The beauty of baseball is that a club like the Reds is gonna spend $40m more than the Buccos and it'll increase their chances of success...by a couple percentage points.
The Pirates could of course apply the same logic and put themselves within a few percentage points of even the highest-spending markets by investing even a modest amount in the club, but they instead choose to cry unfair and use that to justify spending nothing.
The additional utility of another $50m when you are already fielding a well-built ~$125m roster almost completely gets eaten up by the inherent randomness of the game. Sure, you want to use the bullets you have, but that should not generate some existential crisis of "unfairness". Such a claim fundamentally misunderstands the game we love.
I don’t like how Cindy spent their money but they are spending it. I’d rather add $20M to our payroll w Keller Cruz and Bednar extensions but they’re pushing their chips in
Not at all saying you're wrong, but I just don't get this.
The cheapest years of your homegrown "core" are precisely when you have the money to bring in additional talent to support them. Eat that up by, I presume, front loading extensions does absolutely nothing to improve the club until a hypothetical day 3-5 years away when you may or may not have more young pre-arb talent matriculating while those extended players may mor may not both still be healthy and good.
The Pirates choose the dumbest ways to take on risk, I swear.
Outside of all the correct reasons that NMR illustrated, virtually ALL of the homegrown Braves signed to extensions are better than anyone the Bucs have developed.
Except the Braves won before a single extension year for homegrown or traded player has kicked in. Not one single player for one single year.
The Braves have won because they added high-quality free agents and trades to their exceptional, cheap young core. They didn't extend Albies and Acuna and then sat on their hands and waited for fans to pat them on the back. They didn't eat up their payroll by front-loading extensions. They took advantage of their young player's cheapest years and added guys like Charlie Morton and Ozuna and Jansen and Olson and d'Arnaud.
They're now up against the CBT and will have no capacity to add similar quality when their extended players reach their expensive years. They'll need a new crop of excellent young talent to infuse the gaps in their extended core or else they will fail to replicate their success.
Good for Cincy’s fans, we could argue that they could’ve spend that money differently, but no arguing that they spent it. $100-$120 million payroll for a MLB franchise should be the floor. The addition that the Royals and Tigers have made would have been welcome by me and most. The fact that our favorite team refuses to spend that money is my biggest frustration.
Not sure I agree with who they spent it on, but I do like how they’ve spent it...3-years Candelario, 2-years Martinez and Pagan, and 1-year for Montas. That’s eight years and three players; the Pirates’ way would be eight years and eight players, just way too much turnover and overpayment.
Candelario was next-level smart, IMO, because it demonstrates they understand how much of their young IF talent is gonna fall back to earth (or already had).
It feels like if the Pirates were coming off a season in which a bunch of rookies hit way over their heads, they'd double down on them and then throw their hands up in disbelief when they inevitably failed to maintain said productivity.
The Cardinals, Reds, Royals, and Tigers have each done what I expected us to do. To be fair, we're one signing or trade for a #2/3 away from that level, but for now it feels like a lot of talk without action.
Cincy is just trying to maintain their payroll level without the $25 mil/year that Votto was paid each year. For the past 10 seasons (excluding 2020), the Reds 26 man roster has averaged around $105 mil/season.
Not sure Cincy's market is any larger than the market of the Pirates. The Pirates are in a very good position right now, but need to really consider where they want to be in the next 5 to 10 years, and what they want to spend.
Cincinnati has a few advantages that we don’t: particularly access to the Louisville market which adds an extra 1.3 million fans to their market. We’re in a uniquely bad spot as a market because unlike Cincinnati, St Louis, etc we are geographically cornered out of having access to any other large population centers by the other markets around us. Even the Brewers have pretty much the entire state of Wisconsin which is nearly 6 million people.
The argument that the Pirates don’t spend because of market size is a completely bogus notion propagated by the organization to support their unwillingness to spend. According to Sports media watch using Nielsen TV market size numbers, the Pittsburgh market that includes large sections of three states ranks 26th ahead of other MLB teams including Baltimore (28), San Diego (30), Kansas City (33), Cincinnati (36) and Milwaukee (38).
