Mark Madden: Between nostalgia and progression, Pirates face critical decision with Andrew McCutchen

If you look at the stats, re-upping Andrew McCutchen for next season seems a no-brainer.

McCutchen is second on the Pirates in on-base percentage (.338) and home runs (20), third in OPS (.771) and runs (64). He’s hiked his batting average to .241, respectable by today’s standard.

At 37, McCutchen is elderly but provides clubhouse leadership (mostly by example) to the team’s younger players.

Most important to ownership, McCutchen is affordable. He’s making $5 million on a one-year contract and likely would return for the same. He’s popular. He provides profit.

But no decision gets made in a vacuum.

McCutchen can’t play outfield anymore. Not even the close confines of right field at PNC Park. He’s never played first base. He’s DH or bust.

If McCutchen returns, does that block Henry Davis?

Davis, 24, was the first pick overall in the 2021 draft. The Pirates have done a horrible job with Davis’ development, having neither a plan nor a position for him.

Davis hasn’t held up his part of the bargain, either. He should be batting cleanup and bashing home runs by now. Davis has eight homers and a .191 average in 329 career MLB at-bats.

If McCutchen is DH, where does Davis play?

Bryan De La Cruz is in right field. (He’s entering his first year of arbitration.)

Endy Rodriguez should return from injury to catch.

Those are all of Davis’ positions. Where does Davis fit? (Maybe Rodriguez plays first base and Davis catches. But the Pirates seem to want a veteran catcher to handle their young pitchers.)

If the Pirates have lost faith in Davis, perhaps they trade him.

But then you’ve ditched a 1/1 draft choice who never really got a lengthy shot in MLB to keep a 37-year-old who’s going to hit a wall one of these years.

You’ve also highlighted your incompetence at drafting and developing.

For all the bleating about McCutchen’s leadership, what’s he ever led them to?

If you keep bringing back a 37-year-old, is your team progressing? What’s your ambition?

The decision isn’t as simple as it looks.

Or maybe it is. McCutchen is popular. The fans are invested. Letting McCutchen walk would be bad PR for a team that must profit by PR because it has no serious intent to win.

The big mistake the Pirates made when McCutchen returned in 2023 was not making him switch uniform numbers. From 22 to something else. Sell that McCutchen merchandise all over again.

Missing on Davis is an epic fail for the Pirates, one of the biggest in an organization fraught with flaws. That shouldn’t be overlooked as we celebrate McCutchen, a mildly effective nostalgia act but really not much more.

It makes you wonder if Paul Skenes has succeeded in such a big way because he wasn’t in the Pirates’ system very long before getting to the big-league level. Skenes just came in and pitched. The Pirates didn’t have time to ruin him.