The WORST Owner In Baseball

Just like Albert Einstein once said, if you're neglecting and you ain't spending, you best not be expecting to have winning, bitch. And it's so true how all these years later relates to what's currently going on in Pittsburgh. In a year of what has been dominated by pitchers jumping onto the scene, Paul Skeens has taken over. Just one year after being in college, this dude just started the all-star game after already becoming the most dominant pitcher in the game. All it took was two months. Insane stuff. And as he continues to dominate in Pittsburgh for the Pirates, you'll see fans of other teams already planning for their team to sign or trade for him. Not this year, but in years ahead. And part of it is in a satirical way, for sure. But it's also a very realistic thing to talk about. That despite the city of Pittsburgh being a pretty big market, the baseball team is looked at as one of the smallest in baseball. Actually, you can make the argument it is the smallest, considering over the last 30 years, no team has spent less on free agency signings than the Pirates. Why is that? Why does a team that has a city full of loyal diehard fans spend less than anybody, to the point where other teams basically look at them as a farm system? Well, there's one very important person to look to behind the curtains of these issues. So welcome back, or welcome for the first time if you're new to the channel, and consider subscribing if you enjoy the videos, as I wanted to quickly point something out. There's this controversy over team names like the Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins, who both changed names. Some call for the Atlanta Braves to change their name, but here's where it gets inconsistent. On the topic of the Pirates, if we're talking historical accuracy, Pirates were definitely not great people. They robbed others, which is quite literally one of the definitions of the word pirate. They hung people, assaulted the women, we've all heard of Walk the Plague, these weren't heroes. So why have a baseball team named after them? Isn't that awful? No, obviously it's not. You can have a version of Pirates that aren't committing crimes, but that's something I've wondered for a while that nobody says. If we gotta cancel anything that's remotely problematic, the Pirates would most definitely be part of that, no? Well, I'll tell you who most definitely deserves to be canceled, though. Mr. Bob Nutting. Baseball has had some lower-spending teams be competitive. We've seen it plenty of times over the years, like the Rays, Cleveland, even Oakland, before they decided to go full Vegas mode and drop any care in the world for the team and its fans. Not that they really had much before. But even them, at the very least, had some winning teams, despite their owner acting like he's living off minimum wage at McDonald's. But the Pirates? Not only have they penny-pinched as much as Mr. Krabs in his prime, but they also haven't won anything in the 30 years they've spent the least amount in baseball. Three years. That's it. 2013, 2014, and 2015. Those are the three playoff years the Pirates have had in the last 30. After not making the postseason for 20 years, they'd make it in 2013 as a wildcard team with the help of NL MVP Andrew McCutcheon, win that game, and move on to lose in the first round, clinching a home wildcard game for the second and third straight seasons in 2014 and 2015, but losing both of those. And since then, the Pirates had fallen back into irrelevancy, until now. Paul Skeens had instantly become a star to add on to an already somewhat promising Pirates team that hopes to make it to October again after a still-ongoing, almost decade-long drought, and there sure will be many obstacles in the way to that goal, mainly the other teams in the NL Central Division, but honestly, there's no bigger obstacle to the Pirates than the Pirates. Or at least the guy who owns the franchise. Beside the Athletic did an interesting story on Bob Nutting back in spring training with a ton of details and examples on just how cheap he really is, and things have only gotten worse for Nutting's image and reputation as owner of the Pirates. But we gotta begin with what's been leading up to all this. Nutting, who has an estimated net worth of $1.1 billion, became owner of the franchise back in 2007, and since that year, the Pirates have had a bottom five payroll to begin the season in all but three years. The last year they were good in 2015, 2016, and then 2017. And when you combine the largest contracts in Pirates history, Brian Reynolds, Key Brian Hayes, Jason Kendall, and Andrew McCutcheon all together, that still falls short of Bobby Witt Jr.'s $288 million contract with the Royals. And the Royals aren't even a big market team. But the cheapness the Pirates operate in goes beyond just the players and their contracts. A former instructor of the team told the Athletic that he'd been in some meetings where he couldn't help his jaw from dropping because he was so shocked from the things he would hear, like for example, the team had to wait a day to trade a guy because it was going to save them $30,000. Now, if you were working a minimum wage job, saving $30,000 is a freaking no-brainer. But when you're worth $1.1 billion, running a franchise worth $1.3 billion, in an overall $10 billion industry, running your team like the Krusty Krab is just not the move. It gets even worse. Ten years ago, the Pirates' general manager at the time, Neil Huntington, wanted to make upgrades to the team's spring training facilities in Bradenton, Florida. That would have included building a brand new 12,240-square-foot performance center to replace a weight room a tenth of that size, and expanding a home clubhouse that was the oldest remaining building in a ballpark that was built in 1923. Sorry boys, yes, this is a team north-north of $1.3 billion, but you gotta use this place that hasn't been upgraded since selling alcohol was illegal. Is this the end of the world? Of course not. It's a first-world issue, but one that could easily be fixed if the owner worth $1.1 billion of a team worth $1.3 billion was willing to spend $8 million more, which is what it would have cost for these renovations. But instead, Nutting told Huntington that the money would have to come out of the existing baseball operations budget, which covers everything from scouting to player development to salaries. So in other words, they'd have to sacrifice any money going toward actual talent on the actual team in order for this to actually happen. Former Pirates player told The Athletic that Nutting was comfortable