Of course there are other ways of looking at the markets in surrounding areas, but the real issue for any team is how many of those households are interested in tuning in to watch the local teams and that has much more to do with the quality of the product than it does with the total number of people living there. MLB teams need to give people a reason to watch them both in person and on TV and like any other business the better the product the more people know about it and become willing to spend their time and money buying into it.
Teams like the Pirates who refuse to spend to improve their product get only avid fans to watch them. If they were a better product, more casual fans and even only vaguely interested ones would watch and with that their revenue from ticket sales and sponsorship would significantly increase and they would have even more money.
So, it is possible to believe that they should be spending more, while *also* recognizing the reality of the awfulness of this market. Our fanbase generally refuses to recognize the harsh reality of our market, relative to the economic system MLB employs. All those markets you mentioned there have larger TV contracts than us, with the exception of the Brewers, by the most recent estimates, pre-RSN chaos. The Reds TV contract is about 10% larger than ours, which accurately reflects that it’s a better market. Does that excuse the Reds spending 33% more than us payroll, as things currently stand? Of course not! And TV contracts are largely dependent on population, not how the team is doing. Example: the Mariners, who hadn’t made the playoffs in over a decade raked in an $89 MM dollar a year TV deal in 2014, while the Cardinals who have been consistently competitive, signed a TV for $24 MM *less* 4 years later, in 2018.
It sounds as though you are making the argument that if the Pirates chose to invest that they could reap profits commensurate with other teams. Thats just not the reality of this market. We are at or near the bottom in household income, metro GDP, population etc. The money simply isn’t here, even if we had an owner willing to take the risks. We don’t have hedge fund managers or tech bros living here to support high prices. I see our market compared to San Diego a lot. Well, the 95th percentile household income in San Diego is $40k more than here. And they have a million more people. San Diego took the risks you’re describing and it ended in disaster as they are selling off the team, slashing payroll, and had to take out an emergency payroll loan to make ends meet. If you’re Nutting, and you’re primarily concerned with profit, why would you ever take that risk? Under the current system he’s perfectly content to avoid spending large sums and as such, collect the profit guaranteed under the system. And until baseball decides it cares about fans outside the top 10 or so markets, he will continue to operate this way.
Nothing condescending about it. Just laying out the harsh economic realities and using numbers to do so. The people who run baseball could care less about the fans outside the coastal markets and Chicago.
We should be thankful for the Reds and Brewers for providing reference points for what a lower revenue team could/should be spending to compete in our division.
The Pirates were always the second fiddle team in Pittsburgh because the Rooneys are locals and 'burgher's relate to that. Same same when you go to other cities prior to a Steeler game and the lot is full with partying Steeler Fans decked out in their Black and Gold. When we make our annual pilgrimage to the Northside of Pittsburgh to visit friends and family, we always include a stop to Definitely You in Brentwood. When we ask the kids what Jersey's they want us to pick up for them it's at least 5-1 in favor of the Steelers.
Forgot to mention that now in Pittsburgh, they may be 3rd because the Pens challenge for the playoffs every year. Not like '91 or '92, but they are a solid organization every year.
This is simply not the case. In the 60s and 70s the Pirates were everything. Until the Steel Curtain Pittsburgh was hardly a great football town. “Always” is a stretch.
Yeah, and if you’re old enough to remember the ‘60s, the Steelers were a laughingstock and everyone despised the Rooneys. That changed because they started winning. Same with the Pens. The Pirates are despised now because they’re chronic losers and everyone knows Nutting is fine with that.
Winning changes everything and winning over a period of time builds team loyalty that lasts a generation. The fundamental problem with the Pirates is that, aside from a couple years under Huntington, the Pirates have not won anything, anything at all for more than a generation. They have destroyed their brand, and it will take a real GM to turn things around: not another legacy New-England liberal arts college frat buddy of Nutting.
The beauty of baseball is that a club like the Reds is gonna spend $40m more than the Buccos and it'll increase their chances of success...by a couple percentage points.
The Pirates could of course apply the same logic and put themselves within a few percentage points of even the highest-spending markets by investing even a modest amount in the club, but they instead choose to cry unfair and use that to justify spending nothing.
The additional utility of another $50m when you are already fielding a well-built ~$125m roster almost completely gets eaten up by the inherent randomness of the game. Sure, you want to use the bullets you have, but that should not generate some existential crisis of "unfairness". Such a claim fundamentally misunderstands the game we love.
