As the offseason begins in earnest, reflection sets in.
Some teams will look backward at 2024 and hope it’s a stepping stone toward something greater. The Detroit Tigers rode a fairytale August and September back to the playoffs for the first time since 2014. They even dethroned the Houston Astros in the American League Wild Card Series. One of Detroit’s AL Central brethren, the Kansas City Royals, snapped their own streak and seem poised to start a new one altogether. Likewise, the New York Mets reestablished themselves as serious contenders in the Steve Cohen era, winning more games against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series than their crosstown rivals, the New York Yankees, did in the World Series.
These are some of the overachievers—the teams who overcame the insurmountable doubt to dub 2024 a success. Then, there’s the underachievers: the Texas Rangers, Minnesota Twins, St. Louis Cardinals, and Arizona Diamondbacks. Playoff hopefuls—and, in the Twins’ case, playoff favorites—who sat on the couch during October rather than get in on the fun. They represent the reality of Major League Baseball—that only 12 teams make the dance, and only one walks away happy.
But baseball, like life, isn’t so black and white. Sometimes there’s a reason to find development in defeat—lessons learned, stars unearthed, careers resurrected, etc. Sometimes, it’s okay to lose if something is given in return. After finding two AL teams whom that rings true for, it’s time to turn to the NL to find two teams who, despite a poor season on the surface, have cause to find the silver linings through the troubles.
It’s sometimes hard to find optimism surrounding the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Despite being a five-time champion, nine-time pennant winner, and among the oldest and most storied teams in baseball, little that’s good lasts in the Steel City. Their playoff appearances run hot only to chill, making the dance from 1990-1992, and then waiting until 2013 to take to the ballroom again. That year started a new three-year window for Pittsburgh, but it fizzled out in 2015 with a loss in the NL Wildcard to their Central rival, the Chicago Cubs.
Since then — and more often than not as of the last 40 years — the Pirates linger in the darkness. They’ve finished fourth or fifth in their division since 2017 and become a veritable specter. Seen, yet disembodied and unable to grasp. Worse than this spectral comparison, however, is that the Pirates only haunt themselves. Ownership forces the organization to live on borrowed time with its best players, and often management squanders the few bright spots in dark years.
Not even Baker Mansion, a reportedly haunted home in nearby Altoona, carries as many ghosts as PNC Park.
It’s hard to silence the cynics and those unseen, ever-present voices in the dark. But the Pirates might finally be able to. This franchise, long mired in a darkness as black as the color of their caps, might finally have the players who can light the sage and bring a new era of Pirates baseball — One that won’t be remembered for its what-ifs, rather its remember-whens.
The player who will define this era of Pirates baseball and the organization’s greatest hope is NL Rookie of the Year Paul Skenes. This isn’t a new notion. Nor is it a particularly hair-raising thought. More crucially, this isn’t hypothetical. No one is projecting a label onto Skenes that he hasn’t earned. We know he’s the closest thing to a savior, and we’ve known it since his debut on May 11 earlier this year. The greatest compliment that can be given to Skenes’ first professional start is it was arguably his second-worst of the season. The right-hander allowed a home run, a hit-by-pitch, two walks, six hits, and three runs while striking out seven over four innings. His ERA by the end of the day was 6.75. That was as high as it would go in 2024.
Over the next month and change, Skenes put the world of baseball to the torch like Nero. From May 17 to July 5, he had a 1.79 ERA, 2.61 FIP, 71 strikeouts, and a 33.5% strikeout rate to 4.7% walk rate ratio, while generating 1.7 fWAR over 55.1 innings pitched. He ranked high in almost every category and left opposing hitters with a comically low slash line of .210/.250/.330 with a .580 OPS. Very few were spinning it like him.
Skenes’ numbers were so absurd the All-Star game couldn’t refuse him, with Skenes being added to the roster for an injured Zack Wheeler. Though the 22-year-old’s nomination felt somewhat unearned given Wheeler’s injury and Skenes’ small sample size, NL Manager Torey Lovullo named him the NL’s starter for the 94th Midsummer Classic, making him the youngest pitcher to obtain the honor since Dwight Gooden in 1986.
