A Few Pages from the Book (Plus a Shot at Nutting's Post)

One day in 2008 I took my girlfriend to the Pittsburgh Zoo. On our way back home, I decided it was early, so we should maybe do something else. Maybe go to a Pirates game. So we showed up and bought two eight dollar tickets and sat in the outfield seats, and the Pirates defeated the Rockies. Shortly thereafter, Jason Bay and Xavier Nady were traded away.
What I remember at that time was being so angry at the front office. I’d watched the likes of Aramis Ramirez and Jason Schmidt and many other players I thought were budding stars get sent away in favor of younger players, and time and time again, for ten years, I’d seen failure. To me, this was no different. I hadn’t heard of any of the guys we got back for Bay or Nady, and when I heard that management was busting up the team and rebuilding them as part of a plan, this sounded awfully familiar.
But as a fan who only watched the first and last months of the season on a regular basis, I was uninformed. I took it upon myself to find out what this so called plan was. What I found out was, it was actually a pretty decent concept. Nothing new, but like communism, if done correctly, could actually work. So I started watching more regularly, and the next year, when Nate McLouth left town for another bunch of prospects, I was one of the few people I knew who didn’t get upset.
The funny thing was, I noticed a lot of people who didn’t watch baseball at all get mad when they heard the news. Especially when it was premised with “Gold Glove winning outfielder Nate McLouth has been traded…”
That’s when I realized there must be something going on with people that I hadn’t seen with any other team. Some sort of willful denial of what was in front of them. As I write this sentence right now, the Pirates have lost five games in a row. They just recently wrapped up their 18th consecutive losing season. They can barely score runs. Their pitching is mediocre. Their manager seemingly sleepwalks through games. The fans go to games just to voice their displeasure and watch post game concerts.

And I know, without a doubt, there’s never been a more exciting time to be a Pirates’ fan.

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The first year I watched the Pirates was 1997. I don’t remember much, being that I was only 12 years old. But I do remember how loud Three Rivers Stadium seemed to be near the end of the season. That team has long since been forgotten, as fans have actually made excuses as to why the team missed the playoffs by only four games. Not excuses about how they missed out, but excuses as to how it was even possible for the Pirates to be competing. True, the division was awful. The Astros made the playoffs by compiling an 83-79 record, including a sweep of the Pirates late in the season that pretty much wrapped things up. However, if you want an example of bad management, look no further than the offseason between the 1997 and 1998 campaigns.
It was sorely obvious that the team needed to improve in some areas if they wanted their record to get better. It was also apparent that they would need some outside help, as the team had vastly overachieved to even get close. But rather than fix up the holes, the Front Office decided to give the Manager Gene Lamont an extension. They also held pat with the roster. All because the team had gotten a sniff of .500. And that was just five years into the streak.
Since then, the team hasn’t even come close. Fans will quickly point out how close we were to .500 when we sent Bay and Nady packing. And that says a lot about Pirates fans. All we wanted was a mediocre, average team. Getting rid of those pieces may help us in the future, but we had become so brainwashed by people like Dave Littlefield and Cam Bonifay in their rants about rebuilding and plans that we wanted results now.
The years of losing have worn on people, but to a certain degree, maybe they should settle down a little. Eighteen years can become nineteen years, but if the team thinks they can have the problem fixed in two years, why is that such a tough thing to accept? The Pirates, as of right now, have a Front Office that has not had too many make or break decisions to make. They haven’t really had anyone to shell out money for at the MLB level, yet fans are so used to us cutting payroll that they think the owner, the much maligned Bob Nutting, is cheap. Based on what? Based on the low team payroll, for one. However, there are plenty of reasons to be grateful we haven’t spent much money.

The team is young. Exceedingly young. Most of the starters have just gotten their first full season under their belts. The free agent market is full of thirty-something year olds who don’t’ have a lot left to give, but are willing to take $10 million dollars to compile a record of 10-7, or hit .275. Why bother with that?
Well, some people may argue that one of our current elder statesman, Garrett Jones, is expendable. He’s 29, he hits around .270, his power is a mirage that we only see because we’re Pirates fans and we just don’t have a lot of home runs to get excited about. The thing is, he can do almost the exact same thing a free agent that cost millions of dollars can do, and his current salary is $425,000. That is ridiculously low.

Meanwhile, we spent upwards of $5 million on a free agent shortstop named Aki Iwamura. He couldn’t hit, couldn’t field, and halfway though the season, that $5 million was playing in the minors. Sure, you could say that we should spend our money better, but at the time of this signing, you could not see such a disaster on the horizon. The Minnesota Twins were trying very hard to sign Aki, yet could not get a deal done. This was an example of a so called cheap owner spending money in free agency. To me, it seems like sticking to our guns will work out better.
Of course, a time will come when Nutting may have to open the purse strings a little bit, to sign some of our current youngsters. But now is not the time.