OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: Dull days of July

[ChaosAgent]

There payroll is propped up by by Yellich. Christian is owed 100 million over the next 5 seasons

Brewers seen as baseball 'success story' despite small market, payroll

Brewers owner Mark Attanasio said the 2024 season has been "as much fun as I’ve had since I’ve owned the team" as Milwaukee heads toward its sixth postseason berth and fourth division title in the past seven years.

www.sportsbusinessjournal.com

This doesn't make any sense. Is our payroll propped up by Reynolds?

 

[Empoleon8771]

The payroll debate is just tiring because the jobs being done by the management and coaches is shit even in the context of being hamstrung by Nutting. It's just a shit sandwich all around.

I think Oscar Marin is literally the only piece of the owners/management/coaches that doesn't seem rotten right now. Nutting is perfectly content in being mediocre and raking in money, he has no interest in putting out a contender. Cherington has shown to be a bad GM that pissed away a ton of assets he inherited and has done a horrid job at rebuilding the team. Shelton is a bad manager that is pretty much only good for being likeable. It's just shit all around.

 

[bigdaddyk88]

This doesn't make any sense. Is our payroll propped up by Reynolds?

Chapmen and Reynolds combined for 20 million. Yellich makes 22 million this season next season mitch and Reynolds combine for 27 million the Brewers have yellich at 27 million Montas at 20 and Hopkins at 18 million

2025 Pittsburgh Pirates Payroll Table

An updated look at the Pittsburgh Pirates 2025 payroll table, including team totals, retained figures, and complete breakdowns of player salaries, and bonuses.

www.spotrac.com

 

[Coastal Kev]

The payroll debate is just tiring because the jobs being done by the management and coaches is shit even in the context of being hamstrung by Nutting. It's just a shit sandwich all around.

I think Oscar Marin is literally the only piece of the owners/management/coaches that doesn't seem rotten right now. Nutting is perfectly content in being mediocre and raking in money, he has no interest in putting out a contender. Cherington has shown to be a bad GM that pissed away a ton of assets he inherited and has done a horrid job at rebuilding the team. Shelton is a bad manager that is pretty much only good for being likeable. It's just shit all around.

If the fans wanted to, they could make MLB have Nutting sell the team. It would take the nearly the entire fanbase making MLB uncomfortable, but it would happen. Fans conceding to Nutting's criminal ownership is why nothing every changes.

 

[bigdaddyk88]

If the fans wanted to, they could make MLB have Nutting sell the team. It would take the nearly the entire fanbase making MLB uncomfortable, but it would happen. Fans conceding to Nutting's criminal ownership is why nothing every changes.

Its not just nutting
The reds gm or owner said last season it’s not worth having a 100 million dollar payroll without guarantee playoffs

Reds' COO Phil Castellini Discusses Payroll Reduction

One of the major storylines of this past offseason was the extent to which the Reds would cut spending. General …

www.mlbtraderumors.com

 

[Empoleon8771]

If the fans wanted to, they could make MLB have Nutting sell the team. It would take the nearly the entire fanbase making MLB uncomfortable, but it would happen. Fans conceding to Nutting's criminal ownership is why nothing every changes.

Lmao that's a good joke

 

[ChaosAgent]

Chapmen and Reynolds combined for 20 million. Yellich makes 22 million this season next season mitch and Reynolds combine for 27 million the Brewers have yellich at 27 million Montas at 20 and Hopkins at 18 million

2025 Pittsburgh Pirates Payroll Table

An updated look at the Pittsburgh Pirates 2025 payroll table, including team totals, retained figures, and complete breakdowns of player salaries, and bonuses.

www.spotrac.com

Right, but you're looking at an expenditure as "propped up by a player." Milwaukee is choosing to spend more money than we do, and a lot of it is spent on Christian Yelich. No one is forcing them to spend at the level they are.

 

[bigdaddyk88]

Right, but you're looking at an expenditure as "propped up by a player." Milwaukee is choosing to spend more money than we do, and a lot of it is spent on Christian Yelich. No one is forcing them to spend at the level they are.

Yes they are the lowest payroll team in the playoffs that’s why i said you have to have a 110 million payroll to compete.

