Pirates 2025 Season Report Cards and Postmortem

Time for 2025 Pirates Report Cards and Autopsy

The Pirates had one of the worst offenses in Major League Baseball. They hit .231/.305/.350 with 117 home runs. That amounted to the worst OPS in MLB, and only two teams had a worse batting average. No team hit fewer home runs. Conversely, they had one of the best pitching staffs in MLB, with a 3.76 team ERA (seventh in MLB), 3.83 FIP (third-best), and 1.216 WHIP (fourth-best). They led the majors by tossing 19 shutouts. There’s an old expression about weak-hitting teams, to the effect of “the pitcher has to throw a shutout every time out to get a win.” In this case, it was damn close to the truth. When Pirates pitchers didn’t shut out their opponent, the Pirates’ record was 52-91.

Let’s issue our autopsy on the Pirates’ postseason hopes. Official time of death: September 15, 2025, 9:26 PM, with a loss to the Chicago Cubs. Time of death for all practical purposes: May 7, 2025, 2:32 PM, with a loss to the St. Louis Cardinals that marked their seventh consecutive loss and resulted in the firing of manager Derek Shelton. Causes of death: weak hitting, poor fundamentals, lack of fire, and failure to add key pieces. Suspects: everybody associated with the Pirates not named Paul Skenes. It appears to have been an inside job. Details are in the following report cards.

The Starting Pitchers

Once again, this was the bright spot on the 2025 Pirates. Let’s start with Skenes, the favorite to win the NL Cy Young Award. His 10-10 record stands as proof that the won-lost record is meaningless in terms of evaluating a pitcher. Skenes led the majors with a 1.97 ERA, 2.36 FIP, 217 ERA+, and 0.5 home runs surrendered per nine innings, and the NL with a 0.948 WHIP. His 216 strikeouts were second in the NL. Opponents hit .199/.251/.307 against him. The numbers are eerily consistent with 2024, when he was the NL Rookie of the Year: 1.96 ERA, 0.947 WHIP, and .198/.257/.295. Oh, yeah – and he was also the starting pitcher in the All-Star Game for the second straight year. In an era when the baseball media drools over a starter with an ERA under 4.00, Skenes is a generational talent.

The rest of the rotation was quite good, too, although the faces changed after the trade deadline. Only Skenes and innings-eater Mitch Keller were in the rotation all season long. By August, Bailey Falter and Andrew Heaney were gone. Johan Oviedo looked good after missing all of last season and most of this one with injuries. Youngsters Braxton Ashcraft, Mike Burrows, Bubba Chandler, and Carmen Mlodzinski rotated between starting and bulk relief roles. Kelly managed their innings carefully. The 2026 Pirates will enter spring training with some interesting competition for rotation spots. General manager Ben Cherington (or his replacement) may create an opening by trading Keller or Oviedo in the offseason. Grade: A.

The Bullpen

The bullpen went through long stretches where it was a liability and other long stretches where it was a strength. Early in the season, there were demoralizing losses as Shelton stuck with struggling relievers David Bednar and Colin Holderman. On April 1, Bednar was sent to Triple-A Indianapolis. Shelton’s replacement, Don Kelly, had a better feel for the bullpen, and when Bednar returned and regained his All-Star form, bullpen roles were more settled. Meanwhile, Dennis Santana and Caleb Ferguson emerged as reliable high-leverage relievers.

Bednar had 17 saves in 17 opportunities before he and Ferguson were dealt at the trade deadline. Santana stepped into the closer’s role, which he held while Bednar was at Indy, and racked up 16 saves. Santana had an outstanding 0.867 WHIP. Isaac Mattson, the feel-good story of the year, eventually earned a higher-profile bullpen role. For the first time in his career, he’ll come to spring training knowing that he has a job in the major leagues. If, for some fans, there were too many late-inning losses for their tastes, it’s also true that the 2025 Pirates played in more one-run games (60) than any other team in the majors, putting enormous pressure on the bullpen. Those fans might be surprised to learn that the Pirates were third in MLB in bullpen WAR at 2.0. Grade: B.

