By CONNOR JACKSON

Special to the Era

The Pittsburgh Pirates claim they want to field a competitive baseball team that can compete for championships. They do nothing every season to back up that claim.

Let’s just take a look at the history of one of the oldest baseball organizations. Pittsburgh won five world series with the last one coming in 1979, it was also the last time they won a playoff series.

They then went ten years with average or below average seasons, and made three straight NLCS’ from 1990-1992, losing all three times.

From 1993-2012 the team didn’t have a winning season, the longest streak in the four major North American sports. But another three year stretch of prominence came from 2013-15, with MVP Andrew McCutchen leading the team to the playoffs for three years in a row.

Now, Pittsburgh is facing their ninth losing season in ten years since 2015. In 2020, Manager Derek Shelton and GM Ben Cherington were hired as the next duo to lead the future.

A rebuild was expected, so when the Pirates were the worst MLB team and lost 100 games in 2021 and 2022 no changes were made.

2023 and 2024 were better seasons but they were still 10 games below .500. It was really important that the young talent moving through the system would change the losing by 2025.

However, most of that young talent is not showing to be promising. 28-year old Ke’Bryan Hayes was hyped to be a future all-star, but he has turned into a good defender that can’t hit with a .227 average and only one home run.

Outfielder Oneil Cruz can run fast and hit the ball hard, and his 12 home runs this season are a positive sign, but he is only hitting .230 with just 26 RBI’s while striking out the sixth most times in the MLB.

The Pirates have no real hope in a lineup that lacks star power, or any power for that matter.

The only aspect of this team that makes anybody interested is 23-year old starting pitcher Paul Skenes. Skenes is probably going to be competing for Cy Young awards for the next 12-15 seasons.

He can only pitch once out of every five games though, and the Pirates still lose a majority of his starts despite his 2.15 ERA.

Of course, just like any other Pirate player that becomes special, storylines of trading Skenes become normal. But the Pirates can’t afford to lose somebody like Skenes.

He isn’t just a good player, he is a generational pitcher that the Pirates haven’t seen in their entire history. With Skenes not eligible for free agency until 2030, they better use the next five seasons to build around their ace to maybe win something in the future.

To do that, it’s going to take smart front office decision making and more young talent that can be developed into potential all-stars.

Owner Bob Nutting doesn’t spend as much as he should to keep the Pirate afloat, but other teams like the Guardians and Brewers have similar payrolls and find ways to stay consistently relevant and respected.

Pittsburgh needs to invest in the right players and develop younger lower paid players to become solid major league contributors.

This season, with three straight series wins and a 9-10 record, Don Kelly has started to stabilize the sinking ship that began 12-26 under fired manager Derek Shelton. A long summer is still ahead, so the Pirates have a chance to make good strides.

Anything positive would be a huge boost, Pirates fans deserve better than what they have gotten, and enough is enough.