If 2015 feels like a long time ago, it must feel like a lifetime to fans of Pittsburgh Pirates. Pittsburgh won 98 games that season and made it to the playoffs for the third consecutive time, the Pirates were America’s Baseball Organization of the Year, Travis Sawchik was writing a book called “ Big Data Baseball ” about how the Pirates revolutionized the analytic The farming system was pretty solid, led by Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows and Josh Bell.
Glasnow and Meadows were traded to the Tampa Bay Rays in 2018 in a very devastated exchange for Chris Archer, the Pirates plummeted to 93 losses in 2019 and then finished with the worst record in the majors in 2020. Now Bell is gone too. , traded to the Nationals for pitchers Wil Crowe, who made his debut in the majors in 2020, and Eddy Yean, a 19-year-old who threw rookie ball in 2018.