The Catchers

When switch-hitting Endy Rodríguez was lost for the season due to injury, that left Joey Bart and Henry Davis to share the duties behind the dish. After hitting .265/.337/.462, 13 HR, and 45 RBI last year, Bart regressed to .249/.355/.340, 4 HR, and 30 RBI, losing 103 points from his OPS. While Bart struggled defensively, Davis surprised by becoming the best defensive catcher on the team, responsible for eight Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) and a 28.3 caught-stealing percentage. He was used as Skenes’ personal catcher. However, once again, Davis struggled to hit, slashing .167/.234/.278, 7 HR, and 22 RBI. Grade: F.

The Infielders

The Pirates expected Ke’Bryan Hayes, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Nick Gonzales, and Spencer Horwitz, from left to right, to comprise their regular infield for 2025. However, due to offseason wrist surgery, Horwitz didn’t make his Pirates debut until May 17. Gonzales was injured on Opening Day and didn’t return until June 3. Then, Hayes was dealt at the trade deadline, and Kiner-Falefa was lost on a waiver claim at the end of August. All told, the four were in the same starting lineup only 28 times in 2025.

While he was with Pittsburgh, Kiner-Falefa was perhaps their best all-around player, hitting .264/.300/.332 while providing solid defense at shortstop and smart, fundamentally sound play. Hayes provided his usual Gold Glove defense, but again, his offense fell short. Horwitz hit .272/.353/.434, 11 HR, and 51 RBI in 108 games, with his batting average and OPS leading the team among qualifiers. Gonzales’ offense (.260/.299/.362, 5 HR, and 30 RBI in 96 games) was only major-league average. Neither Horwitz nor Gonzales can carry a team by himself, but they hit well enough to play for a contender with stronger hitters elsewhere in the lineup. For 2026, it seems that the right side of the Pirates’ infield is the least of their worries.

Once Hayes and Kiner-Falefa were out of the picture, the Pirates tried to fill in the rest of the infield, at various times, with Cam Devanney, Liover Peguero, Jared Triolo, and Nick Yorke. Only Triolo has come close to staking a claim to play somewhere in the 2026 infield, but that shouldn’t be guaranteed. Pirates fans might be surprised to learn, however, that Triolo’s 2.4 WAR led all Pirates position players. Grade: C.

The Outfielders

Unlike the infield, the outfield stayed consistent all season. From left to right, the starting outfielders were Tommy Pham, Oneil Cruz, and Bryan Reynolds. Pham got off to a terrible start, hitting just 194/.278/.219 on June 19. He appeared to be a sure DFA candidate. (So much so that this writer had an article ready for just that occasion. Alas, that work of such literary brilliance will never be unleashed upon the public.) Thanks to an adjustment to his contact lenses, from June 22 to September 2, Pham hit .311/.399/.545. He came back down to earth afterward and went just 7-for-59 over the remainder of the season.

Reynolds had his worst season since the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, hitting .245/.318/.402, 16 HR, and 73 RBI. He struck out an alarming 173 times, by far the worst of his career. The Pirates have to be concerned that his strikeout total has increased for the second consecutive year. Like Pham, he had a hot streak of his own, hitting .302/.368/.518 from May 17 to June 30. Like Pham, it wasn’t enough.

Cruz was an enigma. He led the NL with 38 stolen bases and the Pirates with 20 home runs. But his slash line was a woeful .200/.298/.378, and most of the home runs (15) and stolen bases (27) were accumulated by June 30. There were mental lapses in center field. Fans accuse him of being lazy, yet by all accounts, he’s one of the first to show up for workouts and is popular with his teammates. It seems to this writer that he loses focus too many times and may be afflicted with Midre Cummings Disease – he thinks he’s trying hard enough, but he’s not.

Failures No Success At All

The Designated Hitter

Elder statesman Andrew McCutchen hit .239/.333/.367, 13 HR, and 57 RBI. He knows the strike zone well and gives the Bucs a quality at-bat. But he faded in the second half, hitting .211/.330/.343. The Pirates need more production from their designated hitter. He was much better against left-handing pitching, hitting .267/.353/.389 against them. At this point in his career, he can still help a contending team, but might be better suited for a platoon role with a left-handed batter. There’s been some thought that 2025 might have been his swan song with the Pirates, but he wants to keep playing. Grade: C.

