Former Pirates catcher has somehow made team's playoff futility look even worse in 2024

Did you really think we would run out of ways to put into perspective just how bad the Pittsburgh Pirates have been over the past three decades? Never fear; former Pirates catcher Austin Hedges is here to offer some fresh perspective.

Hedges didn't even play a full season for the Pirates, signing a free-agent contract with the club in 2022 before being traded to the Texas Rangers in exchange for international bonus pool money at the 2023 MLB trade deadline. But while his time in Pittsburgh was brief, it helps to illustrate some of the Pirates' many organizational failures.

After the Pirates traded him in 2023, Hedges went on to win a World Series championship with the Rangers that same year. That certainly stings for Pittsburgh, but it's still not as bad as another heartbreaking stat from Hedges' career.

Former Pirates catcher Austin Hedges has somehow made team's playoff futility look even worse in 2024

After winning the World Series with the Rangers last season, Hedges elected free agency and signed with the Cleveland Guardians, the same team with whom he had spent parts of three seasons from 2020-22. Hedges appeared in 66 regular-season games for the Guardians, who cruised to an American League Central Division title this year and enjoyed a deep playoff run that came to an end Saturday with a Game 5 loss to the New York Yankees in the ALCS.

Hedges started behind the plate for Cleveland in Game 4 and batted eighth in what would be his 16th career postseason game. It was also the eighth postseason game in which he appeared over the past two seasons. He went on to appear in Game 5 for Cleveland as well, bringing those totals to 17 and nine, respectively.

With that in mind, Jim Rosati of the North Shore Nine podcast took to X to hit us with a hard truth: Hedges has played in more postseason games in the last two seasons than the Pirates have played since 1993.

The last time the Pirates made it as far as the NLCS was 1992, when they lost to the Atlanta Braves in seven games. In the 32 years since, the Pirates have made a grand total of three postseason appearances. In 2013, they lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLDS, three games to two, and they lost the NL Wild Card play-in game in each of the following two seasons.

So, for those who were counting, that makes seven total postseason games in which the Pirates have appeared since 1993. Meanwhile, Hedges – the journeyman catcher who only played in 66 games during the regular season for Cleveland this year – has more postseason games under his belt in 2024 alone – eight of them, to be exact.

No disrespect to Hedges, but this is a pretty damning assessment of a Pirates organization that has only managed to scrounge up seven postseason games over more than three decades. Then again, what else can you expect from an organization whose owner doesn't care about winning?

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