With the turn to the twentieth century the Pittsburgh Pirates rattled off 14 straight winning seasons, winning one World Series and losing another. From 1918 to 1938 the Pirates only had two losing seasons and won another World Series and lost one more, too. For the next 30 years the Buccos were up and down, but still managed to upset the Yankees in the 1960 World Series. From 1969 to 1979 the Pirates were a dominating force in the newly formed six team National League East Division. The Bucs finished first or second every year but two. They won two World Series and lost four league championship series. Even in the troubled decade of the 80’s the Pirates had three winning seasons leading to the three straight 95+ division winning teams of the early 90’s. Those teams all came up short in trying to reach the World Series.

Since 1992 —32 seasons— the Pirates have only 4 winning seasons and one of those was an 82 win team.

Four.

4.

IV.

No matter how I type it, the embarrassment of it doesn’t change.

How downtrodden has the franchise become? At the end of the 1992 season the Pirates were 523 games above .500 for their history. They had not been .500 or below since 1903. With the 2-1 win on Sunday, the Pirates are now 10,878-10,877. By the end of this weekend the Pirates very well could be under .500 for their overall history.

Unreal.

Unacceptable.

The current edition of the Pittsburgh Pirates roared into the All Star break on a 1-8 stretch. The win Sunday allowed them to avoid a 9 game losing streak. Each  game piled more misery on top of the previous one. This season’s Pirate ship has no treasures and Captain Nutting is trolling the ocean floor in hopes of finding some lost change while his ship’s passengers are drowning.

Nutting became owner in 2007, but had a large voice in the operation of the team since 2002. That is over half of the last 40 misery filled years.

There are other bad owners in baseball, but all of them would be doing something at this point. Firing the GM, firing the team president, making threatening statements, making any statement. Something. Anything.

Nothing from Nutting.

How do the Pirates 4 winning seasons in the past 30 years stack up to other teams?

  • Arizona has 13, Tampa has 11, and Miami has 7. The first two teams didn’t join MLB until 1998 and Miami joined in 1993.
  • The A’s and Rockies are currently awful but have 14 and 8 respectively.
  • Big market teams: Atlanta(23), Cubs(14), White Sox(11), Houston(20), Angels(13), Dodgers(26), Mets(14), Yankees(29), Texas(13), Philadelphia(14).
  • Similar markets: Baltimore(9), Cincinnati(8), Cleveland(17), Detroit(9), Kansas City(5), Milwaukee(11), San Diego(10), San Francisco(16), St. Louis(24), Washington(11).

Kansas City is the team closest to the Pirates in terms of losing, with on big exception. The Royals appeared in back to back World Series in 2014 and 2015, winning the latter.

St. Louis, Cleveland, San Francisco, Tampa, and lately Milwaukee have found ways to maximize their budgets to become consistent winners. Aside from those examples, clearly money matters. As you can see, it doesn’t guarantee success —I’m looking at you Angels— but sure makes it easier.

Maybe the only thing to give Pirates fans hope is the idea of a salary cap after the 2026 season. Baseball has needed a cap for years. All baseball needs to do is look at the success of the NFL, where two of the gold standard franchises reside in Pittsburgh and Green Bay.

It appears commissioner Rob Manfred is on board based on his answer from an interview yesterday.

 

 

Lack of a salary cap is hardly the biggest issue with the Pirates. That distinction easily goes to Bob Nutting. Everyone knows Nutting won’t spend money. It has become increasingly clear he can’t find a way to hire competent people. But this season has highlighted the most disturbing aspect of Bob Nutting’s ownership.

He doesn’t care.

Washington Nationals owner Mark Lerner showed what an owner that cares looks like when he fired his manager and general manager last weekend. Whether you agree with Mike Rizzo being fired as GM doesn’t matter. Lerner didn’t like the direction of the organization and made a move.

