Tim Benz: For Ben Cherington, it's not what he 'learned' in 2020. It's what he chooses to believe for 2021.

I’ve always been a big fan of the cartoon “South Park.”

Don’t tell me what happened in “The Pandemic Special.” I’ve got it on the DVR.

A recurring spoof in the early seasons of that show was that every episode ended with one of the kids telling the other characters, “You know, I learned something today.”

Dulcet piano music played in the background, as a life lesson was explained by one of the children. It was a tongue-in-cheek gimmick to lend faux gravitas to the previous 29 minutes of chaos, political incorrectness, bathroom slapstick and dystopian humor you had just witnessed.

You know, kinda like enduring the 2020 Pittsburgh Pirates season.

General manager Ben Cherington’s season-ending press conference Wednesday began in the same way one of those early “South Park” episodes usually ended. He got a big picture, “What could you learn from your first season on the job in just 60 games?” type of question.

“We’re always searching for more answers,” Cherington replied. “We’re always trying to learn. And there is never a season where you learn as much as you want to.

“I do think we learned a lot from watching our guys working together. We learned a lot about how the team finished up and how the team competed the last few days of the season. … The learning will continue all offseason.”

Cherington’s response was a diplomatic one.

The genuine response would probably be, “We stink, and we are every bit as bereft of talent, answers and payroll as people suggested we’d be long before the coronavirus pandemic shortened the season.”

Where is the evidence suggesting that any part of 19-41 this summer was the last chapter of a regression and next year will start a turnaround?

This team’s offense was last in runs, OPS, on-base percentage and slugging percentage, and it was third from the bottom in batting average and home runs.

The club had the second-most errors in baseball and the second-worst fielding percentage.

The pitching staff yielded a 4.68 ERA and a National League-leading 249 walks. The bullpen converted just six saves in 19 opportunities.

And if you look at individual stat lines of the players, who jumps out as someone that appears to be part of the solution?

Of players who appeared in at least 40 games, catcher Jacob Stallings’ .248 batting average was the best on the team. Colin Moran was the only player to reach 10 home runs. He and Adam Frazier led the team in RBIs with 23 — no better than 118th in MLB.

Ke’Bryan Hayes? Yes. Maybe him. The rookie third baseman appears to be worthy of all the defensive hype he’s received. And based on his .376 batting average in 24 games, the bat looks a lot further along than what we were led to believe.

But if we are to assume he is the real deal, do we then have to assume that Bryan Reynolds was a one-year wonder and Josh Bell will never get back to his form of early 2019? After all, Reynolds’ average dipped from .314 last year to .189 in 2020.

Bell had 59 strikeouts but only 44 hits. He batted .226 with a .669 OPS and just eight homers and 22 RBIs.

At the start of the season, many wondered if there would be enough spots to go around for the crowded middle infield of Kevin Newman, Adam Frazier, Erik Gonzales and Cole Tucker. Well, they all hit between .220 and .230. And Tucker spent much of his time in the outfield. So it’s not like anyone staked a claim for 2021.

And now with Oneil Cruz wrapped up in that fatal motor vehicle incident in the Dominican Republic, his status for next year is unknown as well.

As for the pitching, Jameson Taillon and Chris Archer didn’t throw a pitch of consequence. Mitch Keller looked improved — for five starts. Trevor Williams regressed — to the tune of a 6.18 ERA.

Joe Musgrove and Steven Brault had better numbers than anticipated. But what questions are they answering? Who will be third and fourth in the rotation next year? Maybe?

And the bullpen, it’s one giant question. As it was game-to-game this year — a bunch of arms, some with talent, but no clear-cut roles or structure.

For Cherington, the question isn’t so much about what he “learned.” It’s more about what he chooses to believe. It’s about what answers he decides are real. Which ones he hopes are true, and which ones he talks himself into being fiction.

Because most of what the data and tape tell you is that the Pirates are beyond repair for 2021, unless ownership throws a massive amount of cash at the Major League payroll to fix problems quickly.

But that will never happen. In Pittsburgh, we all learned that decades ago. Cherington will figure it out soon enough. If he hasn’t already.

Too bad. I mean, I love “South Park.” But I’ve seen every episode. I’d rather watch some competitive baseball next year.