PITTSBURGH — With the Pirates facing their most important offseason in five years — maybe longer — there's a fork in the road approaching for owner Bob Nutting.

Either he's willing to make the bold, necessary changes to fix all that has gone wrong, or it's time to sell and give someone else a chance.

I honestly don't know which path Nutting will choose, but I believe what Ben Cherington said on Sept. 11 — that he expects manager Derek Shelton to return in 2025 — was merely the general manager answering a question from his perspective, not a declaration on the Pirates' direction.

That will come this upcoming week, and it should involve Nutting dismissing Shelton and much of his coaching staff, sparing no expense when it comes to hiring a veteran manager who can juice more out of this group.

It's nothing against Shelton personally. We've had a good relationship. I think he's actually a smart baseball man. But after five years, the Pirates aren't where they should be, specifically with Nutting's stated desire of wire-to-wire contention and challenging for a playoff spot.

With one series left, the Pirates will have played .500 or better baseball for only about 6 1/2 weeks — nowhere near acceptable. Sitting at 55-52 on July 31, the Pirates also cratered in crunch time, dropping 33 of their past 53, playing .377 baseball (101-loss pace) during the most important stretch of the season.

It hasn't been good enough, and I'd hope Nutting can see that. It was obvious late this season as frustration mounted and attendance dropped.

Which is why he absolutely must make serious changes to reverse the Pirates' fortunes for 2025.

What should those entail? Let's take a closer look and also examine what's at stake for Nutting, the team's owner since 2007.

Blow it up?

As poorly as the Pirates have performed with trades and free agent signings, I don't believe the offseason changes will involve Cherington.

A GM in baseball oversees too many things. Firing Cherington would mean admitting the new plan has failed, and I'm not sure the Pirates are ready to do that, at least not without making several other important changes first.

At the same time, it's hardly an endorsement of the job Cherington has done.

Trade-wise, Cherington has made 15 transactions since January 2020 that sent out MLB talent. Those 17 players have produced 59.3 wins above replacement with their subsequent teams, according to Baseball Reference. Meanwhile, the 33 players Cherington acquired have combined for just 13.1 bWAR with the Pirates.

That's alarmingly lopsided.

Same thing in free agency. This offseason, Cherington signed six true free agents (Andrew McCutchen, Yasmani Grandal, Michael A. Taylor, Martin Perez, Aroldis Chapman and Rowdy Tellez) and traded for two more (Edward Olivares and Marco Gonzales).

Their combined salary: $37.6 million.

Their combined bWAR: 1.3 ... and 1.0 belongs to McCutchen.

If Nutting fired Cherington, I wouldn't blame him. At the same time, I'd argue the Pirates — for a variety of reasons — fell at least a half-dozen wins below their talent level, maybe more.

Say they did a better job of executing fundamentals and went 13-14 in August compared to 8-19 — perhaps with a different offensive approach or better in-game decisions — it could've had them at 83 or 84 wins.

That would be a logical progression from going 76-86 last season.

Should Cherington stay, the onus must then shift to the processes around him: professional and international scouting, research and development and improving development.

What's at stake?

I'm serious about selling the team.

I've tried to remain as objective as possible, allowing a full-scale rebuild to play out and believing new people are capable of producing different results.

But the Pirates are behind schedule. There hasn't been enough progress. Accepting this feels like accepting mediocrity, and we've seen way too much of that around here.

For example:

— Since Nutting took control of the Pirates in 2007, they're 1,282-1,527. That works out to a winning percentage of .456 that would translate into a 74-88 record over 162 games.

— Worse than that, the Pirates under Nutting have enjoyed just four winning seasons in 18 tries while finishing last in their division eight times.

— They've made three playoff appearances (2013-15), which equals their number of 100-loss seasons.

— Only the Royals (1,273) and Marlins (1,259) have won fewer games than the Pirates (1,281) since Nutting became owner in 2007.

That's not good enough.

