represented a third straight playoff appearance and yet another wild card loss. Then in 2016 the short run was over just like that. Pittsburgh dropped from 98 victories the year before to 78 in 2016. The pirates also finished third 25 games behind first place.

You would have to go back to the early 1990s to find some real success with the Pirates when for three straight seasons from 1990-1992 Pittsburgh won their division under the tutelage of Jim Leyland, but all three times failed to make the World Series losing in the league championship round. Any Pirates fan that remembers 1992 will never forget how the seventh game ended in the National League Championship series that year. 

With team pitching ace Doug Drabek seemingly in control, manager Jim Leyland pulled Drabek off the mound after allowing a run bringing the score to 2-1 in favor of the Pirates, replacing him with reliever Stan Belinda. David Justice ended up on third base and former Pirates Sid Bream on second, Francisco Cabrera broke the hearts of Pirates fans everywhere by lacing a single to left field as Justice easily scored from third but Bream came racing home with the winning run with an attempted throw from Barry Bonds not getting to home in time so it was game over, series over, the Atlanta Braves heading to the World Series.

I can still remember the moment Bream crossed the plate. The second he touched home plate, my phone rang, and I knew exactly who it was. A New York friend of mine was ringing my phone, and I knew it was him before I even answered. I picked up the phone and said, “what the F do you want?” He just laughed. It was heart wrenching being that close yet so far from a shot as another World Series ring, something the Pirates had done five times before (1909, 1925, 1960, 1971, 1979). 

Most of the Pittsburgh Pirates ineptitude has occurred in more recent years because in their 144-year history there have been only 22 last place finishes not including 2025 which will be number 23. Of those 22 seasons 14 have come since 1995. Three were in the 1980s, and four in the 50s. The others were in 1890 and 1891. 

Hopefully, the Pirates will never experience years like 1890, 1952, and 1953. In 1890 as the Pirates finished eighth in an eight-team league, the team won just 23 games while losing 113 and were 66 ½ games behind at season’s end. With two straight last place finishes in 1952 and ’53, the Pirates won just 42 and 50 games respectively while losing 216 games in those two campaigns as they went home those years 54 ½ and 55 games behind first place in those two seasons. In the 22 years of last place finishes (again now counting 2025), the Buccos won 1,287 games while losing 2070. That is a won/lost percentage of an embarrassing low of .383. Since the year 2001, which represents 10 of the 22 seasons, the Pirates won 608 games while losing 909 for a winning percentage of .400.



To summarize, Pirates fans do not expect a playoff game anytime soon. Unless team ownership and management decides to throw in some of their own cash while Major League Baseball does not have a salary cap like other sports, the Pirates will continue to rely on low budget free agents and their minor league system which obviously IS NOT working.