If 2015 feels like a long time ago, it must feel like a lifetime for Pittsburgh Pirates fans. Pittsburgh won 98 games that season and made the playoffs for the third time in a row, the Pirates were the organization of Baseball America, Travis Sawchik wrote a book called “Big Data Baseball” about how the Pirates led the analytical revolution and the system The farm 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 wild deal for Chris Archer, the Pirates dropped to 93 losses in 2019 and then finished with the worst major record in 2020. Now Bell is gone too. he switched with national team pitchers Wil Crowe, who made his senior debut in 2020, and Eddy Yean, a 19-year-old who threw in the debut ball in 2018.