The latest out of Pittsburgh…
- The Pirates have been connected to free-agent shortstop Freddy Galvis this winter, though general manager Neal Huntington suggested Saturday that a deal between the two sides won’t come together. “We feel like we got a young Freddy Galvis. His name is Erik Gonzalez,” said Huntington, who added the Pirates are optimistic Gonzalez and fellow middle infielder Kevin Newman will “be as good if not better than what Freddy Galvis or any of the others who are out there right now or any of the players we can get in a trade right now” (via Chris Adamski of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review). The 27-year-old Gonzalez didn’t provide much at the plate in Cleveland from 2016-18, but Pittsburgh was excited to acquire him in November, and he’s now the favorite to serve as its Opening Day shortstop. Pirates scouts were “beating the table” to get Gonzalez, who they believe will be “’above average. Dynamic. Very good. More range than anybody you’ve had at short maybe some you have managed,'” manager Clint Hurdle said.
- Gonzalez is one of a slew of cheap players for the budget-conscious Bucs, who are poised to enter the season with an outlay under $75MM, Jason Martinez of Roster Resource estimates. Huntington defended the Pirates’ low-payroll ways Saturday, telling Adamski, Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and others that they’ve succeeded in the past in spite of their financial disadvantages and adding: “Spending gives you a larger margin for error and what GM wouldn’t want a larger margin for error?” It does not guarantee you anything other than you spent money. The upgrade is not guaranteed.” And though the Pirates haven’t closed the door on making further additions on the open market, where they’ve picked up Lonnie Chisenhall, Jordan Lyles and Jung Ho Kang this winter, Huntington seemingly isn’t a big fan of taking that route. Free agency’s a “losing game,” according to Huntington. “When you sign a free agent, you have automatically outbid everybody else to get him 95, 99 percent of the time. You have theoretically overpaid to get that free agent.”
- Pittsburgh is far from the only team eschewing sizable free-agent contracts this offseason, which Pirates right-hander and union representative Jameson Taillon spoke about Saturday. Taillon’s fellow players are “pretty riled up and pretty upset” about the current state of affairs, revealed Taillon, who was present for the union’s recent board meetings, Brink reports. While Taillon conceded that players are hard to sympathize with because many are earning millions of dollars, he pointed out that “the owners are making money too, and they’re making way more than we are.” The players, mindful of that fact, may be more inclined to go to arbitration rather than accept what often end up as team-friendly extensions during their arb-eligible years, Taillon contended. Taillon’s words are the latest indication that the players and owners could be in for an ugly labor war when the collective bargaining agreement expires on Dec. 1, 2021.
This is why there needs to be a salary floor. Teams need to be forced to spend money and any owner to cheap to do so needs to get out of the sports ownership game. The Pirates management is simply pathetic
Their owners have the funds and the Pirates would be instant contenders if they signed Machado, Harper, Kimbrel and Keuchel. Just more greedy cheapskate owners.
Uhhh any team would be instant contenders if they signed all of those four. This was a jibberish comment you made.
No, it was a truth. Zero idea why it would offend you.
And no, the worst 10 teams would not be contenders if they got all 4. The Pirates are a lot closer than their owners are acting like. In their case adding any of those 4 would get them a lot closer than most teams.
4 of the 10 worst teams would have been playoff teams if they won 15-17 more games, which is what adding those 4 would do for them.
Insert Home Alone face here…
This is nonsense. Stop.
Cherry pick some more “4 out of 10” YOU GET MY POINT! Geez…..
Let’s see the books from each team.
Fans need to know were their tax money paid to those city are going.
May want to consider Soccer League Model where if your a bottom feeder you get dropped to a lower level league.
Let’s see true chance and the money trail.
You know that can’t work right? Some teams like the Yankees and Dodgers have over $500 million in revenue and some teams like the Rays and Marlins make under $220 million. It is not fair to expect them to spend the same amount of money. Many of the low revenue teams like the Rays, Marlins, and the Pirates spent a larger percentage of their revenue on payroll than the Yankees or Dodgers.
