In his Pittsburgh twilight, Andrew McCutchen is still here and still hitting

DETROIT — One morning this winter, Andrew McCutchen walked across a snowy parking lot and entered a training facility north of Pittsburgh. He had recently signed a one-year, $5 million contract with the Pirates for the third year in a row.

He nodded at a visitor.

“Yup,” he said. “I’m still here.”

Now 38 years old, he is riding out the latter years of his career in the city where he became a star. Sports unions like these — aging stars back home — often create strange balances, where sweet nostalgia squares off against harsher realities.

McCutchen is still a recognizable name, a popular face, a last vestige of the last good era of Pirates baseball. He won the 2013 National League MVP when he was worth a stellar 7.8 bWAR. He helped the Pirates to three straight playoff appearances.

When the Pirates traded McCutchen to the Giants before the 2018 season, he wrote for the Players Tribune, talking of wanting to be like Derek Jeter with the Yankees or Cal Ripken Jr. with the Orioles — icons who only played for one team, synonymous with the city and the logo.

“I always wanted to be that guy for Pittsburgh,” he wrote.

Instead, reality got in the way.

He split 2018 between the Giants and the Yankees. Then came three years with the Phillies and one with the Brewers.

But McCutchen never sold his home in the Pittsburgh suburbs. He stayed in the city where he met his wife, a former member of the Pirates’ spirit squad, and saw his children born. His oldest is named Steel. Even when his career took him elsewhere, McCutchen did charity work in the city.

Before the 2023 season, when McCutchen was a free agent, his wife encouraged him to reach out to Pirates owner Bob Nutting. McCutchen, still in some ways the reserved son of a minister, was unsure. He finally sent the text. And when the Pirates soon offered that first $5 million deal, McCutchen did the only thing that felt right. He came back.

Then he did it again.

And again.

“At this stage and this point in my career, you don’t want to be a guy who bounces around going from place to place, team to team, trying to learn new organizations,” McCutchen said Wednesday. “You’re having to uproot your family. For me, that’s not something that I really want to be doing and I haven’t wanted to do.”

The initial return of this prodigal Pittsburgh son was a neat story that came with deeper, more complex realizations.

At his locker in Detroit’s visiting clubhouse last week, McCutchen leaned back in a black leather chair. Talked in a soft voice. Admitted he floated through so many seasons, either unaware or maybe unwilling to acknowledge the finitude of his career.

“It’s one of those things. … You don’t realize time and how time works,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been doing it at this point for 16 years, but a lot of those 16 years, it didn’t seem like time was changing. It seemed like time was kind of in the same place.”

Now, here in the twilight, on a Pirates team facing another frustrating summer, realities are finally setting in.

“I’ve gotten older, but I kinda feel the same,” he said, stroking his jawline. “Sure, facial features and things change. It’s not really older. You just get more tired, that’s the way I look at it.”

He’s one of the few who make it this far. In a time where aging players are increasingly devalued, McCutchen is one of only 12 players age 38 or older on an MLB roster. Eight of those players are pitchers.

“We can all look at the numbers, right?” McCutchen said. “There ain’t many 38-year-olds playing right now, especially position players. I’m in a unique spot to be able to still have an opportunity to play. I’m just trying to hold up my end of the bargain.”

In this game, time and numbers go hand-in-hand. Play as long as McCutchen, and you’ll see your name in surreal places.

“Shoot,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said, “he passed Roberto Clemente the other night.”

After the game where McCutchen tied Clemente for third on the Pirates’ all-time home run list, he tried to play off the accomplishment with nonchalance. He joked about taking so long to hit his fifth homer of the season.

“Played long enough to have the opportunity,” he told reporters.

On June 11, McCutchen belted a ball over the left-center field wall at PNC Park. He passed Clemente with his 241st home run as a Pirate. He now trails only Willie Stargell (475) and Ralph Kiner (301) in franchise history. In Pirates record books, McCutchen also ranks 10th in runs, ninth in hits, seventh in doubles and RBIs.

“It would be cool to see what the numbers would be if I was here my whole career,” McCutchen said a few days later. “Instead of top 10 we’re talking top five, top three in a lot of categories.”

Truth is it might have taken a team like the Pirates — constricted by ownership, still incentivized to sell tickets and ultimately willing to devote an aging hitter to a near-full-time DH role — for this reunion to happen and sustain. But all those factors aside, there is intrinsic value in McCutchen’s second act here in the city.

“I think it does (matter)” said Kelly, who once played with McCutchen in Triple A. “To provide the leadership and experience that he does has been invaluable for us.”

People in Pittsburgh have tattoos of McCutchen on their bodies. Pittsburgh Magazine named him 2023’s Pittsburgher of the Year. The dreadlocks are long gone and the speed that once made him must-see TV has diminished. But when new players come to the Pirates, they often talk of that pinch-themselves scene, meeting McCutchen for the first time.

