Why the Pirates Always Limp to the Finish
Yes, we collapsed in the second half, but if we get some pitching help in the offseason, we could contend next year. #talklikeapirateday
— Ruben Bolling (@RubenBolling) September 19, 2012
We can fairly well predict that the Pirates are not going to make the playoffs this year, for the 20th straight season. They still have a fighting chance at their first winning record in two decades, as they stand at 74-74 after Game 148, but that looked almost like a lock before their 11-17 August and their 4-13 September.
So why do the Pirates always suck in September? If you look at the team’s win totals, month by month, from 1993-2011 — their record 19 straight losing seasons, you see a remarkable pattern emerge:
| 1993-2011 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March/April | W | 191 | March-August | W | 874 |
| L | 244 | L | 1103 | ||
| % | .439 | % | .442 | ||
| May | W | 233 | August-Sept | W | 419 |
| L | 294 | L | 622 | ||
| % | .442 | % | .402 | ||
| June | W | 227 | |||
| L | 283 | ||||
| % | .445 | ||||
| July | W | 223 | |||
| L | 282 | ||||
| % | .442 | ||||
| August | W | 210 | |||
| L | 316 | ||||
| % | .399 | ||||
| September/October | W | 209 | |||
| L | 306 | ||||
| % | .406 |
The 1994-1995 strike accounts for the fact that there are fewer games played in April and September than in the other months. But you can see: for the last two decades, the Pirates have been a much, much different team from March through July than in August, September, and October — which is to say, before and after the trade deadline.
Before the trade deadline, from 1993-2011, the Pirates were a .442 team — that’s 72-90 over a full year, 9 games under .500, not good but not catastrophically awful. However, after the trade deadline, they were a .402 team — that’s 65-97 over a full year. The difference is crucial: it measures the difference between a team that is a hot streak away from a winning season for most of the year, and a team that never has any hope.
It’s not a complete surprise to see that the Pirates have been worse, historically, after the trade deadline. After all, they have often been sellers at the deadline, getting rid of Aramis Ramirez and Brian Giles in 2003, Kris Benson in 2004, Oliver Perez in 2006, Jason Bay and Xavier Nady in 2008, Ian Snell and Jack Wilson and Adam LaRoche and Nate McLouth in 2009, and so on.
But they weren’t always sellers, and actually have made their share of misguided win-now trades. They traded Mike Gonzalez for Adam LaRoche in 2007, and a few days later traded Rajai Davis for a completely washed up Matt Morris; they brought in Derrek Lee in 2011; and in 2012, they got Chad Qualls, Travis Snider, Gaby Sanchez, and Wandy Rodriguez before the deadline. Obviously, none of it worked. It isn’t obvious that their habit of getting rid of stars at the deadline is the sole explanation for their late-season ineptitude.
A better reason is almost certainly their catastrophically bad draft history. It’s not just that the Pirates don’t have much to call up in September. It’s that the Pirates have hardly ever had any organizational depth to speak of, so as the season wears on and injuries mount, they inevitably lack good replacements.
Case in point: In 1992, the Pirates had a great year: they won 96 games, finished in first place in the NL East, and drafted Jason Kendall. It was the last time that they finished above .500 for two whole decades, as we know. It was also the last time that they drafted an above-average player for a whole decade.
After Kendall, the team did not draft a single good player until Paul Maholm in 2003. (Andrew McCutchen came in 2005.) The only major leaguers of note that the team drafted in between Kendall in 1992 and Maholm in 2003 were Kris Benson, drafted in 1996, whose career was almost exactly average, and Sean Burnett, who’s a decent enough setup man. And they signed Aramis Ramirez as an amateur free agent in 1994. That’s it.
When current general manager Neal Huntington got his job in late 2007, he inherited a team whose earth had been scorched in both the majors and the minors for 20 years, thanks to the strategic short-sightedness and talent-blindness of GMs Cam Bonifay and Dave Littlefield. Huntington immediately moved to address his team’s depth, and those fire sale trades in 2008 and 2009 were his doing. Some of the players that he brought in have paid dividends, like Derrek Lee, or, at least for the first half of 2012, James McDonald. Others have not, like Brandon Moss, Craig Hansen, and Andy LaRoche.