After the 2015 season the Pirates boosted Huntington’s budget to $125-145 million teams 3-4 years later (however you want to look at it) we are going into the season with the lowest payroll in baseball…. not a good look for a team who wants to contend this year. Everyone in our division has a payroll projected at $100 mil or greater… it’s just simply not a good look if we aren’t putting that money back into the team whether it’s adding a big name guy or what. If the Pirates want to add butts to seats this season they need to start shopping and adding a big name guy show the city they want to win rather than say it and say this is the best roster we can field which is projected to have 78 1/2 wins as their recent line. I love our lineup right now but adding a guy like Machado would be a huge boost for power and defense not to mention get butts in the seats which again huge problem this past year finishing in 28th for league attendance… literally a team that went 47-115 ( the Orioles) had a higher attendance…
Might does not make right, but it often makes winners. History is written by the winner. Listen also for the still-small voice of the non-winners for a more balanced and realistic perspective.
The large markets all have the largest media markets.
The feel good small market success is not sustainable in the current MLB market climate.
Maybe there is a league just with a few large market teams and not the opportunity to poach smaller markets talent pool because they can no longer afford those players when increases in salary are potentially due.
If there were a spending min and max no matter what the Teams’ revenue stream was. It would deter poaching of small teams with less revenue sources.
Do you really think that year after year leadership at MLB wants to see Tampa, Cleveland, KC, Milwaukee or Pittsburgh playing in their marque playoff media frenzy time of year.
It is Big Business, let’s not forget that this is what is driving it.
Unfortunately, the emotion side and loyalty have become secondary.
If your a fan of a big market team, why would you want this current system to change.
That’s why their needs to be a hard cap lol
Serious question… Would anyone care if they left town?
I wouldn’t.
Pirates are a disgrace and didn’t even spend in their little 3 year window of contention.
Can some share a P and L of each of the MLB Teams.
Let’s see what the revenue streams are of each Team.
As a tax payer and visitor to several teams’s cities who are subsidized by rental car fee, hotel fees paid by visitors to that city.
Let’s get some transparency of what is really going on .
I, myself, like the current trend of contracts over the last couple of offseasons.
You like how the owners are taking profits from the players? Cool way to be…
Well, there are currently useless players on long-term guaranteed contracts (ellsbury, pujols, etc.) taking up roster spots that should be going to more talented players. Those types of contracts are dragging down the sport. MLB is losing it’s luster having these guys hobbling around when they should be playing slow pitch softball somewhere. The 3 or 4 year (at most) contracts are for the good of the game and securing the future of the MLB.
No MLB player is “useless” these are the best players on the planet. Not having success in MLB does not mean they are “useless” many are one simple adjustment from being stars, like Max Muncy, and they were getting peanuts when they were putting up numbers, like Pujols and Ellsbury.
Stop this anti-player framing of this topic when you never talk about owner profits, which are sky-high and increasing annually.
Pujols was one of the first 10 players in MLB history to get a contract over $100mil and he was amongst the youngest, with the least amount of service time when that happened. I hardly think that you could say he was making peanuts.
Stop thinking when someone says “useless” they are comparing them to me or you. Relative to Pujols’ peers he is terrible.
I don’t feel at all sorry for the poor players. Why should it be that having a 3-4 year major league career means you never have to work another day in your life? That wasn’t the case up through the 70’s and shouldn’t be today. When teams lose money, the players don’t have to pony up to make up the difference. I’m 100% with the owners.
Again, where is this energy for the owners, who make 1000x more than the players? You are literally badgering for the owners to take the money from the players and put it in their own pockets. Why.
Also no one breaks down the numbers into take-home pay for the players, you just hear the “4/60” and forget about taxes, agent fees, etc etc. A lot of players DO have to work more days in their life, for crying out loud we just saw Slade Heathcott announce he’s becoming a pilot, a job that pays him money. He’s not a rich guy, many players have post-career jobs because they NEED them.
I agree with you NYPadre, I believe major leaguers are paid extremely well, I would rather have the major league clubs somehow route their revenue into paying the minor leaguers more money. It’s hard to feel sorry for guys upset about making “only” seven figures a season when you’ve worked jobs a hell of a lot harder physically than playing baseball.
Why should we pay hundreds of millions of dollars to house these teams just to get a mediocre product??
