Tim Benz: Pirates know next step will be harder than this one

It takes a special talent to lose 100 games in Major League Baseball. Or, in the case of the Pittsburgh Pirates, a special lack of talent.

The only thing that prevented the Pirates from losing 100 games three years in a row from 2020-22 was the small matter of a global pandemic that shortened the 2020 campaign to 60 games.

The 2023 team, though, jumped by 14 wins, finishing the season 76-86.

That’s certainly nothing worth celebrating, but it’s an improvement. Improving by even half that number again in 2024 could get the team into the wild-card hunt. Seven more wins would get the Pirates over .500 with 83 victories. The Arizona Diamondbacks are the MLB franchise with the lowest win total (84) to have qualified for this year’s postseason.

For a change, even pessimistic Pirates fans don’t have to squint too hard to see what at least .500 ball may look like heading into an upcoming spring training. That’s pretty rare, seeing as how the local club has finished with a record of .500 or better just four times since the start of the 1993 season.

Speaking to the media on Tuesday to wrap up the season, Pirates general manager Ben Cherington embraced the optimistic view of this organization’s progress.

“We came into the year focused on improvement. We wanted to get better. We did,” Cherington said.

However, Cherington did couch that perspective with a little reality check.

“Certainly not satisfied. We have more improvement we need to make — across the board,” Cherington added. “There’s no particular area. We need to keep getting better.”

To Cherington’s point, a 14-win jump from 62 wins to 76 wins is one thing. From an analytical perspective, MLB teams — even bad ones like the Pirates — aren’t built to lose 100 games multiple years in a row.

Sure. It can happen. But the odds are stacked against it. For as pockmarked of a franchise as the Pirates have been for many periods over the past few decades, they had never lost 100 games in consecutive seasons throughout the 162-game format (first instituted in the National League in 1962) prior to ‘21-‘22.

So a 14-win spike may look like a massive stride. It is. But at the same time it’s also more of statistical correction than anything. It’s not necessarily accurate to presume another five-to-10 game leap is natural progression.

As Cherington admitted, winning the next five games to at least finish at .500 (81-81), or the next 10 games to be in solid wild-card position, is a greater challenge.

“I think it is more difficult. Going from the 60s to the 70s is not easy, but the next step I do believe is harder,” Cherington said.

In the interest of historical support to that claim, in the 31 seasons since the start of 1993, the Pirates have stalled out between 75-80 wins eight times.

• The 1996 roster climbed the ladder from 58 wins in 1995 all the way up to 73 wins in Jim Leyland’s last year as manager. Gene Lamont’s “Freak Show” bunch scratched up to 79 wins in ‘97. But then the club fell back to 69 wins in 1998.

• In 1999, the Pirates flirted with .500, ending the year with 78 victories but dipped back to 69 in 2000.

• Lloyd McClendon’s 2003 Bucs finished 75-87. They dipped to 72 in 2004 and wouldn’t even crack 70 wins again until Clint Hurdle took over in 2011.

• That 2011 team may be the most similar to this year’s bunch. Hurdle’s first group posted 72 wins after just 57 the year before under John Russell. That’s a very similar arc to what this year’s team did, improving from 62 to 76. And while 2012 started off well (67-54 and in second place on Aug. 19), they faded and ended the year 79-83.

The hopeful narrative is that 2023 will go down as “the year before the year,” similar to what 2012 was — in other words, an initial foray to competitiveness before multiple playoff berths.

“Focused on roster construction — how do we make the roster better to solve (taking the next step)? The coaches and the players have their jobs to do to just keep getting better. Keep that internal improvement happening,” Cherington said.

There’s reason to think that could transpire. Oneil Cruz will come back from his broken ankle. Ke’Bryan Hayes and Bryan Reynolds found themselves a bit as the year went along. Multiple young prospects got lots of Major League exposure.

But as history shows, 2012’s end result (79 wins) was a lot closer to that first year of significant improvement in 2011 (72 wins) than it was to Hurdle’s first playoff team of 2013 (94 wins).

So maybe 2023 will be remembered as the year before, the year before, the year?

Let’s check back in October 2025 and see if Johnny Cueto drops the ball again. Then we’ll know for sure.