Why This Pirates Collapse Feels Different

This season, for all intents and purposes, looks very close to being over.

Yeah, they still have six games coming up against teams they have to pass in the wild card.

If they sweep them both, maybe it's, a season again.

But there just comes a point where you can't be swept at this stage of the year.

You can't be swept whenever you're under 500 and falling further and further behind in the wild card standings.

This is what we have seen too many times in most Pirate fans' life.

This is another late season collapse.

And unlike 2011, 2012, 2024, this one somehow feels worse because this was supposed to be the team.

And we could look back on this as one of the most talented rosters in recent memory.

And it might not even yield a playoff berth.

Good morning and welcome to OffBeat here on North Shore Nine presented by FanDuel.

My name is Alex Stumpf and this is a daily look at your Pittsburgh Pirates.

That was a tough series.

That was one of three games where it felt like they really had a shot.

Had they caught a couple breaks.

Had they forced the issue with that weird bounce in the first inning and, Nick Gonzales breaks for home.

Maybe that's just the butterfly effect for the game and things change.

But just in general, that was a series where the Dodgers showed that they were just a little bit better than the Pirates.

That they can muscle out the extra inning win.

That they're not going to blow the chances with the bases loaded at extra innings.

It's just one of those reminders of, yeah, this team is not in that highest tier.

Even though you look at this team in terms of like war, in terms of talent, and they should be, maybe not at the Dodgers level, but they should be in the conversation.

And not that long ago, less than a month ago, they beat the Diamondbacks at home.

And if the season ended right then, they would have been in the postseason.

It's not like we were talking about, oh, what could have been, they were all these games back.

It's like, no, this was a team after the All-Star break that had a wild card spot and just immediately collapsed right then.

And it's one thing to look back at like 2011.

2011, after 18 losing seasons, just playing relevant baseball into late July, to the point that they were buyers and like, let's see what happens.

I don't think anyone has any bitter memories about 2011.

Maybe they're bitter about like the Jerry Meals game and how maybe that team had its mojo taken away from them.

I get that.

But like everyone saw 2011, it's early.

They showed life.

2012 would be a great year.

And for two thirds of the year, 2012 was really good.

And then they didn't add at the deadline and they faltered in the second half.

And it's like, okay, well, there are lessons to be learned there.

And we look at 2013 and, getting Marlon Byrd, what that meant.

2015, getting Happ and Ramirez and Soria and all those guys, see what that happened.

And it showed the blueprint of who were the guys to lead that team, who were going to be the studs.

But also, how do you supplement that team to get them over the top, to get them into October?

And while the 2012 collapse, I feel, is still the greatest collapse in the history of the franchise because they went from such dizzying heights to below 500 for a 20th straight year.

It also was there early.

There was that sense of there early, like the window's not closed here.

And candidly, whenever 2024 happened, I thought they were early.

And I also thought that trade deadline really didn't do them any favors.

There's the report from John Parado at the time that they didn't have time to add to the payroll.

And then payroll didn't go up that trade deadline.

And the moves they made seem to be cost conscious.

Jalen Beeks, he did not help that bullpen whatsoever.

IKF, he was brought in with the cash considerations, was played pretty much the minimum.

Didn't make a huge impact, but they did keep him for 2025.

And then Brian De La Cruz, just a pre-arb player that they thought, well, he has 19 home runs.

Maybe he's cheap power.

He wasn't.

Turns out acquiring a sub-replacement level player isn't technically adding at the trade deadline.

De La Cruz has a bad year.

Beeks is gone.

IKF didn't really pan out there.

They didn't add in 2025, but 2024, even though they had that surge in late July, and they bought, and they looked like it, and that collapsed, it still felt like, okay, they're early.

And the bones were there.

Paul Skenes was there.

Jared Jones was there.

And then Bryan Reynolds, Oneil Cruz, the people that you were like, yeah, this is what a postseason Pirates team would look like.

They're there.

They're under contract.

Let's see what happens.

25, just a bad year all around, from the get-go.

Didn't do enough that winter.

Bad year altogether.

But 26, it was a good offseason.

Supplemented the roster, built on what they needed.

And what they added was what they needed.

Brandon Lowe has been great.

Mason Montgomery has been a really solid closer, or could be a closer.

Been a really solid late-inning arm.

Then the trade deadline, whenever it was so clear, they needed bullpen help.

They went above and beyond.

All those trades look really good right now.

Doval has impressed, in my opinion.

Weaver, even though we haven't seen him all that much, obviously needs no introduction.

Bakar has pitched a lot.

He's looked good.

Kirby Yates has been a solid add.

It's like, okay, there was the weakness.

This was the 2011-2012 thing, where it's like, well, they didn't add enough.

They went full go.

And we can talk about now how maybe they need another starting pitcher.

Maybe they need another right-handed bat.

there are other ways they could have supplemented that team.