This year isn’t the first time that the Pirates have come tantalizingly close to a good season only to come up disappointingly short. You only have to remember back to 2011 for another example of that. But it’s remarkable how robust the pattern has been over the past 20 years: the Pirates play decently for a while, and then they fall off a cliff. Rinse and repeat.
Of course, with the strides that Pedro Alvarez has made, and the tantalizing flashes of ace potential shown by McDonald, and Neil Walker‘s solid comptency at the keystone, there are the makings of a baseball team here, especially considering that their center fielder is a perennial MVP candidate. But it’s hard to say Wait ‘Til Next Year. To quote Battlestar Galactica, all of this has happened before.
72-90 is 18 games under .500 because it would take them 18 wins to get back to .500.
18 more wins would put them at 90-72…
“Under .500″ is a slightly incoherent rhetorical convention; generally speaking, the number of games under .500 that you are is the number of wins or losses that you are under the break-even point, rather than the combined total of wins and losses. So 72 is 9 games less than 81, and 90 is 9 games more than 81, which would be the number of wins and losses in a .500 season.
Doug is right. Just Google some examples. Wins minus losses or vice versa is how it’s always done.
My bad, Justin and Doug. Maybe there would have been a better way for me to say it. What I really mean is, a 72-win team only had to have won 9 more games to have a .500 season.
I bet the Pirates trade for Billy Hamilton because they are STUPID!
Billy Hamilton is terrible and would fit in perfectly with their talentless team.
What the crap are you talking about?
You’re stupid. And that is an observation, not an insult.
“the Pirates play decently for a while, and then they fall off a cliff.”
This just isn’t true, they have been buried at the break many times. Generally they have played bad baseball all year. Its really just the last two years that fit. The previous annual trade deadline sell off explains most of your combo data.
Your article offers no potential answers for the current collapse. Let me help you in 2011 it was a collapse of SP, in 2012 its been a perfect storm of inconsistent hitting, SP, and bullpen. Clint Hurdle ain’t helping.
“Decent” may have been a stretch. Maybe “mediocre” or “bad but not too bad.” But the point is, the Pirates often play like an average- to below-average team earlier in the year. If the Pirates were a 72-win team every year, then they would have won 80-90 games at once in the last 20 years by dumb luck. But they haven’t been a 72-win team.
This team just doesn’t fit the profile you’re describing. These are the records at the AS break since 2000.
2000 – 34-44
2001 – 38-49
2002 – 33-53
2003 – 38-48
2004 – 39-47
2005 – 39-48
2006 – 30-60
2007 – 40-48
2008 – 44-50
2009 – 38-50
2010 – 30-58
Their season was done by July in all cases sans maybe 2008 when they sold everyone off. They may play slightly worse over the 18 years in teh second half, but a late collapse is novel to 2011 and 2012. You have to be up before you can collapse.
I have all of the month-by-month win-loss records for the 19 years between 1993 and 2011. And there are maybe 20-25 winning months over the entire period. So it’s not like they’ve been within striking distance at the end. But they are still much, much worse in August-September than in April through July. Mediocre as they always have been in the first half of the season, the way they play at the end is really strikingly bad.
BTW, this is the latest in a season that the Pirates have been .500 since 1992. They are usually buried well below by now with the exception of 1997 and 1999.
No matter what, I think this season has to be considered a success. Obviously, I don’t think Hurdle is the manager of the future. I think Huntington has been demonstrably more successful than Bonifay or Littlefield, and I don’t think that the decent showings in 2011 and 2012 were nearly as much of a mirage as the Kevin Young-Jason Kendall teams in 1997 and 1999.
I agree, they are in much better shape under Huntington. I’m not sure he’s the guy to close the deal, but at least you can see a scenario where they can win in the near future,
It is poor reporting to compare Huntington to previous Pirates gm’s. Compare him to other gm’s around baseball and he won’t grade out very well. However, in fairness the minor league philosophy of handling prospects is absurd. Everyone in charge of development needs to go. It is’t like Huntington has not drafted talented players, they just haven’t been developed.