 

[Big Daddy Cane]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1829122253256036807

 

[Goalie_Bob]

The only way Nutting would sell is if someone wants to vastly overpay. Forbes has the value of the franchise at 1.32 B. So a potential owner would probably have to offer around 2.5 B.

If they are making say 50m a season, that would be offering 20+ years of profits in one swoop. And money now is worth more than it will be in 20 years.

The issue is the person who would want to buy them would have to do it as a love affair or as just wanting to own a MLB team. There don't appear to be any people locally who would be available to pay that kind of money so it comes down to an outsider overpaying.

 

[TooManyHumans]

The payroll debate is just tiring because the jobs being done by the management and coaches is shit even in the context of being hamstrung by Nutting. It's just a shit sandwich all around.

I think Oscar Marin is literally the only piece of the owners/management/coaches that doesn't seem rotten right now. Nutting is perfectly content in being mediocre and raking in money, he has no interest in putting out a contender. Cherington has shown to be a bad GM that pissed away a ton of assets he inherited and has done a horrid job at rebuilding the team. Shelton is a bad manager that is pretty much only good for being likeable. It's just shit all around.

Yep, the payroll is not the major issue with this team. You can be cheap and still compete (the Rays have done it plenty of times). You can't be cheap and bad at acquiring and developing talent.

 

[ImporterExporter]

The Pirates couldn't develop their own players under the Huntington regime. They were notorious for lack of development, especially amongst pitchers. That spanned 13 years.

Our problem now is hitting. The pitching talent in this org. is superb. The manager was a former hitting coach. The current hitting coach nearly ended Yelich's career in Milwaukee, got fired, and now seemingly has an endless runway here, despite the Bucs posting absolutely shite #'s.

To be fair, Cherrington is hiring these people and now sitting on his hands. That's my issue with him at this point and if we don't see wholesale changes this fall/winter, then I think it's safe to assume he is being told to keep the current staff by a higher power. No GM can look at the record of his manager and hitting coach and be satisfied.

Again, it's all moot because you can can every single person under Nutting and Nutting would still be the person bringing in the highest level replacements.

 

[Empoleon8771]

The Pirates couldn't develop their own players under the Huntington regime. They were notorious for lack of development, especially amongst pitchers. That spanned 13 years.

If that's how you'd describe the Huntington years, I don't even know how you can describe the Cherington years.

The 2019 Pirates had Bell (2.8 bWAR), Frazier (2.5 bWAR), Newman (3.0 bWAR), Marte (2.9 bWAR) and Stallings (1.5 bWAR) as internally developed players, and this doesn't even include Reynolds who was acquired as a prospect. Who do the Pirates have today that was internally developed players under Cherington? It's solely Jones and Skenes in terms of guys Cherington has added.

Those Pirates teams may have had issues developing players but Cherington's Pirates are a clear and obvious step down from even what Huntington was able to do.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I think the absolute biggest way I can criticize Cherington is look at what he did with what he inherited from the 2019 Pirates. Even though the 2019 Pirates had that awful end of season collapse that cost Hurdle and Huntington their jobs, that team had some decent talent and was only 1 year removed from an 82 win season. That team had legitimate trade chips between Bell, Frazier, Marte, Taillon and Musgrove, plus they had Reynolds and Newman as MLB proven young guys and Keller and Hayes as guys who would be ready soon. They also had Cruz as a top prospect in the system already. The team Cherington inherited had pieces, he wasn't coming into a graveyard of a team.

What did he get for the trade chips on that 2019 team? Marte was traded for Peguero and Malone, today Peguero looks like a bench piece with no standout traits and Malone ended up a bust. Taillon was traded for Yajure, Contreras, CSN and Escotto, where they only got 1 mediocre season out of Contreras (who they then lost for nothing) and everyone else was a bust. Bell was traded for Yean and Crowe, where Yean ended up a bust and Crowe was a horrendous MLB pitcher for the Pirates. Frazier was traded for Suwinski, Marcano and Miliano, where they got 1 good season out of Suwinski (who they likely end up moving on from this off-season) and everyone else was a bust. Marcano even later got banned from the MLB entirely for gambling.