I don’t like how Cindy spent their money but they are spending it. I’d rather add $20M to our payroll w Keller Cruz and Bednar extensions but they’re pushing their chips in
Not at all saying you're wrong, but I just don't get this.
The cheapest years of your homegrown "core" are precisely when you have the money to bring in additional talent to support them. Eat that up by, I presume, front loading extensions does absolutely nothing to improve the club until a hypothetical day 3-5 years away when you may or may not have more young pre-arb talent matriculating while those extended players may mor may not both still be healthy and good.
The Pirates choose the dumbest ways to take on risk, I swear.
Extensions keep your good players longer. It’s the Atlanta Braves model. You’re getting FAs… they’re just your own. Signed 4+ years in advance.
We’re about to do the same w Skenes, Henry, Termarr and hopefully more.
Outside of all the correct reasons that NMR illustrated, virtually ALL of the homegrown Braves signed to extensions are better than anyone the Bucs have developed.
Except the Braves won before a single extension year for homegrown or traded player has kicked in. Not one single player for one single year.
The Braves have won because they added high-quality free agents and trades to their exceptional, cheap young core. They didn't extend Albies and Acuna and then sat on their hands and waited for fans to pat them on the back. They didn't eat up their payroll by front-loading extensions. They took advantage of their young player's cheapest years and added guys like Charlie Morton and Ozuna and Jansen and Olson and d'Arnaud.
They're now up against the CBT and will have no capacity to add similar quality when their extended players reach their expensive years. They'll need a new crop of excellent young talent to infuse the gaps in their extended core or else they will fail to replicate their success.
You’re forgetting Freddie freeman’s extension
Good for Cincy’s fans, we could argue that they could’ve spend that money differently, but no arguing that they spent it. $100-$120 million payroll for a MLB franchise should be the floor. The addition that the Royals and Tigers have made would have been welcome by me and most. The fact that our favorite team refuses to spend that money is my biggest frustration.
Not sure I agree with who they spent it on, but I do like how they’ve spent it...3-years Candelario, 2-years Martinez and Pagan, and 1-year for Montas. That’s eight years and three players; the Pirates’ way would be eight years and eight players, just way too much turnover and overpayment.
Candelario was next-level smart, IMO, because it demonstrates they understand how much of their young IF talent is gonna fall back to earth (or already had).
It feels like if the Pirates were coming off a season in which a bunch of rookies hit way over their heads, they'd double down on them and then throw their hands up in disbelief when they inevitably failed to maintain said productivity.
I thought so too and it’s a great short-term backfill if they’re looking to flip a few of those infielders/prospects for a top of the rotation arm.
The Cardinals, Reds, Royals, and Tigers have each done what I expected us to do. To be fair, we're one signing or trade for a #2/3 away from that level, but for now it feels like a lot of talk without action.
Cincy is just trying to maintain their payroll level without the $25 mil/year that Votto was paid each year. For the past 10 seasons (excluding 2020), the Reds 26 man roster has averaged around $105 mil/season.
Not sure Cincy's market is any larger than the market of the Pirates. The Pirates are in a very good position right now, but need to really consider where they want to be in the next 5 to 10 years, and what they want to spend.
Cincinnati has a few advantages that we don’t: particularly access to the Louisville market which adds an extra 1.3 million fans to their market. We’re in a uniquely bad spot as a market because unlike Cincinnati, St Louis, etc we are geographically cornered out of having access to any other large population centers by the other markets around us. Even the Brewers have pretty much the entire state of Wisconsin which is nearly 6 million people.
The argument that the Pirates don’t spend because of market size is a completely bogus notion propagated by the organization to support their unwillingness to spend. According to Sports media watch using Nielsen TV market size numbers, the Pittsburgh market that includes large sections of three states ranks 26th ahead of other MLB teams including Baltimore (28), San Diego (30), Kansas City (33), Cincinnati (36) and Milwaukee (38).
Of course there are other ways of looking at the markets in surrounding areas, but the real issue for any team is how many of those households are interested in tuning in to watch the local teams and that has much more to do with the quality of the product than it does with the total number of people living there. MLB teams need to give people a reason to watch them both in person and on TV and like any other business the better the product the more people know about it and become willing to spend their time and money buying into it.