Skenes rewarded Lovullo’s faith with a scoreless first, including two-strike counts against Cleveland’s Steven Kwan, Baltimore’s Gunnar Henderson, and the then-Yankee Juan Soto. But this was far from the high point of Skenes’ 2024.
Over his final starts of the season, Skenes collected a 2.03 ERA and 2.31 FIP, while striking out 81 hitters and limiting opposing hitters to a .194/.263/.270 line with a .533 OPS. He ranked fourth among all pitchers in the second half in strikeout ratd, third in FIP, fifth in fWAR, sixth in ERA, and seventh in strikeouts-per-nine-innings. And though Skenes finished 60th in innings pitched during this time, that had far more to do with the Pirates prioritizing his health over any personal failing. His highest pitch count was 104, with his lows being 87, 82, and 73.
Nonetheless, Skenes still spun some gems: two runs and eight strikeouts over eight-and-a-third innings against the Cardinals, nine punchouts against the Reds with six scoreless in August, and back-to-back six-inning, one-run performances in September. Skenes’ untouchability netted him 23 first-place votes for NL Rookie of the Year, 13 third-place votes for NL Cy Young, and one seventh-place vote for NL MVP.
Skenes is, without hesitation, one of the best pitchers in the game at 22 years old. The Pirates can breathe easy every fifth day with him on the bump.
Working with Skenes in the rotation, easing the Buccos’ anxiety, and helping them find 2024’s silver lining is Jared Jones.
Jones, unlike his rotation mate, had a far more up-and-down season. That much is evident from his splits: A 3.56 ERA and 1.110 WHIP in the first half versus a 5.87 ERA and 1.435 WHIP in the second. To add context to that stat, Jones finished the former with the 20th ERA among all NL pitchers with 90 innings pitched. He was 85th in ERA among all NL pitchers with at least 30 innings pitched during the latter. By ERA, only 11 other pitchers had a worse second-half ERA than Jones.
Some extra context is needed, however. Jones suffered a minor lat strain in early July that shelved him until August 27. What started as a two-week shutdown led to an eight-week absence. When Jones returned, he looked a shell of himself, surrendering five to the Cubs and six to the Reds in September. His walks-per-nine-innings increased from 2.67 pre-injury to 3.52 post-injury, while his home-runs-per-nine went from 1.19 to 1.76. The second half of the season was a mess, whose peaks paled compared to their valleys.
Yet that stretch of play shouldn’t repaint Jones’ season. Though Jones made the team’s Opening Day roster, he’d only made 15 starts at the Triple-A level the year before and 25 between the top two levels of minor league baseball. Jones wasn’t a battle-tested arm when he made the majors. He was a fresh-faced 22-year-old who was ahead of his development schedule. And in all fairness to Jones, he wasn’t over his head. In his first five starts of 2024, the right-hander had 39 strikeouts and 12.10 strikeouts-per-nine-innings. The only pitcher with more strikeouts than Jones during this time was Tyler Glasnow and the only pitcher with a higher strikeouts-per-nine-innings ratio was Freddy Peralta.
That strikeout ability makes Jones so lethal because, despite his struggles, his 9.76 strikeouts-per-nine-innings in 2024 was 24th among all pitchers with at least 120 innings pitched. Likewise, his 26.2% strikeout rate was 26th. Jones is a strikeout artist with a fastball and slider who contributes equally as much as Picasso’s cubic style and surrealist imagery. Of Jones’ 132 strikeouts this season, 59 came from his fastball and 59 from his slider. That’s a combined 89%.
There are two ways to interrupt that. The first is that Jones has his primary punchout pitches and shouldn’t deviate from them. The second is he needs to develop his changeup and curveball because if one, the other, or both of his go-to pitches falter, what’s he left with?
Both theories have their pros and cons. Option one is right, to some extent. Opposing hitters are hitting .224 against his fastball and .208 against his slider. These are objectively his best pitches. Leaning into them is mandatory moving forward. However, that doesn’t mean Jones should forgo his other weapons. While opposing hitters teed off on these other two pitches, a .348 average against the curveball and a .317 against the changeup, developing these pitches and improving their execution will keep hitters honest. Mostly, because there are underlying signs that show Jones’ slider isn’t as perfect as first glance suggests.