Musgrove is the only guy that the Pirates actually got value for, but that value was 95% Bednar and hopes with Endy as a prospect. What value does a great closer even have to a 100 loss team, anyway? If Cherington was a smart GM, he would have sold high on Bednar, but his other trades make me believe he would have just botched that deal as well.

No one can deny that this team is absolutely crippled by Nutting, that's a factual statement. But you simply cannot look at Cherington's tenure as the Pirates GM as anything but a major failure with what he inherited versus what they have now. Even though the records won't show this, I think this team is simply in a worse spot now than they were in 2019. If that doesn't paint how major of a failure his tenure has been, I don't know what will.

 

[Coastal Kev]

The only way Nutting would sell is if someone wants to vastly overpay. Forbes has the value of the franchise at 1.32 B. So a potential owner would probably have to offer around 2.5 B.

If they are making say 50m a season, that would be offering 20+ years of profits in one swoop. And money now is worth more than it will be in 20 years.

The issue is the person who would want to buy them would have to do it as a love affair or as just wanting to own a MLB team. There don't appear to be any people locally who would be available to pay that kind of money so it comes down to an outsider overpaying.

There are only 2 ways that force Nutting to sell: First would be MLB changing course and forcing his fraud ownership to change. This isn't going to happen, based on the last collective bargaining agreement, MLB big league owners love having 4A franchises.

Second, the fanbase and the media make things very uncomfortable for Nutting and his family. This could happen, but I'm not holding my breath. All 3 professional sports team have accepted failure and status quo as the norm, with large numbers of the fanbase providing cover for their malaise.

Such a miserable time for the Pittsburgh Sports team. Nutting, Cherringon, Shelty, Sully, Tomlin........zero accountability.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Also to expand on that 2019 comment, this was after Huntington did that disastrous Archer trade where they gave up Glasnow, Meadows and Baz for Archer. Despite that deal, the Pirates still had the 9th ranked prospect pool in the MLB according to Fangraphs led by Cruz (60 FV), Hayes (55 FV), Keller (55 FV) and Swaggerty (50 FV). That deal was horrendous, but the Pirates still had a strong prospect pool and had just graduated Reynolds and Newman into the MLB.

Now imagine how the Pirates prospect pool today would look if they traded 3 of their top prospects and young players. It's already ranked 21st according to Fangraphs and that would assuredly tank it to last place.

 

[GilbertSeinfeld]

Well done @Empoleon8771, very good posts.

 

[Coastal Kev]

I think the absolute biggest way I can criticize Cherington is look at what he did with what he inherited from the 2019 Pirates. Even though the 2019 Pirates had that awful end of season collapse that cost Hurdle and Huntington their jobs, that team had some decent talent and was only 1 year removed from an 82 win season. That team had legitimate trade chips between Bell, Frazier, Marte, Taillon and Musgrove, plus they had Reynolds and Newman as MLB proven young guys and Keller and Hayes as guys who would be ready soon. They also had Cruz as a top prospect in the system already. The team Cherington inherited had pieces, he wasn't coming into a graveyard of a team.

What did he get for the trade chips on that 2019 team? Marte was traded for Peguero and Malone, today Peguero looks like a bench piece with no standout traits and Malone ended up a bust. Taillon was traded for Yajure, Contreras, CSN and Escotto, where they only got 1 mediocre season out of Contreras (who they then lost for nothing) and everyone else was a bust. Bell was traded for Yean and Crowe, where Yean ended up a bust and Crowe was a horrendous MLB pitcher for the Pirates. Frazier was traded for Suwinski, Marcano and Miliano, where they got 1 good season out of Suwinski (who they likely end up moving on from this off-season) and everyone else was a bust. Marcano even later got banned from the MLB entirely for gambling.

Musgrove is the only guy that the Pirates actually got value for, but that value was 95% Bednar and hopes with Endy as a prospect. What value does a great closer even have to a 100 loss team, anyway? If Cherington was a smart GM, he would have sold high on Bednar, but his other trades make me believe he would have just botched that deal as well.