Teams like the Pirates who refuse to spend to improve their product get only avid fans to watch them. If they were a better product, more casual fans and even only vaguely interested ones would watch and with that their revenue from ticket sales and sponsorship would significantly increase and they would have even more money.
So, it is possible to believe that they should be spending more, while *also* recognizing the reality of the awfulness of this market. Our fanbase generally refuses to recognize the harsh reality of our market, relative to the economic system MLB employs. All those markets you mentioned there have larger TV contracts than us, with the exception of the Brewers, by the most recent estimates, pre-RSN chaos. The Reds TV contract is about 10% larger than ours, which accurately reflects that it’s a better market. Does that excuse the Reds spending 33% more than us payroll, as things currently stand? Of course not! And TV contracts are largely dependent on population, not how the team is doing. Example: the Mariners, who hadn’t made the playoffs in over a decade raked in an $89 MM dollar a year TV deal in 2014, while the Cardinals who have been consistently competitive, signed a TV for $24 MM *less* 4 years later, in 2018.
It sounds as though you are making the argument that if the Pirates chose to invest that they could reap profits commensurate with other teams. Thats just not the reality of this market. We are at or near the bottom in household income, metro GDP, population etc. The money simply isn’t here, even if we had an owner willing to take the risks. We don’t have hedge fund managers or tech bros living here to support high prices. I see our market compared to San Diego a lot. Well, the 95th percentile household income in San Diego is $40k more than here. And they have a million more people. San Diego took the risks you’re describing and it ended in disaster as they are selling off the team, slashing payroll, and had to take out an emergency payroll loan to make ends meet. If you’re Nutting, and you’re primarily concerned with profit, why would you ever take that risk? Under the current system he’s perfectly content to avoid spending large sums and as such, collect the profit guaranteed under the system. And until baseball decides it cares about fans outside the top 10 or so markets, he will continue to operate this way.
Absolutely nobody in Pittsburgh over the age of 20 needs a condescending lesson in how large of a market we are, thank you very much.
We're a region that's been raped and pillaged by corporate interests and we're wise enough to know that bullshit when we hear it.
Nothing condescending about it. Just laying out the harsh economic realities and using numbers to do so. The people who run baseball could care less about the fans outside the coastal markets and Chicago.
We should be thankful for the Reds and Brewers for providing reference points for what a lower revenue team could/should be spending to compete in our division.
Unfortunately, nobody at Federal St has any reference point besides Bob’s profit margin. The Pirates have always been outliers.
The Pirates were always the second fiddle team in Pittsburgh because the Rooneys are locals and 'burgher's relate to that. Same same when you go to other cities prior to a Steeler game and the lot is full with partying Steeler Fans decked out in their Black and Gold. When we make our annual pilgrimage to the Northside of Pittsburgh to visit friends and family, we always include a stop to Definitely You in Brentwood. When we ask the kids what Jersey's they want us to pick up for them it's at least 5-1 in favor of the Steelers.
Forgot to mention that now in Pittsburgh, they may be 3rd because the Pens challenge for the playoffs every year. Not like '91 or '92, but they are a solid organization every year.
Can always count on revisionist history like this. Thanks Mel!
The Rooneys are working very hard to reclaim 2nd right now.
This is simply not the case. In the 60s and 70s the Pirates were everything. Until the Steel Curtain Pittsburgh was hardly a great football town. “Always” is a stretch.
Yeah, and if you’re old enough to remember the ‘60s, the Steelers were a laughingstock and everyone despised the Rooneys. That changed because they started winning. Same with the Pens. The Pirates are despised now because they’re chronic losers and everyone knows Nutting is fine with that.
I recall when the Pens’ offices got padlocked by the IRS and they subsequently bankruptcy. Good times.
Winning changes everything and winning over a period of time builds team loyalty that lasts a generation. The fundamental problem with the Pirates is that, aside from a couple years under Huntington, the Pirates have not won anything, anything at all for more than a generation. They have destroyed their brand, and it will take a real GM to turn things around: not another legacy New-England liberal arts college frat buddy of Nutting.
This