Five Ingredients for Pirates to End Playoff Drought

There's no question that the Pittsburgh Pirates are an improved team. They enter the season with perhaps the most hype around their young, individual talent since the early 1990's with Barry Bonds, Doug Drabek and Bobby Bonilla. They spent this off-season adding veteran players to help boost this young core. Now, the biggest question surrounding the Buccos is this: Did they improve enough to make the playoffs? More specifically, is the offense improved enough to make the playoffs?

The front office and players have made it clear that the expectation is to do exactly that. The fans have made it abundantly clear that they want to see a winning ballclub at PNC Park, one of the most cherished stadiums in all of sports. We've got a taste of what October baseball can be like there, but it's time that the Pirates create new playoff memories beyond the Johnny Cueto game.

Recently, the franchise has made patience its primary strategy, stockpiling draft picks, hoarding prospect capital, and waiting for the “window” to finally slide open. But the 2026 season arrives with a distinct shift in pressure. The core is no longer theoretical. Paul Skenes, the flamethrowing phenomenon who dominated baseball like a video game cheat code, is no longer a future hope but a present-day ace. Mitch Keller is one of the most reliable starting pitchers in the game. Bryan Reynolds, Brandon Lowe, Ryan O'Hearn and Marcell Ozuna form a veteran core of hitters that the Pirates could not find last year. Oneil Cruz is a tantalizing talent that could put it all together to be one of the most impactful players in the game.

Konnor Griffin, while not quite a member of that core yet, is the clear number one prospect in baseball and an almost surefire superstar. After the 19-year-old held his own during Spring Training with the big league club, he was sent to Triple-A to start the season. It won't take long before he's paired with Skenes to form one of the most exciting young player tandems in baseball. The question is no longer if the young talent will arrive, but what happens now that it’s here.

Predicting the Pirates’ path, however, remains a fool’s errand. Conventional wisdom suggests incremental growth: a winning record here, a Wild Card chase that extends into September there. But in the spirit of a fanbase that has endured two decades of almosts and do-overs, simply predicting a step forward feels like a surrender to the status quo.

So, let’s throw them FanGraphs projections out. Let’s ignore the PECOTA standings and the cautious industry consensus that views Pittsburgh as a nice story, but not yet a true threat. The following five predictions aren’t meant to be likely; they’re meant to be possible. They are the scenarios that, should they come to pass, would mean the Pirates are competing to play in October. The kind that turns a sleepy summer in the Steel City into an event. From individual heroics to seismic shifts in the division, these are the big picture, bold ingredients that would define the Pirates' season.

1. Paul Skenes Wins MVP

It's the natural progression, right? After Skenes won Rookie of the Year, he followed it up with a unanimous Cy Young win in his sophomore campaign. While winning MVP as strictly a starting pitcher is extremely difficult — especially in a league that has a fellow starting pitcher who hits 50 home runs — it's not unheard of. The last starting pitcher to win NL MVP was Clayton Kershaw in 2014, when he produced a 8.3 WAR season. He went 21-3 with a 1.77 ERA and 239 strikeouts in 198.1 innings pitched. Notably, though, the Dodgers went 94-68 and won the NL West division.

Skenes might not approach 21 wins this season. But voters have clearly moved past pitcher wins as a deciding metric considering Skenes won last year while going 10-10. It's easy to see Skenes approaching, or topping, the other numbers that Kershaw had because he already has. MVP is an award that takes team success into play, so the Pirates would likely have to make the playoffs for him to be a true contender. But isn't that exactly what we're hypothesizing? It's hard to imagine a world where the Pirates make the playoffs and Skenes doesn't at least win Cy Young. Let's take it one step further and give him the one piece of individual hardware he doesn't have yet.

2. Oneil Cruz is an All-Star — and Spencer Horwitz too

For years, the Pirates have marketed Cruz as a unicorn, a 6-foot-7 speedster with exit velocities that defy physics and a ceiling that scrapes the stratosphere. But unicorns are ultimately judged not by their mythical potential but by their actual production. This season, Cruz finally marries the spectacle to the substance, staying healthy for 150 games, bashing 30 plus home runs and 40 stolen bases, earning him a place in the All-Star Game and maybe some MVP chatter. More importantly, Cruz will carry his All-Star momentum into the second half of the season. He won't fall off a cliff like he did last year, providing value at the top of the Pirates lineup all the way into September and beyond.

The surprise, however, is that he doesn't travel to Arlington alone. Spencer Horwitz, the relatively unheralded first baseman acquired in an offseason trade that drew more shrugs than headlines, proves to be the perfect on-base complement to Cruz's thunder. A left-handed hitter with a preternatural command of the strike zone, Horwitz continues his success from the last two months of 2025 and emerges as one of the most reliable hitters in the National League. A .280 average with a significant power surge is what I'm envisioning over the full season. WIth Skenes, Cruz and Horwitz, Pittsburgh will have more than one All-Star representatives for the first time since 2015.

3. Bubba Chandler and Konnor Griffin Both Compete for Rookie of the Year

The Pirates have spent years stockpiling young pitching, waiting for the pipeline to finally deliver a steady stream of homegrown arms to Pittsburgh. This season, the dam breaks. Bubba Chandler, the fire-breathing right-hander with a 100 mph fastball and a slider that makes hitters look foolish, will begin this season in the rotation and never look back. He finishes with a sub 3.50 ERA, more than 150 strikeouts, and the swagger of a pitcher who believes he belongs in October.