PITTSBURGH — We all know who to blame first for the Pirates' hideous face plant this season. The Buc stops with one man.

Bob Nutting should not own a Major League Baseball team. It's embarrassing.

Year after year, we watch the Pirates and their piddling payroll play Washington Generals to the rest of the league. The only saving grace is that it usually happens in relative anonymity. Our pain is private.

Not this year. It's worse this year. It's extra mortifying and excruciatingly public because of the spotlight that naturally attends one of the great young pitchers in baseball history.

Millions must have been wondering the same thing as they watched Paul Skenes make history Tuesday night in Atlanta, becoming the first pitcher to start an All-Star Game in each of his first two seasons: How does this guy, with a 2.01 earned-run average, all kinds of other eye-popping stats and a ridiculous arsenal of pitches, have a record of just 4-8?

How is that even possible?

The Pirates. That's how. It's Nutting and the bumbling general manager he hired who have failed so miserably to build even an average lineup around Skenes. They couldn't even build a bad lineup, instead producing a historically horrifying one. All of that is well-established.

I would suggest, however, that there is a bit more to the story.

I would suggest that Nutting's stinginess and cluelessness hardly absolve certain players. Most prominent among them is outfielder Bryan Reynolds, who is supposed to be a middle-of-the-order rock but who instead is one of the most disappointing players in the game.

Jayson Stark, who has been covering the sport expertly for decades, picked Reynolds among his "bottom three" candidates for the National League's midseason LVP — Least Valuable Player — and who could disagree?

The Pirates' first $100 million man has been awful, with a .225 batting average, a putrid .287 on-base percentage, a .656 OPS and just 10 home runs. You can't blame Nutting for that.

Reynolds, who turns 31 in January, appears to be a declining player. He has been moved around in the outfield, to less demanding positions, and these are his OPS numbers over the past five seasons:

— 2021 — .912

— 2022 — .807

— 2023 — .790

— 2024 — .791

— 2025 — .656

In April 2023, the Pirates made Reynolds their first $100 million player, signing him to an eight-year, $106.76 million extension — and there's a story to be told there. And maybe a narrative to be busted.

The narrative says the Pirates "never keep their good players."

Reality says otherwise, at least when it comes to position players. For all the legitimate criticisms of Nutting, you cannot say the Pirates never sign good, 20-something players to second contracts. Because they do.

Remember the hoped-for dream outfield of Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco? Before Oneil Cruz came along, those were probably the Pirates' three most talented young position players of the past 20 years — and the Pirates signed all three to contracts designed to buy out years of free agency and take them past their 30th birthdays.

The Pirates kept pitcher Mitch Keller with a $77 million extension. They kept Ke'Bryan Hayes — not a great choice, I know, but few complained at the time — with a $70 million contract. And they retained Reynolds.

The Pirates' problem, by and large, isn't letting young talent get away. It's producing young talent in the first place. It's acquiring talent, developing talent and buying it.

At some point, though, the talent on hand needs to produce. Hayes, as a hitter, is horrible beyond words. Cruz has flatlined outside of home run derbies. Most of all, the $100 million man is failing to live up to his contract, and his failings went a long way toward burying the Pirates this season.

It's OK to put some blame on the players, too.

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