In Pittsburgh, Ben Cherington is still employed as GM after 6 completely failed seasons. He headed up another draft and will be in charge for yet another trade deadline. In six years Cherington has one failure after another in both the draft and trade. And that is in addition to his miserable free agent signings.

That just can’t be possible, yet here we are.

In year six this is the offensive crew that Cherington has rounded up.

  • “Oh for 4” Henry Davis- I am still holding out hope but may be the only one.
  • Spencer “Tracy” Horowitz- Looks like Spencer, hits like Tracy.
  • Nick “Not Speedy” Gonzalez- Not real athletic but can hit fairly well which makes him a unicorn on this team.
  • Isaiah “Don’t Call Me Ralph” Kiner Falefa- 8 seasons, 35 home runs. Good utility guy, though.
  • Ke’Bryan “Two Hop” Hayes- Hits more soft two hoppers to second than anyone in the history of baseball.
  • Tommy Suwinski-Canario- That is to say they have no actual left fielder.
  • “Oh My” Cruz- Cruz either makes you say oh my good or oh my bad. He needs more good and far less bad.
  • Bryan “The Invisible Man” Reynolds- Head has been up his butt all year. Biggest disappointment on team.
  • Cutch…just Cutch- At 38 unfortunately still one of best hitters on team.

In year six of Cherington’s tenure that is wholly unacceptable. Cherington is an analytics guy and spent a lot of the meager money Nutting allots to his analytics department rather than better players.

Paul Skenes will start tonight’s all star game, the second straight year he was named the starter. He is a generational talent, and the Pirates have managed to NOT build anything around him in order to maximize his years in Pittsburgh.

The pitching staff, in general, has been lights out most of the year. There will be playoff teams that would love to have a rotation like Pittsburgh. Yet the Pirates have lost 58 games, 17 when the other team scores 3 or fewer runs. 17. They are the third worst team in all of baseball in year six of a rebuild.

As the losses pile up, Bob Nutting says nothing.

As the seats at PNC Park remain mostly empty, Bob Nutting says nothing.

As TV personalities, opposing players, and even scouts ridicule the Pirates, Bob Nutting does nothing.

The only time Nutting speaks is to apologize or comment on negative publicity. From a fan falling out of the stands and breaking his neck to a Clemente sign being covered by an advertisement to fan bricks being tossed in a dump, the Pirates have made plenty of negative news.

Fans have made it clear through airplane banners, billboards, and constant chants at PNC Park that Nutting needs to sell the team. And why wouldn’t he sell? He clearly doesn’t care. Nutting bought the team for 92 million dollars. The team is valued currently at well over a billion dollars. He could turn quite a profit and add to his billion dollar net worth.

Hell, maybe he doesn’t care about that either.

Why wouldn’t a guy that doesn’t seem to like baseball all that much and doesn’t care enough to fire a completely incompetent GM unload the team and accept the massive profit.

The team needs an offensive overhaul, and that overhaul could —and should— begin over the next two weeks. With this GM’s track record, how could the owner possibly trust him to make more trades. Trades that could ship out some quality pitchers. If the return isn’t acceptable the trades could further set back the franchise. If you stand pat there is a risk of missing a great chance to improve the offense.

I am not sure a salary cap will even make much difference with this particular owner. A new GM is mandatory, but Nutting will be the one hiring the new GM. In a few games the Pirates will sink below .500 in their history. Nothing will change drastically with Bob Nutting in the ownership role because he clearly doesn’t care.

The bottom line is a once proud franchise has sadly become a baseball laughingstock.

Two Cent Takes

MLB

~I have written many times about how much worse baseball is played these days. In case you don’t believe my expert analysis, here is a clip of what former major league player, Jeff Frye, thought of a recent game he attended.

 

~Perfectly —and maybe surprisingly— satisfied with the Pirates drafting Seth Hernandez. At pick six, the Pirates maybe got the best player in the draft. Hernandez has elite stuff and, barring injury, should fly through the farm system. Having said that, it is such a bad look to always look like you just won the World Series at every draft.