How is it “poor reporting” to compare the general manager to his two immediate predecessors?
More generally, which current general manager would you rather have for the Pirates?
Almost certainly Andrew Friedman.
Probably Alex Anthopoulos, Jack Zduriencik, John Mozeliak, Frank Wren, Terry Ryan, Walt Jocketty, Kenny Williams, or Jon Daniels.
Possibly Chris Antonetti or Billy Beane or Dave Dombrowski or Jeff Luhnow.
I’m not sure about Dayton Moore or Jerry Dipoto or Kevin Towers or Brian Cashman or Theo Epstein or Sandy Alderson or Dan Duquette or Ben Cherington.
And I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want Brian Sabean or Ned Colletti or Ruben Amaro or Michael Hill.
My point is, Neal Huntington took the Pirates from a laughingstock into a baseball team in five years. I’m not sure that he’s better than half the general managers in baseball, but I’m not sure he’s worse than half, either. I think he’s solidly in the middle of the pack.
@PiratesHurdles: I was very skeptical of the Wandy deal and other very minor deals at the deadline where they punted on picking up an impact player and instead just got a few guys in exchange for prospects they won’t miss. As Alex implies, while this season’s growth is nice, do you think they should have been more aggressive? I’m thinking the Brewers would have peed on themselves if offered Hanson to headline the Grienke deal instead of settling for Segura, for example.
Yeah, wouldn’t it have been great to sell the farm for Greinke and THEN collapse and get passed by the Brewers.
Wandy is an above average pitcher. I liked that deal.
Both Wandy and Grienke have pitched in 11 games for their new teams. bWAR counts are .3 to 1.0, respectively. I can understand if you’re argument is that they just were not a playoff team to begin with. But then why bother adding anybody at all? It calls into question whether or not they will actually ever go for it. We have the same issue in Kansas City, where management keeps talking about some crescendo of talent reaching the big club at some point. It just usually doesn’t work that way, and often times when it does life gets int he way and your perfectly planned Utopiateam is undone and you’re back to rebuilding.
I think it’s great that the Pirates wanted to win and push their team to the playoffs. But they were clearly something of a paper tiger. They needed a lot more than Wandy.
Alex can you compare / contrast this cliff diving with my favorite masochistic fandom choice? I saw SNY put up a stat saying that the Mets have been equally as bad as the Buccos the past few years in the second half.
It’s pretty simple. They have been in rebuild mode for a long time. So they often trade away their better players. Even if they don’t do a fire sale, they usually deal one of their back end relievers or start benching veterans in order to see what they have in younger players.
In the case of years when they haven’t struggled and then fallen off it’s a case of them playing over their head. Nobody picked this team to be good at the beginning of the year. The only team that has less talent are the Astros, and really that’s entirely because of Andrew Mccutchen.
Although I actually have some hope that the Buccos are turning it around. Cole and Taillon are top flight prospects, Mccutchen, Marte, and Alvarez could be a good start to building a lineup and management seems to be making smarter moves lately.
The Mike Gonzalez for Adam LaRoche trade was not at deadline deal; it occurred during the offseason prior to 2007. Also, your Mike Gonzalez link points to a Catcher born in 1890 :)
I don’t have data to support this, but I imagine some of the post-deadline dropoff is not *directly* related to lack of organizational depth but rather to being more likely to give playing time to rookies that would still be in the minors if the team were in contention. This might be splitting hairs though, as better depth would have meant that class of players would have been more talented.
A few minor quibbles. A Mike Gonzalez trade for Adam LaRoche isn’t a bad deal when you’re trading a decent closer for an average 1B. Trading for Travis Snider and Wandy Rodriguez shouldn’t be classified as a misguided win-now trade. Rodriguez and Snider have value for this year and in the future.
Also, Kris Benson may be league average, but he was pretty equivalent to Paul Maholm in quality. For an overall #1 pick he may not have been great and was a bit of a no brainer draft pick, but that’s a heck of a lot better than Tim Beckham or Bryan Bulling*sh!#*.
