The 1916 Philadelphia Athletics had a .235 winning percentage which is the worst-ever season in baseball’s modern era. As of today, the 2020 Pittsburgh Pirates have won four games out of nineteen for a .211 winning percentage. If they play all 60 games on their schedule, they will need to win 11 of their remaining 41 games (a .268 clip) to not become baseball’s worst team ever. That is certainly doable especially if they could put together a three or four game winning. On the other hand, they are yet to win two games in a row this season.

The reasons for the team's poor showing are not hard to find. The offensive (in more ways than one) team stats currently place the Pirates 29th out of 30 in batting average, 27th in homeruns, and last in on-base percentage. Pittsburgh's pitching stats are only slightly better.

Payroll

In May, the Associated Press published an article about baseball’s team payrolls for 2020. The New York Yankees had the largest payroll at $242 million. As the article points out, the Yankees

. . . . tower over the Pittsburgh Pirates at $54 million — the lowest of any big league team in six years.

Pittsburgh cut its payroll from $77 million at the start of last season to a level not seen since Miami and Houston in 2014. Other teams near the bottom are Baltimore ($61 million), Tampa Bay ($69 million) and Miami ($71 million).

(Note - our local Ogden papers did not carry this AP story.)

Is it just money?

Certainly, payroll is a factor. The two teams currently with the best records, the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers, also have the largest payrolls. But the teams with the lowest payrolls (excluding Pittsburgh), Baltimore, Tampa Bay, and Miami, are all competitive to make 2020’s expanded-to-16 team playoffs.

Earlier this year, Bob Nutting cut his already low payroll by one-third leaving his team with little talent. That’s because, as I’ve written previously about the his management of the Pirates (see here, for example), Nutting has figured out that he does not need to field a winning team to make money. This year, all baseball teams will lose money because of the pandemic. But even though Nutting’s team won’t make the playoffs, his low payroll team would certainly be in line to lose the least.

*To put the four wins in perspective, Gerrit Cole who was traded by the Pirates to Houston also has four wins. Cole pitches tonight and could have more wins than the entire Pirate team at the end of the evening. From last week:

Gerrit Cole tonight. 7 innings 1 run 0 BB 8 K. He’s 4-0 this year and has is 20-0 in last 20 decisions. pic.twitter.com/uaSCmtLW5e

— Bob Pompeani (@KDPomp) August 15, 2020

UPDATE - Thursday morning

Wednesday night results: the Pirates lost and Gerrit Cole got a no decision and so both remain at four wins for the season.

I also checked how a bettor would stand if he/she had bet $10 on the Pirates to win in each of the twenty games they've played so far this season. The $200 bet would have returned $88.50. (Since they've been an underdog in all but three games, a bettor would probably be around even had they won 7 of the 20 games.)