3 unluckiest Pittsburgh Pirates hitters to open 2025 season

Luck is a big factor in baseball, especially in small sample sizes. We’re barely a month into the season, so poor luck can stand out right now. No player even has 150 plate appearances at the time of writing this. Much of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ offense has been unlucky this season. Despite some players showing off both good plate discipline and batted ball data, they just haven’t been able to find holes or get fly balls to drop.

However, as the season goes on, these three Pirates may start to find more success on the offensive side of the ball.

(Honorable mention to Enmanuel Valdez, whose surprisingly solid performance to start 2025 was recently covered here)

3 unluckiest Pirates offensive players to begin 2025 season

Andrew McCutchen

Andrew McCutchen usually gets off to sluggish starts. His .743 OPS in April throughout his career is his worst month by far, with the next closest being August at .803. But the veteran DH and former MVP is slashing .276/.368/.447 with a .363 wOBA and 127 wRC+ in 87 plate appearances. He's been particularly hitting well recently, as has the rest of the lineup.

McCutchen has three home runs and a .171 isolated slugging percentage, but Cutch’s underlying metrics only say that he should be doing (a lot) better in the power department. He has a .500 xSLG% and is one of only 50 batters with an xSLG of at least .500 in 75+ plate appearances. Cutch is surprisingly hitting the ball harder than ever before. Both his 91.2 MPH exit velocity and 13.2% barrel rate are career highs by a fair margin.

That is a 51-point difference between his SLG% and xSLG%. His other expected stats are about where his bottom line is. His xBA sits at .277, which is only one point greater than his batting average. Cutch’s xwOBA sits at .373, 10 points greater than his wOBA. He has seen a slight change in approach, which could be the reason he’s seeing career-best offensive numbers at such an advanced age.

McCutchen is being more aggressive at the plate. He chased outside the zone less than 20% of the time in 2023 and 2024 with the Pirates, but now has a chase rate of 20.6%. That’s still in the 85th percentile, but his metrics were in the 100th percentile last season. He’s been much more swing-happy at pitches in the zone, with a zone swing rate of nearly 70%, a career-high in the Statcast era for Cutch (since 2015). The only notable batted ball metrics where he doesn't rank in the 70th percentile or greater in is launch angle sweet spot. 

Bryan Reynolds

Bryan Reynolds is also a typical slow starter. April is his second-worst month with a career .766 OPS. It’s showing so far this season, as the two-time All-Star is only slashing .235/297/.348 with a .286 wOBA and 76 wRC+ throughout his first 128 plate appearances of the year. But most numbers suggest this cold spell may not last long, as he could be much better moving forward.

Reynolds has a significant gap between his wOBA and xwOBA. His xwOBA comes in at .347, which is in the 65th percentile. It is the 17th-largest difference between wOBA and xwOBA right now among batters with at least 100 plate appearances. Reynolds also has a 26-point difference between his batting average and expected batting average, which sits at .261.

But Reynolds has a Grand Canyon-sized gap between his slugging percentage and his expected slugging percentage, which clocks in at .498. It’s a 150-point difference, which is the 10th-largest in baseball. Reynolds’ batted ball numbers reflect why he has such a large difference between all three expected stats.

He has a strong 91.4 MPH exit velocity and 12.7% barrel rate. Both are currently sitting as career-bests for the switch-hitting outfielder. While he is chasing outside the zone slightly more frequently than usual, and has a slightly higher whiff rate than his career average, he should still be playing better than his current bottom line.

Reynolds usually doesn’t have large gaps like this between his xBA, xwOBA, and xSLG%. He has a career .275 batting average, .465 SLG%, and .349 wOBA. Reynolds’ career xBA is .273, his career xSLG% is .470, and his career xwOBA is .354, all three of which are within five points of his bottom line numbers.

Ke’Bryan Hayes

Third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes looked like he was turning a corner in 2023, but back injuries held him back in 2024. He is hoping to rebound in 2025, but isn’t getting things started on the right foot. Hayes is batting .235/.308/.306 with only a .280 wOBA and 73 wRC+ through his first 108 plate appearances of 2025. But, in terms of his process, he’s doing things much better than in 2024.

Hayes has a .283 expected batting average, which is in the 82nd percentile of batters so far this season. With a 48-point difference between the two stats, it’s the 19th-largest gap in baseball among hitters with 100+ trips to the plate. xBA isn’t the only stat in which Hayes is seeing a sizeable gap. His .327 xwOBA is in the 51st percentile of hitters and has a 48-point difference from his wOBA.

Hayes should be getting more hits than he has. His exit velocity is back up to his career norm at 91.3 MPH. Lifting the ball hasn’t been a huge issue either, with an 11.2-degree launch angle. His plate discipline has been above-average, as he’s only swung outside the zone 24.5% of the time (65th percentile) and has a sub-20% whiff rate at 19.8% (77th percentile).

Those doubting Hayes and saying this is who he’s always been haven’t looked at the numbers under the hood. Hayes has never been unlucky and has always performed as his expected numbers said he should. From 2021 through 2024, Hayes had a zero-point difference in batting average and expected batting average, a two-point difference in SLG% and xSLG%, and a four-point difference between his wOBA and xwOBA. If Hayes were to play similarly to the differences of his expected stats of the past, he would have a .283 batting average, a .387 slugging percentage, and a .331 wOBA.