Pittsburgh Pirates: Best & Worst Average Seasons in Franchise History

Best Seasons

In the history of the Pittsburgh Pirates there have been 23 seasons where a player had a wRC+ within 1% of average, so the 99-101 wRC+ range, and at least 500 plate appearances (not to be confused with at-bats). In all of these seasons, the best hitter is Earl Sheely’s 1929 campaign.

Sheely was the Pirates’ first baseman during the ‘29 season. He batted .293/.392/.392, leading to a .784 OPS and .369 wOBA. He has the second-best OPS among all of the average players and the best wOBA. He’s also the only player among these 23 with an OBP above .390. The only thing is he had a 99 wRC+, which makes him 1% worse than average, but still very close to the median.

The most valuable player in terms of WAR is Rennie Stennett, who had a 4.6 fWAR in 1975. Stennett hit .286/.324/.383 through 664 plate appearances. Stennett only had a .707 OPS and .323 wOBA which might not seem too impressive, but the league average OPS and wOBA in ‘75 were .701 and .321, respectively. This led to a 99 wRC+. Stennett was only about an average base runner, too, having just -.4 base running runs above average. Much of his value came as a defender at second base, where he had +21 total zone runs. That led all 2B’s by a margin of 4 TZR during that season.

So that’s the best average players in terms of wRC+, but what about fWAR? There have been 50 players who have fallen between the 1.8 and 2.2 fWAR margin. So going by wRC+, who is the best player who falls around an average fWAR? That would be Paul Waner in 1939.

The Hall Of Fame outfielder batted .328/.375/.438 with a .374 wOBA and 118 wRC+. That leads all 50 players who fall in this fWAR range. He also leads them all in wOBA by the smallest of margins. He only managed a 1.9 fWAR during this season, mainly because he was pretty mediocre with the glove. He had just -4 TZR, which bogged down his overall value.