If 2015 feels like a long time ago, it must feel like an entire lifetime to Pittsburgh Pirates fans. Pittsburgh won 98 games that season and made the playoffs for a third straight time, the Pirates were Baseball America’s organization of the year, Travis Sawchik was writing a book called “Big Data Baseball” about how the Pirates were leading the analytics revolution, and the farm system was pretty solid, led by Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows and Josh Bell.
Glasnow and Meadows were traded to the Tampa Bay Rays back in 2018 in a much-savaged trade 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 as well, traded to the Nationals for pitchers Wil Crowe, who debuted in the majors in 2020, and Eddy Yean, a 19-year-old who pitched in rookie ball in 2018.