The Pittsburgh Pirates Second Half is a Fork in the Road

7-18-25 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

There are only so many ways the Pirates can go from here. And bluntly, we’ve talked them to death. We all know the guys they should trade, we all know the guys they could trade and we all know the answers would come a lot easier if we thought for one second they’d spend some money on a big Free Agent investment.

We all know the owner won’t sell, we all know to some degree Ben Cherington is in trouble, we all believe Travis Williams will be overseeing the destruction of regional treasures elsewhere soon too.

The Bottom line is this, is this team going to do the tear down and sell off rebuild with prospects thing again, or are they going to try to just pull over at the service station, fix what’s wrong and get the damn thing back on the road?

I think they have to pick one of these two, because frankly, the third choice is to just come back next year with a nearly identical, but year older version of your roster and put every potential improvement at the feet of your players getting better, or maturing, or whatever.

I mean, you can take either of those two distinct forks out farther if you like and defend the ultimate future you’re convinced will come from each decision, but for this piece, I’m leaving it at the fork.

And you know what I mean by that. Sure, it’s not Pham and Frazier again, but it’ll be say Dejong and someone else they lure away from the Social Security office and cross their fingers with internal options for just about everything good.

If you want the truth, and if there weren’t public pressure, I bet this 3rd option, the put the pot on the back burner and let it simmer method, is exactly what Cherington would prefer. At the end of the day, I simply don’t believe he thinks things have necessarily gone all that far off course. A few trains are a bit off schedule is all.

One thing this year brought I think is an overwhelming sense that something has to change, whether that be the right things to change or not. The owner is frustrated, the fans are frustrated, the players are frustrated. Nothing about that spells play it back.

So let’s cover the two other ways they could go.

Full Rebuild

Now, when you talk about wanting this team to trade Reynolds, Hayes, Keller, Cruz, or even Skenes, I’m not sure you truly realize what you’re asking for, but you should be. You’re asking for a full blown rebuild.

Now, that’s not to say all of these guys are untouchable, but keeping any of them starts to look real stupid if you move too many of them.

In a full rebuild, Nobody would be safe. In fact, you didn’t even see a 100% full rebuild when Ben Cherington got here. You still have Reynolds, and Keller. A full rebuild would likely have found a new home for them as well. Especially Reynolds, he had already proven enough value to move by then and was a young commodity with a ton of control.

A full rebuild would move all those assets. Might even include Nick Gonzales and Henry Davis in that mix. Anything and everything not nailed down.

The goal is to absolutely detonate what you have. Bottom out the payroll to almost all league minimums or close, stock the system with so much talent it’s bursting at the seams and let them start fighting it out.

In practice, it looks a lot like the Miami Marlins.

Yes, you’ll stink, but the way this team is set up, your pitching is already kinda close to being passible qukck. You still have Bubba, Barco, Burrows, Ashcraft, Mlodzinski, Harrington, and whatever shakes out of what you just acquired.

Your hitting is probably pretty sad. You’re almost all rookies, or young players. maybe even some waiver claims. If you do it well, you probably start to see some emergences early, but you absolutely feel like you have options. In other words there are more guys coming, held back by nothing more than you wanting to see someone else at the moment.

You can keep Cutch around, you can even sign some vets.

If you’re smart, I should say, a lot smarter than the Pirates ever have been in my lifetime, you bring in some high quality vets on 2-3 year deals and they make it a bit more fun for your fans and if someone offers something great for them, F it, you get even more prospects to add into the mix.

This should start to look better in 2-3 seasons, and I mean Wild Card threatening in 2-3 seasons.

Don’t get confused, I’m not saying that’s how long it should have taken Ben Cherington. Frankly, the situation this team is in right now is like light years better than what Cherington inherited.

I mean, for starters, a new GM would likely be able to watch his minor league system play the first year he’s around. He’d also have a much better crop of prospects, and a solid shot at a quick turnaround if the moves you made with unreal commodities to sell were even halfway smart.

If they’d do this, and provided competence of course, I think this gets you a winning team for a decent stretch.

It would hurt like hell, they’d lose even more of this fan base, at least until it works, but even then it’ll be a whole bunch of Randy Quaid in Major League II begrudgingly enjoying the team even as you hate them and yourself for loving it.

Yup, it’s the same old promise this team has made a dozen times, and yes, at the end of the day when they need that one more piece, you’re right, if MLB doesn’t change their system, they absolutely won’t go get it. I mean, they will, but it’ll be the Aldi version.