 

This goes with my main column. These guys think this is success. How about losing less than 90 games with all these good draft choices. Again, liked the pick, but these guys are clueless. 

~Every time I turn around a new AL East team is on fire. First Tampa, then the Jays, and now Boston. The Red Sox have won 10 in a row and are firmly in the pennant chase. Who needs Rafael Devers anyway?

~Check out my Musings podcast this week for my thoughts on the trade deadline and maybe even some trade suggestions for the Pirates, Phillies, and more.

Golf

~It is British Open week, or The Open as it is now referred to by everyone but me. Royal Portrush will host for the third time. In 2019, Irishman Shane Lowry won in his homeland. Who might hoist the trophy this year?

  • Scottie Scheffler is the favorite at 5/1. Surprise, surprise. He struggled a bit with the greens at the Scottish Open this past week.
  • Rory McIlroy comes in at 7/1 and also was frustrated by the greens last week in his runner up performance. He would be an outrageously popular winner.
  • Jon Rahm is 12/1 and playing well. However, I didn’t love his putting at the U.S. Open.
  • Bryson DeChambeau comes in at 14/1. It always seems Links golf should suit his grip it and rip it style. His record at The Open says otherwise.
  • Ludvig Aberg and Xander Schauffele are both 20/1. Schauffele is defending champion and Aberg is a burgeoning star.
  • I am going to go to the well one more time and pick Aberg to win. Surely he wouldn’t let me down three times. Si Woo Kim is my longshots at 80/1 if you like taking chances.
NFL

~Check out the show Quarterback: Season 2 on Netflix. After watching you will find it super easy to root for Joe Burrow, Jared Goff, and Kirk Cousins.

~TJ Watt is not living in reality. His age and second half performance last year just don’t justify a 40 million dollar contract. I hope they can find a compromise, but the Steelers should not allow Watt to strong arm the organization.

The Weekly Shiny Penny

This legend turned 64 yesterday. Jackie Earle Haley played Kelly Leak, the best little league player any kid from the 70’s ever saw play.

 


A Penny For My Final Thought…

Tonight five or six people will watch Major League Baseball’s all star game.

I am kidding, of course, but all star games and the festivities that surround them become more useless by the year.

The NFL Pro Bowl was the first to go. They now do some form of flag football and skills competitions. Nobody wants a star player to get hurt in an exhibition game.

The NBA is clinging to the dunk contest, which is still marginally enjoyable. Marginally being the key word. The actual NBA all star game is a complete joke and absolutely unwatchable.

The NHL all star game isn’t a whole lot better and the skills competition is…eh.

The baseball all star game was always the best of the bunch  but the last two decades plus have rendered it a simple exhibition game just like the others. Baseball tried to give it meaning by giving home field advantage in the World Series to the winning team. That ended quickly when the backlash of another stupid idea increased.

That leaves baseball with the home run derby.

They have tweaked the rules to keep the derby within the three hour TV window. Unfortunately, the cameras, split screens, and announcers can’t keep up with the pace. It makes watching on TV very difficult and unappealing. Then we have to listen to Eduardo Perez over analyze the event as if it was game seven of the World Series.

There is no good answer to the all star dilemma. They will never do away with the games, so you can choose to ignore them or come to accept them as they are. The games that used to mean something to the players because they could actually use the bonus money for winning —oh, and they had pride— is now simply an exhibition. It is a chance for the players to socialize with one another and have some fun.

It was fun to watch Oneil Cruz do this.

 

After the first hour I lost interest in the contest and couldn’t listen to Perez anymore.

Baseball was our last hope for a somewhat meaningful all star contest, but alas, it has fallen into the same dumpster as the other sports.

What I’d give to watch Dave Parker throw out Brian Downing at home plate or see Pete Rose plow over Ray Fosse to score a big run.

Just my two cents…