The Pittsburgh Pirates ranked 27th in wRC+ and 28th in wOBA in the combined 2022-2023 seasons.
There’s a chance those advanced offensive numbers won’t register for you, even if the Pirates ranked at the bottom of the league. So, how about this.
They ranked 29th in batting average. 27th in on-base percentage. 28th in slugging percentage. You could turn to any metric, and there wasn’t a positive sign from the Pirates offense.
By the end of the 2023 season, one of the best hitters on the team, third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, was meeting in secret with Double-A hitting coach Jon Nunnally.