This is by far the cheapest way to go, and all jokes aside, it’s the last thing Bob Nutting wants to do right now. I don’t believe he’d hire someone who’d want to do this, at least not now, let’s not pretend it’s going to suddenly leave their DNA.

Take the Spooky Road to the Right

This is what I think we’ll see. I wish I could promise it’ll be done well, or by some magic GM you’ll pretend you had your eye on for a couple years when they hire them.

I can’t. I just think it’s what they’ll choose, because it’s the one the looks the most like trying to win to an audience who has absolutely no patience left for stories about mythological futures unless they’re the latest Marvel flick.

I think this has to come with some rules.

• This team has to have a winning season in 2026, and within 2 games of the Wild Card
• Trade every last rental player
• Commit to an MLB payroll that can supply a professional LF and SS minimally
• Every move is about getting better now, not in the future

Sounds simple, but they haven’t been here.

Because these were pretty much the agreed upon marching orders entering this season. Now, I’ve seen it reported that Cherington used dollars allocated for on field talent for analytics expansion, but I can’t imagine this was enough money to turn Tommy Pham into a real attempt to fill a very necessary role on this team.

Bob isn’t Snow White here of course, he does need to spend more, I just don’t believe he’ll do a whole lot more than he planned to.

So, I’d say I need to pick what I can move for help. Maybe that’s prospect arms, maybe it’s an MLB starting pitcher, whatever, these moves need to get more aggressive. Either don’t be afraid to extend yourself financially, or don’t be afraid to sell off some prospect assets.

I don’t care who’s fault it is. Blame Bob, blame Cherington, whatever, the point is, this is going to be the direction this team likely tries to go, and no matter what, it’ll be because they think it’s what you’d prefer.

I bet most of you do, even if you don’t have faith in them to execute it, but you’d still rather have some decent players and friggin’ try. Let them grow, add some help, better is better amiright?

There are some fans who think the entire team stinks, yet will absolutely be set off by trading a guy like Adam Frazier. LOL Guys, that shiz has to stop. You can’t possibly think this team finds a way to get better by holding onto 95% of what brought them this record can you? Every trade isn’t same old Pirates, sometimes it’s just making a necessary move.

Little more than the equivalent to agreeing to terms on an app you downloaded drunk.

It Just Didn’t Come Together

I don’t need to tear down everything Ben Cherington did here.

How we got here kinda doesn’t matter anymore.

They managed to build one of the strongest pitching farms I’ve ever seen in this city. That’s not nothing, for years and years the Pirates couldn’t develop pitching to save their lives. And it’s not just recency bias, this regime worked hard to create Mitch Keller. Sure he worked his ass off too, but the team developed him. Nursed him back from near death if memory serves.

They have some interesting bats, including a few who haven’t performed up to standard this year and a few interesting coming, but too far away to help immediately.

The Ben Cherington regime built a system that is almost entirely tilted to the pitching side of things. It took them too long to realize their scouting only had an eye for half the talent they’d need, but the changes they’ve made there are starting to show some better results in the lower levels. Here’s hoping they identify trade targets better than they have on this side of things too.

I’d also say, Ben Cherington’s overall offensive philosophy, well, I’ll probably die on this hill if I have to, it simply saps aggressiveness from everyone collectively. It maybe makes an average player be average more consistently, but it prevents greatness a hell of a lot more than it ever uncorks it.

I don’t have evidence for this mind you. It’s not like there is a trail of failed Pirates prospects who’ve cropped up somewhere else crushing it. I think it’s a great system for a guy like Tommy Pham, or Adam Frazier. I think it’s about the worst system in the world a player like Oneil Cruz could be coming up in.

They built what they could, time to balance the scales and start making this incredible pitching lead an improved offense into a better spot next year.

I Love the Pittsburgh Pirates. I’m 48 years old, I’ve never seen my team win a World Series without a pacifier in my mouth, and I badly want to be talking about baseball. Unfortunately, because of MLB’s system, and my owner always skewing toward the bare minimum these are realities we have to face.

It would be doable if we got regular payoffs for regular medicine we had to choke down, but we instead far too often have to take the medicine only to find out our doctor should probably be issuing dog licenses.

There is a path to get this back on track. Bob can make it easier and give it a better chance to work if he hires the right GM and opens the wallet a bit. The good GM isn’t negotiable, because a good GM probably could use what’s here and not have to ask for all that much more than they’re spending right now to at least make a better effort apparent.

I think they have a coach in Don Kelly, let’s see how he handles keeping the walls up while the house falls down around him and he introduces new players into the mix.

Fix the game MLB. I should be talking about a completely doable player acquisition plan for 2026 to fit in what we need under the cap.

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