Well, that's that. A season that once looked to be so promising for the Pittsburgh Pirates will end familiarly — with no playoffs. The Pirates might finish with a winning record for the first time since 2018, but does that really mean much of anything? Pittsburgh hasn't made the playoffs since 2015, the longest drought among all National League teams.
Paul Skenes headlines a lengthy list of individuals who deserve blame for yet another wasted season of Pirates baseball.
RHP Paul Skenes
It feels weird to blame Paul Skenes for a Pirates season that's gone awry, because things had been the opposite ever since he debuted in 2024. I mean, Skenes finished the 2025 campaign with a sub-2.00 ERA and won the NL Cy Young award, yet had a 10-10 record, showing just how little support he got from his teammates. But while the Pirates have gone from dead last to fourth in the Majors in runs scored, Skenes enters Friday's action with a 10-11 record. A lot of that has to do with how he's pitched.
Skenes hasn't been bad by normal standards. His 3.78 ERA prior to Friday's start would be more than fine for most pitchers, and his 3.23 FIP is good for fifth in the National League. Skenes isn't a normal pitcher, though. He went from having a sub-2.00 ERA in his career to having a six-start stretch in which he had a 6.25 ERA in the month of July. The Pirates have gone 13-17 when he's taken the ball thus far, and have a winning record in the rest of their games. Can you imagine where they'd be if the 2025 version of Skenes took the ball every fifth day?
DH Marcell Ozuna
Marcell Ozuna was one of several additions made by the Pirates to try to add more thump to the lineup. Most of those additions worked out, but Ozuna couldn't have been much worse. He slashed .203/.286/.327 with eight home runs and 29 RBI. The Pirates finally decided they had enough and DFA'd him in early August. Unsurprisingly, he has not been picked up by anyone since.
This Ozuna experiment felt doomed from the start. The Pirates signed him, blindsiding franchise legend Andrew McCutchen in the process. They then continued to give him at-bats even after his 2-for-39 start to the season. His batting average never rose above .208. Perhaps the most startling statistic is that the Pirates went 28-42 when he appeared in a game. Again, can you imagine how good their record would be if they gave up on him sooner?
RHP Mitch Keller
Mitch Keller had been a model of consistency in Pittsburgh for several years. He has never been an ace, but he was a durable innings-eater who'd give the Pirates a chance to win most of the time he took the mound. He got off to a sensational start this season, posting a 2.87 ERA in his first eight starts. From there, things completely unraveled for this right-hander, whose season ended in early August due to a shoulder injury.
Keller had a 6.95 ERA in his next 14 starts, completing six innings just four times in that span after doing so six times in his first eight outings. Keller went from allowing three runs or fewer seven times in his first eight starts to being completely uncompetitive on the mound. It's hard not to wonder what the season might've looked like had Keller been the reliable mid-rotation arm he was previously.
RHP Dennis Santana
Dennis Santana had a fantastic year for the Pirates in 2025, and began this year as the Opening Day closer as a result. He actually got off to a strong start, allowing just one run in 13 innings of work and converting two of his first three save opportunities across 13 appearances, but he allowed four runs in a blown save against the Cardinals at the end of April and never really recovered.
Santana allowed 27 runs over his next 28.2 innings of work, pitching to an 8.48 ERA in 31 appearances and getting DFA'd in late July. That's right, Santana went from Opening Day closer to on the chopping block in a matter of months due to his struggles. It sure would've been nice for Santana to pitch as well as he did in 2025, especially given how bad the rest of the 'pen was in the first half.
OF Bryan Reynolds
Bryan Reynolds' numbers are solid. He enters Friday's action slashing .262/.366/.424 with 17 home runs and 71 RBI in 153 games. He even leads the Majors with 37 doubles, and he's drawn a career-high 84 walks. As solid as his season-long numbers are, it's hard not to watch how he's swung the bat in the second half and not place him on this list.
Reynolds has hit .228 with a .644 OPS since the All-Star break. His 76 wRC+ places him 146th out of 167 qualified hitters in the second half. He's gone from a player who was one of the biggest All-Star snubs in the first half to one of the worst qualified hitters in the league in the second half. Injuries to Oneil Cruz, Ryan O'Hearn and Konnor Griffin impacted the Pirates greatly, but the Pirates are second-to-last in the Majors in runs scored since the All-Star break. Reynolds' struggles in the middle of their order have a lot to do with that.
GM Ben Cherington
Not everything that's gone wrong this season is on Ben Cherington. The Brandon Lowe trade turned out to be a slam dunk. Ryan O'Hearn has been a fantastic addition when healthy. Young guys like Griffin, Esmerlyn Valdez and Rafael Flores have provided real sparks. The Pirates going from worst to close to first offensively cannot be ignored. With that being said, there were some clear holes on this roster that Cherington either took too long to address or didn't address at all.
The bullpen is the biggest one of all. I understand that trades are hard to execute before the deadline, but this unit was so bad that the Pirates had to do something earlier. And even at the deadline, the Luke Weaver trade has not aged as Pittsburgh hoped, and none of the other relievers acquired are true high-leverage arms. Mason Montgomery dominating down the stretch has been cool to see, but this bullpen is still far from stellar.
And while Cherington did make an honest effort to fix the bullpen at the deadline, where were the offensive additions? The Pirates were without O'Hearn, Griffin and Cruz for a sustained period of time, as mentioned above, and the only position player acquired was Jacob Gonzalez, who has hit .207 with a .591 OPS in Pittsburgh.
Cherington had a better year, but this is still his seventh full season running the show in Pittsburgh and the Pirates haven't made a single playoff appearance in his tenure. There's a good chance they'll only have one winning season in those seven years, too. At a certain point, enough has to be enough.
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