In July, opponents carried a .375 average against the pitch before Jones’ injury. It’s a small sample size, but hitters also caught up to the pitch in September, collecting a .256 average against it, including a pair of home runs. September, on the whole, illustrates these issues. Jones’ fastball was the only pitch in his arsenal, with a batting average below .250. By season’s end, he was more or less a one-trick pony.
Jones needs to unlock other parts of his game to reach his heights. And make no mistake, the heights he could touch are great. The Pirates only need to keep Jones long enough to reach them.
Oneil Cruz is another player whose sky-high hopes are hindered by concerns. Once the apple of the Allegheny’s eye as a 22-year-old phenom, Cruz is now a 26-year-old set to enter the fifth season of his career. So, where is the 6’7″ giant now, and what did he contribute to the 2024 Pirates? The short answer? Plenty, but not enough. The long answer? Well, that’s going to take some time to unpack.
When Cruz first received playing time, he wowed. He was hurling 96.7 mile-per-hour meteors from the infield, shooting balls 112.9 miles-per-hour off his bat, and recording some of the highest sprint speeds in the game. He was a dynamo achieving liftoff. Yet Cruz still had miles to go before he could float carefree, hitting just .233/.294/.450 in 87 games.
Cruz and the Pirates hoped 2023 would bring further sonic booms to his average, discipline, and power stroke. Those hopes, however, were dashed when Cruz broke his ankle in April, ending his season before it could even reach the atmosphere.
Cruz’s transformative, stratospheric leap into superstardom would have to wait until 2024. And to some extent, it arrived. The Dominican posted career-bests in batting average, OBP, slugging percentage, OPS, OPS+, total bases, and almost every counting stat. Part of that comes from pure volume, with Cruz playing 59 more games in 2024 than during his breakout 2022 campaign. But the truth is that he’s also a better player now. And that’s with room to grow as he gets further and further away from that ankle injury two seasons ago.
One of the few aspects of Cruz’s game that didn’t improve compared to the past is his power. In 2022, Cruz posted a 23.9% home-run-per-fly-ball rate and a .218 ISO. The latter ranks third in the NL among hitters with 350 plate appearances, trailing only William Contreras and Kyle Schwarber, and the latter ranks 20th. He has special pop, something made obvious by a 4.7% home-run rate that was second on the team behind Jack Suwinski.
That pop fizzled in 2024. Cruz’s ISO dropped to .190, 38th in the NL, and his 17.1% home-run-per-fly-ball rate was 21st. The -6.8% difference between his home-run-per-fly-ball rate would’ve been the 27th-largest year-to-year decrease in baseball. Cruz didn’t become a slap-hitter by any means, finishing 2024 14th in terms of doubles, while still hitting 21 homers. Yet even that feels low when considering he hit 17 in 2022 while playing 59 fewer games. Given his 6’7″ frame and 2022 success, Cruz should be hovering near 30 home runs in a full season, not barely eclipsing 20.
What makes that especially true is Cruz’s bat still shows extreme power potential. His 54.9% HardHit rate was tied for second in the NL. The only player ahead of him and Schwarber, who tied with Cruz, was NL MVP Shohei Ohtani. Likewise, Cruz was fourth in the NL in Baseball Info Solutions’ hard-contact rate with a 41.5% finish. Inside of him exists a potentially elite power hitter. Someone truly capable of unlocking this Pirates lineup and lifting them out of purgatory. But to become that player, Cruz might need to sacrifice some doubles for four-baggers.
Regardless, Cruz showed strides in 2024. With far better numbers in the second half than the first — hitting .246/.299/.439 during the latter and .277/.357/.464 during the former — there’s every reason to believe Cruz is beginning to mature into the star the Pirates need.
The final silver lining for the Pirates is the most unexpected, largely because this player wasn’t even on their roster, let alone their organization by Opening Day. That player is former San Francisco Giant and second-overall-pick catcher Joey Bart.