The General Manager

It seems Cherington is the only person in the Pittsburgh area who doesn’t sense the urgency to surround his young pitching staff with any semblance of an offense while they’re Pirates. His offseason additions to the offense were Horwitz, Pham, and Adam Frazier. Early in the season, he added Canario. Horwitz was a good addition, and it was good to have Frazier while Gonzales was out, but it still wasn’t enough. Mostly, Cherington relied on internal improvement that never came.

Instead of using the trade deadline to add experienced hitters, Cherington unloaded high-salaried players for prospects. Based on the value received vs. the value given up, experts say Cherington “won” the deadline. Maybe so, but not enough was done to improve the 2026 team, which should have been the goal. Of the players obtained, we saw only Devanney, Rafael Flores, and Evan Sisk in the majors this year. The Devanney Experiment ended quickly on September 21 after he went 4-for-34 and struck out 20 times. Catcher/first baseman Flores went 3-for-15 but consistently hit the ball hard. He may eventually make pundits like me regret judging the Bednar trade so harshly. Left-hander Sisk was unimpressive, giving up six earned runs in 12 1/3 innings.

Perhaps the money saved by unloading Bednar, Falter, and Hayes will be used to add some much-needed bats in the offseason. We’ll see whether it’s Cherington or a replacement who’s making those decisions. It was recently learned that Cherington’s contract runs through 2027. In any event, regardless of what the grand plan is, we can only issue grades based on what we’ve seen so far. Grade: F.

The Managers

Shelton wasn’t around for the trade deadline, but as far as the Pirates’ offseason moves, it seems he agreed with the above assessment. According to a Monday report by Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Shelton felt pressure to win but didn’t believe he was given a good enough roster. Players were tight and afraid to make mistakes. Once praised for his communication skills, Shelton became difficult to play for.

As I’ve often written on these pages, after the fact, anybody can say that a manager should have brought in this pitcher instead of that pitcher or played this guy instead of that guy. That said, too often Shelton seemed to lack any feel for the bullpen. Worse, it seemed the losses were wearing him down. He started Rodríguez at first base on Opening Day and McCutchen in right field for the eighth game of the season. Not that these were terrible ideas, but Rodríguez and McCutchen hadn’t played one inning at those positions in the spring. It smacked of ill preparedness. Grade: F.

Once Kelly took over, the team showed more enthusiasm and togetherness. Kelly battled with umpires – getting two ejections in his first four games – and the team fed off his personality. He was better and more aggressive with the bullpen, too. After Shelton’s 12-26 finish, under Kelly, the 2025 Pirates were 59-65. That’s a 77-win pace over 162 games. That’s not great, but keep in mind that since the trade deadline, he’s basically been overseeing a tryout camp. Owner Bob Nutting liked enough of what he saw, and on Monday announced that Kelly had been signed to an extension. Grade: B.

The Coaches

It’s not your father’s baseball anymore. Assuming a regular 26-man roster, the ratio of Pirates players to coaches is 1.86-to-1. By contrast, the 1979 Pirates won the World Series with only four coaches. They didn’t even have a bullpen coach. Returning to 2025, bringing in former manager Gene Lamont as a de facto bench coach to assist Kelly was a stroke of genius. Why didn’t Cherington do something similar for Shelton in 2020? That might have been preferable to having game planning coach Radley Haddad, who was fired along with Shelton. Matt Hague took over as the batting coach this season. It may be unfair to judge Hague harshly after his first year, but the bottom line is that no hitter improved significantly under his tutelage.

It’s hard to complain about pitching coach Oscar Marin and his new assistant, long-time pitching coach Brent Strom. Last season, writers who advocated retaining Marin were ridiculed on social media but were right in the end. (Ahem!) We won’t evaluate all 14 coaches. Who even knows what most of them do? Marin and Strom saved this grade from being an F. Grade: D.

The Last Word

What overall grade can one give to a disappointing last-place team? The 2025 Pirates weren’t even as good as the 2024 Pirates, who earned a failing grade. At least the 2024 Pirates were in the Wild Card race until they collapsed in August. The 2025 edition caused the fans to check out in May. Grade: F.