4 Pittsburgh Pirates who should be cut or fired after losing 10 straight games

The Pittsburgh Pirates have lost 10 straight. We aren't in Chicago White Sox territory yet, but it ain't great. A couple of weeks ago, the conversation revolved around the Pirates' postseason chances. Now, we are questioning if Paul Skenes can even eke out a Rookie of the Year victory over red-hot Jackson Merrill of the even hotter San Diego Padres.

Not much has gone right of late for the Pirates, presently 56-64 on the season and 12.0 games out of first place in a competitive NL Central. If there's a bright spot, it is that Pittsburgh somehow isn't out of the Wild Card race entirely. The entire National League has been in a minor stupor this season, so the Pirates are still within eight games of the final Wild Card spot despite their slide. There are 42 games left on the schedule. We cannot close the book on the 2024 Bucs just yet.

We can start penning that final chapter, though. Just to get a head start. It is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine the Pirates turning this thing around. A silent trade deadline doomed Pittsburgh to this fate, if we're being honest. Skenes coming back down to earth is an unfortunate (if inevitable) development, but the Pirates are this bad because the offense just can't keep up with real teams. If the Pirates aren't absolutely blitzing the opposition on the mound, there's just no chance in hell this team can contend.

Here's who we can blame for this disasterclass.

For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop between now and the MLB offseason.

4. Andy Haines

It's fun to blame players, and oftentimes, that is the correct course of action. Coaches can only do so much from the sideline. It's up to those on the field to internalize instruction, execute game plans, and win ballgames through a combination of attention to detail and old-fashioned competitive spirit.

That said, at a certain point, blame is refracted back on the coaching staff. If the players aren't prepared — if the team looks completely outclassed in a particular category — it's only natural to look at who is leading the charge there.

Andy Haines is the hitting coach behind baseball's most anemic offense. The Pirates rank 25th in home runs, 23rd in RBIs, and 24th in batting average this season. Pittsburgh's offense has real sources of pop, but Bryan Reynolds has performed well below his season standard over this 10-game stretch and the rest of the team has followed suit.

Noah Hiles and Andrew Destin of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette both expected multiple coaches to end up on the chopping block if the Pirates can't eclipse .500 at season's end. That's the way things are heading and the persistent disappointment supplied by this offense won't help in Haines' case.

3. Ben Cherington

The general manager is often given an impossible task — to take complete and unwavering responsibility for a roster that is not entirely of his or her creation. It would be naive to think that Ben Cherington has single-handedly constructed the Pirates roster. He has input from various departments and supporting personnel. He reports to ownership. The manager always gets a say. This is not his team and his team alone.

Still, when fingers start pointing, the GM is always the first one on the receiving end. Cherington has been in charge of the Pirates' front office since November 2019. Since then, Pittsburgh has finished above .500 precisely zero times. In fact, this season would mark the Pirates' second time in five years finishing above .400 if it ended today.

Cherington inherited a deeply flawed roster with cheap ownership, which limits his power in the GM chair. It can be exceedingly difficult to build a contender in a small market. All the same, while others in comparable markets have found ways to flourish, the Pirates have toiled in mediocrity behind pallid offenses, inadequate pitching staffs, and a stubbornly mediocre farm system.

We are starting to see the fruits of Cherington's top-shelf prospects — Paul Skenes and Jared Jones are long-term aces of the highest order — but while the Pirates are making progress in the bullpen, the offense continues to lag behind. Both in the MLB and in the minors. Also, for as well as the Pirates are developing young talent, it doesn't matter if the front office can't field the right vets to flesh out a competitive roster. That has not been the case during Cherington's reign.

It's time to get a fresh voice in the Pirates front office. Foundational changes are necessary.

2. Derek Shelton

Another figurehead must fall. The Pirates brought Derek Shelton on in 2020, the same season Cherington took over as GM. If you are canning the GM, odds are you're canning his hand-picked manager, too. All the same issues of poor performance apply to Shelton. He cannot build the roster — he must play the hand he's dealt, so to speak — but more often than not, Shelton has misplayed that hand.

It can be difficult to discern how much of the blame belongs on the front office versus the coaching staff. The Pirates' bullpen has been a mess over this 10-game stretch, but that has as much to do with Shelton's matchup management as it does with the personnel. Joe Starkey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette summed it up nicely in his latest op-ed.

"I actually don’t think it’s fair to judge Shelton on his first three years, as the club was in full tank mode. But since the beginning of last season, he is 132-150 for a .468 winning percentage. That translates to 76 wins over a full season, which obviously isn’t good enough. His bullpen management has rightfully been ripped, and though he loves to tout how hard his team plays, it sure doesn’t look that way lately."

Shelton is absolutely a victim of Cherington's poor team-building. Is batting Connor Joe third a sin, or is the fact that Joe is even a viable option in the No. 3 hole the real issue? How about giving meaningful ABs to Yasmani Grandal in the year 2024? Those are choices Shelton is borderline forced to make due to the state of his roster.

In the end, both need to go. Shelton has not done enough with his spare parts. The Pirtates had a real chance to break through this season and fell apart once rubber met the road. The month of August has been a proper display of incompetence from top to bottom. The Pirates, with their season on the line, have appeared both listless and out of whack. Something needs to change internally, inside the locker room.

Shelton's tenure is approaching its end.

1. Aroldis Chapman

At long last, we arrive at an actual member of the roster. Well, actually, we can tie this back to Cherington a bit, not to mention Shelton's chronic misuse of his bullpen arms. Aroldis Chapman was inked to a one-year, $10.5 million contract with the Pirates in free agency. The idea of Chapman has always been popular — he's the original flamethrower, in many ways, a trendsetter — but the product has been middling at best in recent years.

It's just another example of Cherington fumbling the few resources he actually uses. Chapman is a 36-year-old pitcher coming off the worst individual season of his career. The Pirates were in need of leverage pitchers in the pen, but Chapman's velocity fails to make up for increasingly erratic location control and a crippling walk problem.

We all witnessed Chapman crack 105 on the gun a week ago. This stuff is undeniably fun.

Chapman ranks in the 99th percentile for strikeout rate (36.9) and expected batting average (.167), so it's impossible to call him a "bad" pitcher. When he's also in the first percentile for walks (16.9%), however, it becomes an issue. Chapman has too many slip-ups to dominate late in games, and yet the Pirates were ready and willing to hand over an essential setup role.

The rocky performance of David Bednar this season has only exacerbated the Pirates' bullpen issues. They just cannot close tight ballgames. Chapman is going to generate free agent interest until he decides to hang 'em up, but it's hard to imagine the Pirates (quite possibly under new and improved management) begging him to come back, and there's an equally strong chance that Chapman prefers to join a more established contender at this stage of his career.