The Pirates aren’t really all that bad.

Are they?

After the trade of Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole, no one expected the Buccos to be a very good team anyway.

Then the franchise did virtually nothing to improve the roster in free agency, waving the white flag long before the first pitch.

And there were some decent, inexpensive free agents to be had. Young guys, too. Guys that surely could have helped the club.

Instead, Nutting and Huntington and the boys said, “No thanks. Hard pass.”

Still, the Pirates started strong, were sitting at nine game above .500 on May 17 and looked to be, maybe, not all that putrid after all.

Ah, but they were fooling all of us with their wins and their exuberance and were teasing us all.

It was fool’s gold.

They were the Pittsburgh Pyrites.

They are 14-29 since that stellar sixish-week stretch to begin the season and are kind of what everyone thought they’d be.

A middling, mediocre-to-awful baseball team.

Does that really surprise anyone?

At 40-46 roughly midway through the season, it could be worse. (And it probably will be).

In March, a lot of Bucs’ fans would have said, “Hey, not too bad,” if they were told after the debacle of an offseason that the club would have that record at this point in the season.

It hasn’t been a total trainwreck.

But it hasn’t been the stuff of ticker-tape parades, either.

What has gone right

Corey Dickerson. He’s been a bright spot in a rapidly deteriorating lineup that has failed to score runs like it did during the first six weeks of the season.

Strangely jettisoned by the Rays — not a juggernaut itself — Dickerson has been a steady performer in the middle of the Bucs’ lineup, slashing .303/.449/.787 through the first half.

He has more pop than he’s shown. He’s also likely to be out the door come the end of the month as some contender needed a left-handed bat will likely snatch him up for peanuts and a perogie.

Austin Meadows. Sure, he’s not the second-coming of The Natural, but he’s been above average in a limited sample size.

Colin Moran. Adam Laroche 2.0 has been better than expected, coming up with some clutch hits. He’s still not the long-term answer.

What has gone wrong

Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco. These guys are supposed to be stars by now, right? Instead they are just another pair of average outfielders.

Sean Rodriguez. The way he’s going now, he’s probably swing and miss at the water cooler.

Pretty much everything else. The starting pitching has been spotty, the middle relief terrible and close Felipe Whatshisnamenow has been wildly inconsistent.

But the Pirates have made up for all of that with perhaps the worst baserunning by any team. Ever.

Still, was there any other outcome to this season?

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.