Bart had the best year of his career once claimed by the black and yellow after being DFA’d by the black and orange. He posted career bests in every offensive statistical measure of importance — batting average, OBP, OPS, doubles, total bases, RBI — and molded himself into an above-average offensive catcher, with a 126 wRC+ that ranked 11th among all catchers. That number puts Bart ahead of Kansas City’s Salvador Perez, Seattle’s Cal Raleigh, and the Dodgers’ Will Smith. The player we saw on the Allegheny looks nothing like the one we saw at McCovey Cove.
Bart’s second life ironically coincides with the struggles of another highly-picked catcher, Henry Davis. After being selected first overall by the Pirates in the 2021 MLB Amateur Draft, things aren’t going well for Davis. Through 99 career games in the majors, Davis is hitting .191/.283/.307 with a .590 OPS. His 2024 was worse than 2023, going from a 76 wRC+ then to a 30 wRC+ most recently, and a .653 OPS to a .453 OPS.
What’s confounding about Davis’ struggles is he rakes in the lower levels. In 71 AAA games, Davis has a .320/.424/.564 slash with a .988 OPS. In 74 AA games, he has a .847 OPS, and in 28 games at A+ ball, a .1.040 OPS. Davis isn’t someone who can’t hit. He can — just not in the major leagues.
Davis’ development — or lack thereof — is a reminder of why cynicism easily takes root in the Steel City. Most players who come to the Pirates only suffer, and most fans who root for them spend their lives haunted by their devotion. It’s a sad truth.
But if anyone is going to shake loose the chains of Pittsburgh’s past, it’ll be this group. It won’t be easy, nor can they do it alone. Everyone from ownership to the front office has to do their part to improve the roster and restore Pittsburgh to its former glory. Or else these too, will be ghosts of seasons past.
At first glance, not much changed for the Nationals in 2024 compared to 2023. The team finished with a 71-91 record again, missed the playoffs for the fifth straight season, and is still stuck in a rebuild. The names at the top and on the roster haven’t changed either. Really, the only difference between the two seasons is that 2024 saw them finish fourth in the NL East compared to last. That, though, has more to do with the Marlins sinking like a stone than the Nationals bettering themselves.
It doesn’t feel as if the times are a-changin’ in Washington. The walls aren’t rattling, the windows aren’t shaking, and there’s no battle raging. Instead, the Nationals have been stuck in the same stagnant place since their 2019 World Series win.
But, like every movement, upheaval starts slowly. Quietly. Despite the surface-level appearance, the Nationals are building a core that might make them beyond anyone else’s command. Something that will cause the order of the past to fade in favor of the ushering of a bright future.
One of the pillars of that future is oddly, James Wood. While not an odd notion now after several successful minor league seasons and high finishes on most prospect rankings, Wood wasn’t always viewed as a building block. When Washington acquired the outfielder from the Padres in return for Juan Soto, he was a 19-year-old absent from any top-100 lists and ranked fifth in the Padres farm system. He wasn’t the headline name in the trade like CJ Abrams, Robert Hassell III, or MacKenzie Gore were. Wood was just the other guy.
What’s happened since has Wood poised to be the guy in Washington.
Following his July 1 major league debut, Wood hit .264/.354/.427 with nine home runs, 41 RBI, 13 doubles, a .781 OPS, a 120 wRC+, and 14 steals. While an admittedly small sample size, playing just 79 games, Wood still stacks up favorably compared to others in his class, ranking fourth in OBP, eighth in wRC+ and wOBA, and 10th in OPS. More encouraging than Wood’s season in totality is its finish. Over the last two months of 2024, the rookie hit .274/.364/.462 with a .826 OPS and a 131 wRC+. The wheel’s still in spin, but everything indicates that Wood could be the real deal.
Underlying statistics only support that notion. Wood’s 52.0% HardHit rate would be 14th in all of baseball had he had enough plate appearances. That percentage equates to the 95th percentile of all hitters. Wood’s average exit velocity offers similar returns, clocking in at 92.8 miles per hour — a velocity shared by Gunnar Henderson. Wood’s not just putting a charge into the ball, though. His 11.6 walk rate is the same as Brandon Nimmo’s.