No one can deny that this team is absolutely crippled by Nutting, that's a factual statement. But you simply cannot look at Cherington's tenure as the Pirates GM as anything but a major failure with what he inherited versus what they have now. Even though the records won't show this, I think this team is simply in a worse spot now than they were in 2019. If that doesn't paint how major of a failure his tenure has been, I don't know what will.

You're absolutely correct with nearly everything in this post. And I agree, Cherrington has been a disaster. My point remains, you end up with a guy like Cherrington when your owner has a stated goal of maximizing profits over being competitive. Even if you fire Cherrington and clean house, what competitive baseball person would want to come and work for ole bob?

 

[Empoleon8771]

You're absolutely correct with nearly everything in this post. And I agree, Cherrington has been a disaster. My point remains, you end up with a guy like Cherrington when your owner has a stated goal of maximizing profits over being competitive. Even if you fire Cherrington and clean house, what competitive baseball person would want to come and work for ole bob?

I agree, but Cherington wasn't some nobody when he was brought in. You're not getting a top manager and GM to come to the Pirates as long as Nutting is cheap, but at the same time, you can get someone good. I think the Pirates hiring Hurdle is a great example of that, you can get good managers and GMs even with the Pirates budget.

 

[Goalie_Bob]

I agree, but Cherington wasn't some nobody when he was brought in. You're not getting a top manager and GM to come to the Pirates as long as Nutting is cheap, but at the same time, you can get someone good. I think the Pirates hiring Hurdle is a great example of that, you can get good managers and GMs even with the Pirates budget.

Totally agree. There are plenty of teams doing just fine with lower 3rd payrolls.

The Pirates don't need to spend much money to have a good farm system and good major league roster.

Do I think they need to spend money this offseason, absolutely, but that is due to the absolutely horrible job that Cherrington has done with the offensive side of the organization.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Totally agree. There are plenty of teams doing just fine with lower 3rd payrolls.

The Pirates don't need to spend much money to have a good farm system and good major league roster.

Do I think they need to spend money this offseason, absolutely, but that is due to the absolutely horrible job that Cherrington has done with the offensive side of the organization.

Yeah and it's exactly why I keep going back to that 2019 team. The 2019 team finished 69-93, had a good amount of good position players between Reynolds, Bell, Marte, Frazier and Newman (even though Newman regressed) and had a top-10 prospect pool. The team today is only going to finish something like 75-87 and has just swapped their good position players for good starting pitchers, all while they're at a bottom-10 prospect pool at this point and pretty much every minor league team of theirs is either mediocre or bad.

There's very little coming up from the minors that suggests this team will be anything better than the ~75 win team that it is now in the near future, and it's year 5 of Cherington's rebuild. That is the biggest reason why I think Cherington is such a major problem. There is nothing in the system that makes you think their upside is much better than an ~80 win team. They are closer to needing to re-do the rebuild than being a legitimate contending team.

 

[ChaosAgent]

I agree, but Cherington wasn't some nobody when he was brought in. You're not getting a top manager and GM to come to the Pirates as long as Nutting is cheap, but at the same time, you can get someone good. I think the Pirates hiring Hurdle is a great example of that, you can get good managers and GMs even with the Pirates budget.

If it's true that many people won't work with Nutting, I wonder if he re-hires NH when he fires BC.

 

[Empoleon8771]

https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/paul-zeise/2024/08/29/pirates-ben-cherington-derek-shelton-david-bednar-mlb-playoffs-world-series/stories/202408290082

Hilariously Zeise just released an article that was my exact point from my earlier posts

 

[Jaded-Fan]

if the Pirates really wanted to compete these playoffs they should have spent during the offseason. May to early June nuked this team's chances. If they had added a couple of legit bat entering the season it's easy to project that could have easily had 5-8 additional wins during their bad stretch and would be currently sitting near the top of the division. That's the real story of the 2024 Pirates.

You just have to accept the norm of this team and it becomes more enjoyable to watch. It is major league baseball with some truly interesting players to enjoy. The system is what it is and isn't changing. So silly to focus on what isn't rather than what is.

Cuban was asked again if he would buy the Pirates and threw cold water on the idea.

 

[Fogel]

It is true, it will never make financial sense for Nutting to sell. Only hope is if ownership shifts to someone else in the family who isn't as dead set in running it the same way.