I've been fair to Nutting and the Pirates. I've (mostly) resisted taking shots and met them where they were with covering a rebuild, trying my best to chronicle all they tried to change.

But the aforementioned results are impossible to ignore, especially when you consider the lack of money spent on major league players during Nutting's time as owner.

Spend more ... smartly

Using Cot's Baseball Contracts — an odd name but one of the industry sources for this sort of thing — and year-end 40-man payrolls, I examined how much the Pirates have spent on major league players compared to other teams for 17 full seasons from 2007-23.

It's actually worse than I expected:

— Only the Marlins ($1,119,070,547) are below the Pirates ($1,128,932,890) during that time.

— Which means that, yes, the Rays ($1,140,327,611) and A's ($1,211,599,406) have spent more on MLB payroll than the Pirates during Nutting's time as owner.

— We can laugh at the Yankees ($3,661,512,991) more than tripling the Pirates, but Milwaukee (22nd), Baltimore (23rd) and Kansas City (24th) have all spent more.

Why can't the Pirates rise above 29th in spending?

If Nutting can't or won't lift the weight, give someone else a shot.

Furthermore, when looking closer at those similarly sized MLB clubs, something else popped out in my research: their success.

Consider that, since 2007, the Rays, Athletics, Guardians, Diamondbacks and Royals have combined for 28 playoff appearances and 16 division titles.

The Pirates need to spend more, sure. Won't argue. But they also need to make better decisions, which brings us back to this upcoming offseason and who occupies the manager's seat.

Framework in place

Shelton has become the target of fan vitriol, but he didn't instruct David Bednar and Colin Holderman to implode during a key pivot point of the season. He doesn't instruct his coaches to have players look at third strikes. Professionals should make smart decisions on the bases, throw to the right ones and execute routine plays routinely.

At the same time, Shelton's in charge. Those in his position know this isn't Little League; it's pro sports and people lose jobs, especially when teams fall painfully short of expectations.

Two thoughts I've had this week while watching the Pirates finish their season:

— This group sure hasn't rallied around its manager when times got tough.

— What will that first-day-of-spring speech say?

I genuinely can't picture the latter and question whether it would be heeded without a sizable shakeup, a new voice installed and a statement made about what's acceptable and what's not.

I'm talking about things like hitting a ball to the wall and watching it while jogging to first, a failure to have good situational at-bats or the scrappiness that defined previous parts of Shelton's tenure but lacked for large parts of 2024.

It's why I think the Pirates need change but also why I think hope isn't lost, provided Nutting is willing to step in and insist that mediocrity won't be tolerated.

Because as easy as it might be to criticize Cherington for poor trades and his offseason spending, the Pirates did find a couple of key pieces this season in Joey Bart, Luis Ortiz and Dennis Santana.

Bryan Reynolds and Oneil Cruz are legitimate bats to build around, Isiah Kiner-Falefa has historically been better than he's shown, and Nick Gonzales could be another solution in the infield.

Perhaps a new hitting group can get more out of Henry Davis (2021 No. 1 overall pick) and Jack Suwinski (26 homers in 2023) and a deeper dive on the bullpen fixes Bednar and Holderman. But also don't lose sight of the starting rotation.

Paul Skenes, Jared Jones, Mitch Keller, Ortiz, Bailey Falter and someone else (perhaps Johan Oviedo or Bubba Chandler) should have the Pirates positioned well.

There will be offseason money to spend — at least the same as last year, one would think — and fewer holes to fill, which means the Pirates can focus their attention on a premium bat, Andrew McCutchen and a couple relievers.

But whatever they do, a bigger problem remains: putting the pieces together and crafting a culture rooted in winning that maximizes what they have under Skenes, not simply believing things will turn despite ample evidence to the contrary.

It's why Nutting shouldn't accept these meager bits of progress, instead aiming higher in 2025. And if he's unwilling to take the shot, do everyone a favor and pass the ball to someone who will.

(c)2024 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.