Last Friday, Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said the quiet part out loud: "I think we are at a moment in time that progress should not be measured entirely by wins and losses."
Good thing, because the Pirates still have a real chance to post their most losses since 1952. They dropped 112 games that year. The most since then was 105 under the great John Russell in 2010.
This year's crew is on pace for 101 and faces a brutal schedule, including 21 of the next 25 against teams in playoff position. With 38 games left, the Pirates would have to go 9-29 to outdo Russell and reach 106 losses. That's a .237 winning percentage. I think they're up to it.
They have, after all, lost 11 of 13 and are just 8-23 (.258) since the All-Star break. But let's not act like this is a surprise. They were supposed to lose upwards of 100 games again, as tanking teams will do. I have no problem with the plan. The execution is another matter.
The real news here is the lack of development of the Pirates' high-end prospects — and it starts at the major league level.
I won't include Oneil Cruz because he's still too raw to judge and remains a fascinating figure. He nearly broke the Clemente Wall with a 122-mph line drive Wednesday. Sure, he's overmatched most of the time, but he's barely just begun — and I find two other cases far more worrisome.
Where exactly are we headed with Ke'Bryan Hayes and Mitch Keller?
Each player spent time as the Pirates' No. 1 prospect — Keller from 2018-2020 as one of the more decorated pitching prospects in recent franchise history. Yet neither appears to be on a star track or anything close to it (although I'm sure if Keller were traded tomorrow, he'd become Roger Clemens in approximately five minutes).
Keller actually has made some strides this season. For a few months there, he was efficient. It's just that when a guy is your top-ranked prospect for three years running, rises to No. 12 in all of baseball, blows away the minor league competition and now is approaching his 27th birthday, "efficient" isn't really the e-word I'm looking for.
"Electric" would be the one, and Keller is not that. He is 4-10 with a 4.50 earned-run average. He has yet to record a double-digit strikeout game in his big-league career. He has given up 25 hits and 10 runs in 17 innings this month.
I was kind of surprised with manager Derek Shelton's answer when I asked him this question on his radio show Tuesday: "Based on this season, what would you tell fans are the two most encouraging signs for the future?"
"I think Number 1 would be Mitch Keller," Shelton said. "I think we can all agree he's taken significant strides forward in terms of what his pitch usage is, how he's attacking the zone. I mean, completely different guy than what we saw last year in terms of mindset and overall attack plan."
I'll buy some of that. But if that's the most encouraging sign for the future, the future might not be as bright as some of us thought.
Here's the other thing: The future here for Keller might not be long. He only has three more years of team control. He'll be 27 early next season. This just hasn't gone the way most figured. In fact, Roansy Contreras has passed Keller as the most likely near-future ace — and even if Keller suddenly takes off, he'll be considered more a trade piece than a centerpiece.
As for Hayes, we're now approaching 1,000 at-bats in his career and it's not a pretty sight. He has just 17 home runs and a .728 OPS in 846 big-league at-bats. He has battled injuries, for sure, and still doesn't have a full season on his record, but the offensive promise he showed in his abbreviated rookie season has given way to concern.
Mostly, the concern is this: He'll be the same hitter here that he was in the minors, which was just OK.
Check the numbers:
—Hayes in majors: .266 average, .331 on-base percentage, .397 slugging pct., .728 OPS.
—Hayes in minors (1,755 at-bats): .279, .353, .401, .754.
He's hitting one home run per 50 at-bats in the majors after hitting one per 65 in the minors. He's great defensively. He is not tracking to be a high-impact hitter, or even an impact hitter, which he'll need to be in order to justify that $70 million contract.
You win with stars. Period. That is true across sports. It was true here during the oasis period of 2013-15 when Andrew McCutchen won an MVP award and led this team to three straight playoff appearances (would you believe the Pirates had five players on the 2013 NL All-Star roster?).
We keep hearing about the flood of talent into the system, yet I see the third-ranked prospect according to Baseball America is a shortstop (Liover Peguero) hitting .259 in Double-A. It seems most of the top talent — like No. 1 prospect Termarr Johnson — is just starting out and several years away.
This is depressing.
