Thoughts on the 2025 Season
By Kyle Laverty on October 2nd, 2025
The Pirates finished 71-91, probably overachieving considering their limited offseason moves. There was some good mixed in with mostly bad. For a team that left themselves no real margin for error, the results speak for themselves.
Admittedly, I was more optimistic than most heading into the season. Not because of anything the front office did, but because I could sort of get behind the idea of the young core taking some kind of step forward. Naturally, they didn’t. The veterans mostly did their jobs. The kids didn’t. And when you enter a season already banking on everything breaking right, well, 71-91 is about what you get.
The offseason was, to put it nicely, limited. Instead of signing some bats, the Pirates figured Jack Suwinski, Henry Davis, Jared Triolo, and Nick Gonzales would take some sort of step forward offensively. Gonzales immediately got hurt, Davis and Suwinski looked overmatched, and Triolo didn’t start hitting until August. By then the season had long been over.
The few moves they did make barely moved the needle. Spencer Horwitz didn’t show up until mid-May, but he at least looks like a guy who can hold down first base. Tommy Pham had eye issues and spent the first month swinging at air. Adam Frazier was signed to be a bench piece and wound up starting at second after the Gonzales injury. But he was at least competent enough that they flipped him for Cam Devanney. Small victories.
Pitching was the one area that more or less delivered. Paul Skenes dominated. Mitch Keller ate up innings in typical Mitch Keller fashion. Bailey Falter had a string of good starts in May and June before tapering off and getting traded. Andrew Heaney was good for a month and a half before completely falling apart and getting DFA’d much too late. Carmen Mlodzinski was a failed starter but a decent reliever. Mike Burrows and Braxton Ashcraft were pleasant surprises. The bullpen was uneven. Bednar stumbled early, bounced back, then got traded to the Yankees. Holderman was bad. Everyone else was mostly okay.
Management changed. Derek Shelton was fired after a 12-26 start, which only felt about a year too late. Don Kelly went 59-65 the rest of the way and was rewarded with an extension shortly after the end of the regular season. Ben Cherington, somehow, still has his job. But hey, there will be some continuity next season, not that it’s anything to hang our hats on.
The bright spots? Skenes is awesome. A wave of young arms debuted. Harrington, Ashcraft, Chandler and Barco all got a chance. Horwitz looks like he belongs. Triolo remembered how to hit once he abandoned the minor stance change of lowering his hands, which only cost him four months of production.
The offense, as has been the case the last couple of seasons, was the weight that dragged them down. They finished near the bottom of MLB in the offensive categories that matter. Their record in one-run games was 26-35. Flip even half of those losses and you’re looking at a team that could still be playing baseball right now.
And now we wait. Will the front office actually add decent talent this winter, or will the expectation be internal growth once again? Travis Williams at least made it sound like this is the last shot for Cherington to bring winning baseball to Pittsburgh when pressed by Noah Hiles. If it is, he better get it right. They simply can’t have another year of losing.
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