It’s early. Pitchers have yet to adapt to him or formulate a game plan specifically to target Wood. This success could all go away. Even with that caveat, look at the names he’s tying with as a rookie: Henderson, a former Rookie of the Year with two top-eight MVP finishes, and Nimmo, a player who, despite the lack of accolades, is 34th in OPS among all NL hitters since 2021. It’s remarkable.
Yet Wood still has room to grow, metaphorically and literally. While, he won’t be growing any taller, standing at 6’7″ already as a 22-year-old, he hasn’t matured into his frame. Despite his success mashing the ball, Wood’s 2.7% home-run rate would’ve been tied with Dansby Swanson for 97th. Wood ranks similarly in ISO, finishing the season with a .163 mark. That number is 124th among all players with at least 330 plate appearances. Suffice it to say, he isn’t a power hitter thus far.
The solution is simple: Wood has to become heavier than his 234 lbs. He needs to become stronger. Bulkier. Driving the ball hard and fast isn’t enough when he could drive it deep into the seats of Nationals Park. It’s not an unrealistic expectation. Aaron Judge is just as tall and weighs 282 lbs. Giancarlo Stanton is an inch shorter than both outfielders and is 245 lbs. Even if Wood meets the two somewhere in the middle, he’ll be headed in the right direction.
However, that direction and this whole concept of adding weight presents a double-edged sword. Wood’s game is partly built around his speed. Throughout his four seasons in the minors, Wood notched 76 doubles, with 16 coming in 2024, 28 the season before, and 27 in 2022. The only minor league season he finished with 20 or fewer doubles was 2021 when he played just 26 games. Steals are another vital part of his game, with 58 through the minors and 14 during his debut season in the bigs.
It’s not just luck. According to Baseball Savant, Wood’s 28.7 miles-per-hour sprint speed puts him in the 85th percentile of all players. Adding weight in pursuit of power will almost undeniably cost him some of the speed he’s prided himself on. And at that point, this equation becomes a question of opportunity cost. Is the power worth the speed? Are four, five, 10 fewer doubles worth five or six home runs? What are the pros and cons of asking a 22-year-old to remake the approach that got him here in the first place?
There’s no easy answer when nothing is inherently wrong. Wood’s valuable by default, and as the second half demonstrated, he might get better with time, not because of any tinkering.
Wood’s season is encouraging regardless and makes his first season an undeniable silver lining for a fanbase who watched Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, and Anthony Rendon either come with the dust or go with the wind.
What about the other Padres-turned-Nationals? The ones who headlined the trade? Well, Abrams had a boisterous and then bottom-dropping season. The pros are as follows: A .268/.343/.489 slash line in the first half with 15 home runs, 48 RBI, 15 steals, 21 doubles, a .831 OPS, and a 129 wRC+. The performance netted Abrams an All-Star appearance, the first of his career, and a feeling that the shortstop finally flung himself toward his fullest potential.
Then came the second half of the season. Over the final 49 games of the season, Abrams hit .203/.260/.326 with a .586 OPS. That last mark ranked 143rd out of 152 qualified hitters during the second half. To call it a putrid encore is an understatement. And that’s before mentioning that Abrams was demoted back to the minor leagues in late September for what GM Mike Rizzo said “was not performance-based,” but rather something that was “in the best interest of the player and the organization [to do so].”
Despite whatever issues occurred to send Abrams back down to Triple-A, this doesn’t mean the Nationals are quitting on him, something Rizzo stated explicitly when announcing his demotion to Triple-A. Barring the unforeseen, Abrams will be back at shortstop for the club on Opening Day. So, which player will Abrams resemble more when he steps back onto the diamond?
That answer is muddled by growth in some areas and stagnation in others. Abrams’ overall power keeps growing, with year-by-year increases in slugging percentage, home-run rate, and ISO. Abrams’ numbers pre-All-Star are especially indicative of that, with 15 of his 20 home runs coming then. Other gains come in Abrams’ discipline, with a career-best .314 OBP and 6.6% walk rate. He’s learning what to swing at and how to drive it.
What hasn’t changed is Abrams’ batting average. In 2022, he finished with a .246 mark. A year later, .245, and in 2024 it was back to .246. Part of this is Abrams’ .203 batting average following the All-Star Game. He was terrible and paid the price statistically. Characterizing this second half as a black hole is slightly disingenuous, however. Abrams hit .271/.308/.458 during September with a .766 OPS. He was righting the ship. And perhaps he might’ve if not for being demoted 13 games into the month.