But they were following what was supposed to be the right formula.

In 2024, it was the newcomers who really collapsed.

There was a lot of struggles on that, in that August anyway.

Colin Holderman had a real bad month.

Offense started to teeter out a bit.

Starting pitching was not as strong as it had been early in the year.

There were a lot of factors in 2024 right there.

But you look at what they did at the trade deadline, how underwhelming it was, how those guys did not help the team as a whole.

If you just look at the package of players they brought in, not to mention losing Martin Perez, they probably got worse at the deadline.

You look at that and it's not the case here.

A big reason why this team has fallen apart over the last month since the trade deadline.

You look at just what they are doing for the guys who you thought you were building around, that you have been building around, that have been here all along.

Spencer Horwitz going into Sunday, had a 115 batting average and 135 slugging percentage in the second half of the season.

That's a WRC plus of zero.

Bryan Reynolds going into the game, hitting 211, 301 slugging percentage, one home run, 61 WRC plus.

That was, he was supposed to be one of those guys.

He showed in the first half of the year.

He should have been an all-star.

He wasn't, okay, time for the most important second half of your career.

He is not hit.

Spencer Horwitz, people in that clubhouse were saying, hey, he should be an all-star in the first half of the year.

Then he had the injury and then the concussion thing.

And I think you have to take all of that into some level of consideration here because he has not looked comfortable at all.

It's been just some bad swings.

Ryan O'Hearn, before the injury, 170 batting average, 37 WRC plus in the second half of the season.

It was the guys on offense who were driving that number one offense in the league.

And really, with the exception of, Brandon Lowe, Nick Gonzales, and newcomer, Rafael Flores Jr., they haven't done a whole lot.

They said, okay, Oneil Cruz, whenever he comes back, that's basically like adding a hitter at the trade deadline.

Cruz had some big swings in that Dodgers series.

He's had some good at-bats in general ever since he's come back, from the injured list.

Again, on paper, like, this is what the path is.

And it's the guys who have been here internally that just aren't producing.

This pitching staff, which was supposed to be one of the greatest, had the rotation to be one of the best in baseball, they've struggled.

Bubba Chandler did not have a good start, this weekend.

But overall, he's pitched pretty well in the second half of this year.

But Paul Skenes, it's been a rough year.

Jared Jones, there's been ups and downs.

Carmen Mlodzinski, for someone who is quite, everyone is quite aware of where he falls on, wanting to be a starting pitcher.

Whatever Mitch Keller goes down, okay, not technically the fifth starter.

They're not asking him to go six, seven innings every game.

It's still the, do three, four, do what you've been doing.

Mostly as a starter, we saw him with an opener on Sunday.

All told, he has pitched 11 and a third innings.

And he has allowed 16 runs over his last four outings.

Carmen Mlodzinski, for the first half of the year, was one of their best pitchers.

The real complaint really was just him not being able to pitch, as much as you would hope.

He has not delivered in this crunch stretch, in this time where, for a lot of these players, this is the most meaningful baseball they have played.

For some, it's the first meaningful baseball that they have played with the Pirates.

And it has not come through.

And it has led to one of the greatest collapses in the history of the franchise.

I've been teasing this list.

Some other years in Pirates history.

19-26, between their two pennants, they were tied for a third straight pennant on August 30th.

They went 13 and 19 down the stretch, including seven of their last eight.

Missed out.

19-38, seven-game lead in September.

Collapse, missed the postseason.

Now, those are different times.

So, that was win the pennant or nothing.

So, then you go, in my opinion, to the early 80s.

In 1980, where they had 100 days in first place.

And then went 8-16 in September and missed the postseason.

1983, first place on September 17th.

End up finishing six games out for the division.

It was, then it's the contemporary ones, in my opinion, for the worst collapses.

11, 12, 24, and now this.

And you look at these cases.

83, they didn't rebound.

They didn't get better.

There were a lot of external factors at that time.

But, they didn't get better.

26, they did rebound in 27, but then they went on a real dark area.

A dark period in franchise history.

Until 1938, where they then collapsed and weren't really in the postseason picture all that much until, Clemente and Mazeroski and that 1960 team started to take shape.

2011, 2012, they then got over the hump.

made it.

It wasn't like a team collapse.

Immediately after.

And perhaps that's the case here.

That you still look at, look.

Deans, Cruz, Reynolds, all these important people, really, everyone, besides Brandon Lowe, should be back next year.

The 2027 Pirates could very well be a contender, should be a contender.

But they're going to have this stink of their last three years collapsing in late July and August.

In two of those three years.

And then one year just never being in the postseason picture at all.

This feels different.

This feels different than, 2011, 2012, where you're going to 2013, thinking, look, this team is close.

They're ready to break through.

Look at it now.

Like, knowing your season's on the line, you get swept by the Dodgers.

You can't even take one.

It's a rough look.

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