The Pittsburgh Pirates enter the final weekend of the 2024 season with an interesting gambit.
After Thursday’s loss, the Pirates are 74-85. They can finish with 77 wins at best, which would be a one-game improvement over the 2023 record. Unless they win the final series of the season, on the road against the New York Yankees, they will finish with a worse record than last year.
The Pirates currently have the eighth worst record in baseball. That’s where they finished last season, and it gave them a 3% chance of the first overall pick in the draft lottery. They ended up with the ninth overall pick this year. If the Pirates have a losing weekend, they could finish with the seventh worst record. A winning weekend could put them around 10th. The difference, in either direction, would be about one and a half percentage points for the first overall pick.
This has been a disappointing season for the Pirates. Two months ago, they had a winning record, and were fringe playoff contenders, with the chance to be buyers at the deadline. Today, it’s hard to show any improvements over last year. Win this weekend and they might eke out the same record or a minimal improvement. Lose and they might improve their chances to justify one more year of not contending.
Win or lose this weekend, the Pirates have stalled in place in their rebuild, and they’re stalling while Paul Skenes is excelling in the Majors.
Three Pirates Observations
The Pirates lost 5-2 to the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday afternoon. Here are three things which stood out from the game.
- Bryan De La Cruz had the only offense, hitting a two run homer in the seventh inning. It was his 21st of the season, to go with his 25 doubles. De La Cruz hits for power. He also has a .657 OPS and strikes out a lot. He had two strikeouts in this game, and has a 27.2% rate this season. Players can sometimes put too much focus on hitting for power. The power comes, but at the detriment to their other at-bats. The problem is you don’t know what type of player they’ll be without the power focus. De La Cruz seems like he has too much focus on power, but he also seems to have enough raw power to still be a productive Major Leaguer if he throttled back.
- Mitch Keller had a rough finish to his season. From August 9th leading into Thursday’s start, Keller had a 7.52 ERA in 40.2 innings across eight starts. The slump began in the middle of the Pirates’ ten game losing streak that sunk their season. On Thursday, Keller allowed three runs in five innings, giving up one in the third and two in the fifth. He finished the year with a 4.25 ERA in 178 innings, which was lowered by his final 45 innings.
- Nick Gonzales reached base safely four times, with a double, a single, and two walks. Liover Peguero started at shortstop for the second game in a row, with Isiah Kiner-Falefa at third. Nick Yorke was out of the game. It’s going to be interesting to see how the middle infield plays out at the start of 2025. Gonzales has done enough to earn a roster spot and primary playing time, with a .697 OPS in his first full season. He’s also not above getting challenged for time by Yorke. Peguero has fallen in the second base race, but could factor into the shortstop race. He went 0-for-3. Kiner-Falefa went 1-for-4 with a double from the leadoff spot, and figures to be the shortstop next year. Jared Triolo played first base, going 0-for-4, and will also be a factor in the infield bench mix in 2025.
Greensboro Grasshoppers Season Recap
The 2024 Greensboro Grasshoppers featured Termarr Johnson and the next wave of pitching prospects to hit the upper levels of the Pirates’ minor league system. Read about the hitter and pitcher of the year, the top ten prospects, the notable performers, and the early 2025 outlook in the Greensboro season recap.