Oh, and no credit for signing and trading for Joey Bats?
Yeah, we drafted Joey Bats! And Bronson Arroyo was probably a good pick too.
But looking at the drafts, the idea that the Bucs didn’t draft a single good player from ’94-’03 is shockingly true, if you just amend it to draft, sign, and get production out of that player.
Super depressing.
So the hypothesis is that they don’t have as much organizational depth as other teams performing at a .440 winning % level?
Seems pretty weak, but I guess you could test this by looking at the distribution of WAR across their roster. If they are more top heavy in WAR than a typical terrible team than maybe they would be more prone to a September swoon then other similarly situated terrible teams. then again… who cares?
Chad Quals really??? In the 8th inning, really??? I mean Grilli’s arm isn’t gonna fall off if he goes another inning Clint!!! He’s been a real idiot lately in the decision making department! Pinch run for Fat Rod after he makes it to 3rd base?? Chase could have scored from first if dumb ass Clint would have pinch run him from 1st base!! Did Clint undergo a brain transplant sometime in late July?? Just asking? Maybe he’s got John russels brilliant mind now?? Dunno, just askin?? Nuttings so tight you couldn’t squeeze a fart out of him! Please, I beg u, please sell this team to someone else!!! Mark Cuban anyone? He likes to spend money!
Grilli has been awful in the 2nd half if you haven’t noticed. ERA well over 4 and a 1.36 WHIP last I looked. But I do agree that Qualls was an awful choice. I’d pick anyone else
I would have thought that a Fangraphs reader would be smart enough to know that Nutting has been nothing resembling cheap. He has spent more than anyone in baseball on the draft since becoming the managing partner. There are other expenses to a MLB team than major league payroll. Mark Cuban doesn’t want to buy the Pirates. Not yesterday, not today, not tomorrow.
I get the argument that Huntington hasn’t done enough in the draft with the money he’s been given. But the “Nutting is cheap” idea is a crutch that dumb yinzers continue to use with no basis in reality.
I just hope they finish over .500. I want to see them actually do that once. I think it’d be cool.
It’s too bad they won’t make the playoffs, though…could you imagine a Pirates/Orioles WS?
Until they collapsed, I wanted to see Nats/Pirates NLCS and Athletics/Orioles ALCS. Bud Selig kills himself.
… and it will all happen again.
I thought they limped because of their peg legs……
In the two years before NH took over the Pirates, they posted negative run differentials of -106 and -122.
Then, in his first four years, they were:
2008 -149
2009 -132
2010 -279
2011 -102
So twelve months ago, it’s fair to say that Neal’s stewardship had been basically a disaster. He’d taken over a bad team and kept them bad — except for 2010, when they should’ve been relegated to AAA.
Maybe this year’s .500 team is part of an improvement trend. Or maybe it’s a blip. I honestly can’t tell.
But the only GM’s I would definitely want running my team *less* than Huntington, are Dayton Moore and Jack Z.
I agree with this. He should have been absolutely charred for the decision to draft the one unsignable player in a draft that featured new rules that pushed more on the fence signable guys to signable than ever. Also, doing that knowing that unlike in the past, if you don’t sign that guy you don’t get to allocate the money elsewhere. If they had a dynamite farm system with depth up and down, maybe he could slide. But their farm system is very top heavy and overall still pretty bad. Just a horrible, terrible, no good decision. A fireable offense in my book.
I’m not a Pirates fan by any stretch, but they have the makings of a pretty good team starting to come together. While the article acknowledges the 20 years of failure………I did not really see a concrete reason other than weak drafts.
This team has better pieces than I’ve seen in years, of which, should help them in trades as well. I imagine they will beef up and be more than competitive in 2013.
Nice article, but I’d like to add one point. The 2003 trade of Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton to the Cubs was a MLB-mandated salary dump:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5493589
Then-Pirates GM Dave Littlefield compounded the disaster by getting jack sh!t in return, but rules are rules, and it’s not like Bud Selig can intervene with secret loans to teams. The same thing happened a few years back, when the Mets were short on cash and forced to trade 3B David Wright and his salary.