Pirates’ record-setting strikeout total exposes clear next step for pitching staff

The Pittsburgh Pirates wound up missing out on the playoffs again this year — just as they have done in every season since 2015 — but important steps were taken back toward the realm of contention.

The team posted a winning record (82-80) for the first time since 2018, playing well enough to force Ben Cherington to be an honest-to-goodness buyer at the trade deadline.

As expected, the pitching staff played a big role in that success, accruing the sixth-most fWAR (21.0) of any team in the league. Considering that Paul Skenes had by far his worst season in the majors thus far — though that's still a relative assessment, given his 3.33 FIP and 4.2 fWAR — that's a stat the Bucs should be proud of.

Another point of pride? This year's team officially set the franchise's all-time strikeout record in a single season, finishing fifth in the league with 1,496 Ks and obliterating their previous high of 1,493 set in 2019.

Now, the next step is translating some of those punchouts into even more wins.

Pirates' strikeout-heavy pitching foundation needs just a little more support

What's truly important about the strikeout record isn't so much the number itself, but rather how the team got there. Skenes led the way with 200, crossing that threshold for the second consecutive season, and Braxton Ashcraft's breakout campaign ended with 173. After that, no one else on the team amassed even 150 punch-outs.

This was a collective effort from the rotation and bullpen, with starters collecting 795 strikeouts and relievers following suit with 701. All told, 30 pitchers contributed at least one K to the final tally, including outfielder Tyler Callihan (who picked up three in blowout duty). Ten of them managed to strike out at least 50 hitters.

The issue is that all those strikeouts didn't actually yield a dominant run-prevention group. Of the teams that finished inside the top five in strikeouts thrown this year, the Pirates' team ERA (4.15) was by far the worst. Their FIP (3.82) was considerably better but still worse than you'd expect in a stat that weights strikeouts so heavily.

A better defense would surely help; the Bucs were bang-on average in terms of Defensive Runs Saved and finished 25th in the league with a collective -20 Fielding Run Value. It would also be nice if Cherington could build a bullpen that is good for the whole year, rather than just the final two months of the season after being rebuilt at the deadline.

But with such a strong foundation in place, supporting this group shouldn't be a monumental task. Rather, the Pirates just need a few tweaks to become the pitching-focused behemoth we've envisioned for years.

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