McCutchen is both elder statesman and beloved teammate in the Pirates clubhouse. (Luke Hales / Getty Images)

“It’s a fan moment first,” Pirates catcher Henry Davis said. “It’s been pretty special to see a player you watched growing up still doing it, and obviously you can learn a lot just by how he goes about his business.”

When McCutchen first entered the league, it was easy to look at the likes of Willie Mays and Rickey Henderson, these legends who played so long, and figure he could be just like them.

“If I want to play 20 years, I’ll play 20 years,” McCutchen said. “I can play until 42. That’s the way I looked at it.”

But those players are all-time greats for a reason. Not everyone makes it 20-plus seasons. Especially in today’s game, veteran position players are a rarer breed than ever.

“It seems kind of like a thing of the past,” McCutchen said. “A guy playing 20 years? Yeah, right.”

McCutchen’s return to the Pirates two years ago is when — perhaps for the first time — he really felt like a veteran, when the truths of time finally started to hit.

He was back in a place that was supposed to be familiar.

But all his old teammates? Gone.

His old manager, Clint Hurdle? Gone.

The old front office? Gone.

“I didn’t know anybody,” he said.

McCutchen had lasted long enough to see a franchise go through an entire cycle, building, peaking, tearing down, starting over again.

“That’s probably one of the bigger moments of my career where I was like, ‘Yeah, I have been around for a long time,” he said.

Now on a last-place team with a 32-48 record entering play Wednesday — a rebuild turned into an arrested development, with fans increasingly angered at Nutting’s tight-pocket ownership — McCutchen is a steady presence in a year of chaos. The Pirates started 12-26, then fired manager Derek Shelton and replaced him with Kelly. They’ve endured controversies, covering a sign honoring Clemente with an advertisement for an alcoholic beverage and dumping personalized bricks fans purchased years ago at a recycling facility. Tragically, a fan fell 20 feet from the stands onto the field while celebrating a McCutchen double.

In the midst of all the turmoil, the team has been playing better since Kelly took over as manager. But even with a superstar in Paul Skenes, an icon in McCutchen and a fascinating unicorn in Oneil Cruz, no one is counting on the Pirates as some comeback story. This is still the franchise that hasn’t signed a free agent to a multiyear deal since 2016.

For a short time last August, the Pirates were playing meaningful baseball. McCutchen seemed energized. Now they’re back in the cellar.

If McCutchen has any real thoughts on the state of the franchise, he kept them to himself. “When I go out on the field I try to just be as consistent as I can,” McCutchen said. “I don’t try to think much past that. Try not to think too deep into whatever is going on or whatnot.”

But a few weeks ago, he talked of empathizing with the Pirates’ tortured fan base: “It’s plain and simple,” he said. “You want to have a competitive team and feel confident that that team is competitive … They’re obviously frustrated about what they’ve seen in the last few years, and I feel that frustration from them. They want to see a winner and rightfully so. They deserve it.”

One other important thing to note in all this: McCutchen has remained an above league-average hitter even here in these final years. As a DH, he has totaled only 3.0 bWAR since the start of 2023. But he hit 20 home runs for the 10th time in his career last season and had a 105 OPS+. This year, he has gone deep eight times. He’s hitting .271 and has a 119 OPS+. He hits in the top of the lineup, and on baseball’s weakest offensive team, he is among the Pirates’ most important players.

“We’re trying to create a winning environment here and do things we haven’t done in a long time,” Davis said. “He happens to have been here when they did it, so you try to keep your ears open.”

For McCutchen, this has not been an elongated farewell tour. This is not Griffey’s last ride with the Mariners. There’s pride that comes with performing. An athlete’s focus, too, that sometimes disables the urge to reflect.

“Try not to dwell too much on the past,” he said, “and try my best not to focus on the future. Just be where I am and be in the moment. “

On the rare occasion when McCutchen allows himself to zoom out, he sees this for what it is. He doesn’t seem interested in playing anywhere but Pittsburgh. He also won’t put a target on how much longer he wants to play.

“I don’t know my plans,” he said. “Only God knows my plans. So I don’t think about how much longer. I just know when it’s time, it’s time, and I’ll know that.”

Just as McCutchen represents the past for the Pirates, Paul Skenes represents the future. (Justin K. Aller / Getty Images)

He motions toward the locker of Skenes, the next face of this franchise. The 15-year age gap between McCutchen and Skenes is equal to the gap between Skenes and McCutchen’s oldest son.

“That’s wild,” McCutchen said. “Here I was as a rookie when he was this little kid, and now here he is playing in the big leagues, and I’m still here. He’s had a full life from then to now. A lot has happened in that time frame. While me, I’ve had this life that’s been relatively the same.”

McCutchen leaned back in the chair again. Nodded and let out a melancholy sigh. Time is starting to move differently. Clocks tick, sand trickles. McCutchen feels it, understands it.

He’s still here.

“And still capable,” he said. “It’s not gonna last forever, so I just try to appreciate it as much as I can.”

(Top photo: Dustin Bradford / Icon Sportswire / Getty Images)