For The Pittsburgh Pirates Futility > Mediocrity

The past two weeks have absolutely sucked for the Pittsburgh Pirates

For the fourth summer in a row, the Pittsburgh Pirates came into the All-Star Break guns blazing, hotter than hell, on a roll, whatever expression you’d like to use. When the second half of the season officially started two Friday’s ago, Pittsburgh was a few L flags atop the Wrigley Field scoreboard away from first place in the NL Central. But there was no joy in Chicago for the visitors.

Instead, the Cubbies flew three fat W’s and the Pirates late-July nosedive began, and it’s looking to be worse than anything we’ve seen since that luscious 16-36 run to end the 2012 season.

Following the Pirates at this point is about as enjoyable as mowing the lawn on a mid-August afternoon in Kansas City wearing a tuxedo. It’s miserable. The Bucs being out of playoff contention by the last few weeks of September has been common in the latter part of the 2010s. Being out by August 1, however, is something we haven’t known in almost a decade, and it’s a shame that the pre-Hurdle days look to be crawling back.

With the team out of the postseason picture and in an horrendous overall state, I have three words that, void of context, may confuse or even upset those who are reading this.

Embrace the futility.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting the 2019 Pittsburgh Pirates turn into the 1983-84 Pittsburgh Penguins and go into full on tank mode. That’d be silly for two reasons. One, because tanking, while effective at times, is also unethical, and two, because should the Pirates tank without making it pathetically obvious, they’re still not getting a top three draft choice. So from an organization prospective, the Pirates absolutely should continue to try to win, even though those triumphs are of little use when they aren’t going toward a playoff chase.

While the players and coaches will try to win as many games as possible down the stretch, as far as the big picture is concerned, the worst thing that can happen for the organization over the next two months is for the Pirates to get hot and finish with between 77-82 wins. This would make the Bucs the same thing they’ve been the past three years— mediocre.

In baseball, the worst thing to be is average. Teams that win just about as much as they lose don’t  experience the thrill of a playoff run, but are just good enough to have to pick up first round leftovers on the draft night dinner table.

Over the past three years, the Bucs have wallowed in mediocrity turning out 78, 75 and 82 win seasons between 2016-2018. Should the club get hot over the next two months, they’ll continue to identify as average, and more concerning, almost certainly keep Clint Hurdle, Ray Searage and Neal Huntington employed.

If the Pirates keep on sucking, however, and end up with 90+ losses, the team will move from “average” to “bad.” While it’s certainly never fun to root for a team that stinks, if the Bucs smell bad enough when the kids are back in school, it just may make the front office realize that a rebuild is necessary.

No matter what the Pirates do between now and July 31, it’s looking like they will be sellers at the trade deadline, and it’s appears increasingly likely that Felipe Vazquez will be among those who is sold. While Vazquez may be gone by August, however, how the Pirates do in the 54 games after the deadline may determine what they do with Starling Marte.

At this point, It’s possible that Marte is already gone come August 1, but there’s a good chance he stays put.

Should the Pirates continue to stink, however, it will be interesting to see what they do with him during the winter months. Marte is as good as he’s ever been, but he’s 30, and likely will be 32 at the youngest when the Pirates are a playoff contender again. While good outfielders don’t always bring in a great return, Marte has value, and trading him would hopefully give the Pirates some promising prospects, and more importantly, would officially launch the rebuild.

The biggest reason why the Pirates taking L after L after L for the next two months isn’t as bad as it sounds is what I alluded to earlier. The three headed monster of Huntington, Hurdle and Searage were huge in bringing winning baseball back to the North Shore. They’ve also been huge in turning the Pirates into a run-of-the-mill ball club. Now, it’s looking like this franchise may be worse than run of the mill. If it is, changes may be coming. They probably won’t be regardless, but they definitely won’t be if the Pirates continue to be average.