and okay with just stepping back and being mediocre, and not doubling down on the winning after 2015. Adding on that it permeates, and it's just what the organization is. The Pirates have built themselves into a reputation like the Rays, where they trade talented players when it's gonna be time to pay up for them. But the difference between the Rays and Pirates is the Rays' ability to take guys from other organizations and have them be successful impact players, compared to the Pirates who have a real hard time doing that. So it may be frustrating to see the Rays' constant cycle of treating their players in almost like an expendable way, but at least they develop players well, and it translates to some winning. The Pirates trade those guys away, and they get nothing and get worse. Garrett Cole spent the first five years of his career in Pittsburgh only to get traded for four guys who aren't even in the Pirates organization now and haven't been for years. Meanwhile, Cole has gone on to solidify a Hall of Fame career, and it's not like it would've necessarily been smart for the Pirates to keep and pay Cole over $300 million, but to trade him basically just to avoid paying him at all, getting no value in return, that's not really smart either. A former Pirates employee told The Athletic the backstory behind that Cole trade to Houston, mentioning how frantic and antsy the team seemed to want to trade him despite having two years of control left, only for them to trade Cole for zero top prospects. It was such a priority for them to get rid of the money, basically. Cole himself, now in his fifth year on his Big Yankees contract, has voiced his support for the Pirates and their fans, mentioning how much he knows the Pirates mean to the city of Pittsburgh and wants them to be good again for the fans. Which is a great point, by the way, they do mean a lot to the city of Pittsburgh. Teams like the Rays, the Marlins, even when those teams win, they don't pull very well in attendance. The Rays have had some recent years of about 100 wins and have literally made the postseason for the last half decade, yet going to the Trop 80% of the time is like going to a funeral home. Same goes for the Marlins down in Miami, who haven't had near the same success over the last decade as the other Florida team. But either way, you won't typically see Marlins park filled with a bunch of diehards, but in the case of the Pirates in Pittsburgh, it couldn't be more opposite of a situation. Like I mentioned earlier, Pittsburgh is actually a pretty sizable market just in general. The sports fans there care, they love their Steelers, one of the top most historically successful NFL teams, and the Pirates are one of the oldest franchises in sports history, not just baseball. They've been around since 1887. Morgan Freeman was just 5 years old at that point. They're a very historic team with lots of lore, and when they're good, the fans pack the place. When the Pirates were a playoff team from 2013 through 2015, they had an average attendance of about 30,000 through those years, but when the team is bad, they sink to the bottom of baseball in that category. It's pretty simple, unlike in If the Pirates suck, attendance won't be great, but if they're good, it's a fun atmosphere to be at beyond just how beautiful the ballpark in itself is. And this very obvious fact has gotten so clear that even politicians are getting involved to pressure Bob Nutting and the Pirates to spend more to win, which in turn unsurprisingly would help the economy in that area. As far as the Pennsylvania teams go, the Phillies crushed the Pirates in several categories based on helping the economy in their respective areas. The Pirates drove $254 million in 2023 net direct spending. The Phillies drove $525 million. The Pirates drove $546 million in direct spending. The Phillies drove almost a billion. The Pirates support about 3,000 jobs. The Phillies support $5,450. The Pirates generate $22 million in tax dollars for the state, while the Phillies generate $45 million. Since the release of these studies, Pennsylvania State Representatives Tim Bonner and Jim Gregory have said that the Pirates organization needs to step up to ensure that its fans and taxpayers across the commonwealth get the return on their investment they deserve. The reports also include findings which determine that if the Pirates were to increase their win total on average by just three games, the team would generate an estimated additional $76 million in total fan spending, $31 million of which would come from outside of PNC Park and directly support the local economy. With Bonner saying that if the taxpayers are going to put money into the stadium, the Pirates need to also invest in PNC Park along with a worthy product on the field, as taxpayers deserve more than the bare minimum. And the report shows how sustained on-field success can increase fan attendance, which is of course how a stadium drives the local economy. Congrats Bob Nutting, you're not only screwing over your team but the entire city of Pittsburgh. And now during the season, with the Pirates being in contention and potentially a move or two away from finally being a legit post-season team again, Nutting came out and basically lied to the public, to the fans, as he'd implied the team was going to have some money to spend to get better, but that isn't true. Why do we know that? Because people in the front office said so after the fact, speaking anonymously and saying that they felt his comments were misleading at best, saying that Bob implied the team was to have money to spend and got the fans excited, when the reality is he also told them, the front office, that the team doesn't have any money to make any significant additions. So what's really going on here? Well, it's pretty obvious, Bob Nutting still owns the team, this isn't his brother I'm Nutting, nothing's changed. Through the front office changes, all of the promising young talent being built up over the last few years, Paul Skeens quickly becoming one of the faces of the game, through all of this, one thing has remained exactly the same, Bob Nutting is still Bob Nutting. He's never wanted to invest much into the Pirates and there's no reason to expect that to all of a sudden take a turn. You can wish all you want for I'm Nutting to take over and start doing whatever he can to help this team win, but until that happens, Pittsburgh, despite having one of the most passionate sports fans in the world, will have to continue watching their baseball team operate like a dollar store, and it's a damn shame. Let me know your thoughts and thank you for watching.