Stripping everything away — as much as there is — tells us this: Abrams is an unfinished product. He has room to grow, some of which he’s tapped into, and some of which he’s yet to. But even considering the ups and downs, he’s a positive player. His .747 OPS was third among all players who ended 2024 as a part of the organization. Likewise, his 107 wRC+ was tied for fourth. If this is his worst, then the Nats are in good hands.
MacKenzie Gore, another former Friar from the Soto trade, had his warts in 2024 as well.
Entering 2024, Gore had something to prove. He’d shown flashes in 2023, with particular skill in striking out hitters, but too many home runs allowed and walks issued blanketed some of the optimism. And for all the hope that once made Gore a sought-after prospect, he touted a 4.45 ERA over his first two seasons, which put him 83rd among all pitchers during that time with at least 200 innings pitched.
What followed in 2024 was a reignition. Gore cut down on walks and home runs, kept the ball out of danger, and extinguished opposing bats. And that’s despite pitching 30 more innings in 2024 than in 2023. His 3.90 ERA was a new career-best, as was his 103 ERA+, 3.53 FIP, 8.9% walk rate, and 2.1% home-run rate. Gore burned down his reputation and reforged himself as something new.
That’s not to say Gore’s rid of imperfection. His strikeout rate decreased from 26.0% to 24.8%, while opposing hitters bettered their batting average and OBP against him. He wasn’t putting away hitters as easily as the year before. Nor was he compensating for his lack of strikeouts with an uptick in ground balls, ending the season in the 33rd percentile in ground-ball rate. Couple this with a decreasing strikeout rate, and a 4.20 xERA, which falls in the 39th percentile, and Gore’s 2024 might be a candidate for regression in 2025.
That, however, is all hypothetical. What’s known is this: Gore got better in 2024. He stopped allowing longballs, started limiting walks, and posted the ninth-best FIP in the NL. At 25, soon to be 26, there’s every reason to believe Gore will lead this rotation moving forward.
The pitchers below Gore on the depth chart also provide a silver lining. Jake Irvin could’ve — and arguably should’ve — been an All-Star this season. On July 4, Irvin sported a 2.80 ERA thanks to eight shutout innings against the Mets. That number was lower on July 4 than the ERAs of NL All-Stars Max Fried, Cristopher Sánchez, Shota Imanaga, and Tyler Glasnow. Irvin’s All-Star case was very real.
What might’ve cost him a nomination were his last two starts of the first half. In them, Irvin combined to allow 12 earned runs — six to the Mets and another six to the Brewers. This bumped his ERA from 2.80 to 3.49 and sent Irvin spiraling. He’d post a 5.90 ERA over his final 13 starts of the season and mar what was shaping to be a successful season.
If Irvin can find the better parts of his game in 2025, we’re talking about a pitcher not only as good as Gore but maybe even better than him. Should Irvin fall somewhere in the middle, that’s still plenty of reason to celebrate for a team needing pitching. Other rotational relief might come from DJ Herz, Mitchell Parker, and a returning Josiah Gray.
The Nationals won’t have to search far to find other help. Former second-overall-pick and top prospect Dylan Crews made his major league debut in 2024, should premiere with the team in 2025, and has All-Star capabilities. Brady House, the club’s first-round-selection in 2021, is on the verge of joining Crews, finishing his 2024 campaign in Triple-A. House was joined there by Hassell III, another highly-regarded prospect once upon a time and one of the final pieces of the Soto trade yet to emerge in majors. And that’s not all of their young talent. The club just won the 2025 MLB Draft Lottery earlier this week.
All told, the Nationals seem to be in safe hands. They have a superstar in waiting in Woods, a pitching pipeline richer than it’d appear, and a shortstop who can live up to the billing if he unlocks some stability. It’s not much. Nor is it obvious to see in the muddied waters of mediocrity the team’s been drenched in since 2019, but Nationals fans should keep their hopes high and their eyes wide for the loser now will be later to win.