Oh- and that initial investment is going to get the team in your town, you still need to pay if you actually want to see your investment in action. Want to get around the live fee? No problem, check us out on tv…..we’ll just keep upping the price for that too. No we don’t mind that we are raising the cost of tv in general for you and everyone else (even non baseball fans)….. Because nobody likes socialism (except when it’s forced down their throats threw chit like stadiums and tv contracts)
I’m not 100% with the owners, and I’m ok with major leaguers making a lot of money (very few people can do what they do), but to complain when you’re making tens or hundreds of millions is ridiculous, the minor leaguers living off of PB&J’s and Top Ramen are the ones that I would like to see get paid.
I like it, too.
Bring a higher salary floor, not a $206M luxury tax apron a.k.a “de-facto” salary cap, only a few teams can afford.
Pirates are the worst offender
Nope if anything a hard cap for all teams
Because teams spending money is a problem?
teams are borderline paranoid to go over the soft cap, why would a hard cap be nessicary?
something has to break…inevitable
Currently MLB is making more money than ever on things that have NOTHING to do with baseball. BAM and BAMTECH do everything from the streaming services for PGA and WWE to analytics, to data base/cloud stuff. They’re making billions on selling the services they’ve developed to increase profits for MLB to other businesses. This is money they players don’t need a cut of.
MLB being a monopoly makes these issues more complicated than you make it sound Gaupo
“We feel like we got a young Freddy Galvis. His name is Erik Gonzalez,”
Galvis is 28, Gonzalez is 26. Huntington is a moron.
He is younger…
Re-read what you just posted.
Saying “we got the younger version of him” implies a LOT younger than 2 years. The Jays saying “we got the young version of Jeter in Bichette” is the standard way to say this. In the Pirates case, its insulting to anyone with half a brain to pull up such a half-a’d reasoning why they won’t sign a cheap everyday SS.
Kevin Newman might be a young Eric Gonzalez.
The age difference is the only problem?
I’ve got some bad news…..
Make it a haiku.
Galvis is older
Huntington is a moron
Gonzalez is young
Nice…
I like that
they are 29 and 27, respectively.
Barely 2 years is meaningless when you frame it like “we got the younger, cost-controlled guy” also Galvis is inherently more valuable than those 2. He plays everyday, is a 2ish WAR SS, both those two guys mentioned are massive question marks.
Its just insulting to say to fans “we went younger” and it barely scrapes the 18 month mark, when the player they don’t want is WAY better than the “younger” options and is basically the same age
All Tallion need do is look directly at his team’s FO & owner for a large reason why free agency is problematic for most veterans now. The Pirates have been taking advantage of the system for years by not spending. Sure, they had a few years of seemingly high payroll, for them, but they are trending back towards their miserly ways. I’d venture that Tallion is gone as soon as the FO believes they can get a useful and cheap return for him. He won’t hit arb until after the 2019 season, so right now HE is useful and cheap.
Geez, what a shame that someone who owns a business (team) should earn as much profit as possible running that business, while still paying his workers extremely well. D@mn evil capitalism.
smh…………
Nice sarcasm, but he is also supposed to be running a winning team. He is duping the whole fan base.
Boom!!
Oh great another commenter who takes the side of the owner over the player. Please explain yourself, do you really think YOU “own” these players? You do not. There is no need to ever feel one ounce of sorrow for the owner of any pro sports team for them spending money on players. Never.
Evan Longoria is that you?? You’ll not get sympathy from someone making 40k a year for someone else who makes 500k to 30 mil a year. Won’t happen. The owner is taking all the risk, how dare they attempt to make money….
They don’t attempt. They all do. There’s not a lot of financial risk considering they know their earnings from TV deals/sponsors etc. The only variable revenue is their attendance. Guys like longo shouldn’t be the ones with the problem though. It’s the young guys who get hosed with 3 years of nothing.
What risk? The taxpayers pay for their infrastructure. The consumers make up the revenue. What exactly are these owners risking?
These teams are not their sole source of income, they are toys
Owners get tax funded buildings, tax breaks, and have teams of lobbyists trying to shape laws that govern all of us. With all this comes a civic duty to at least reinvest and field a competitive team
Finally someone gets it
“You’ll not get sympathy from someone making 40k a year for someone else who makes 500k to 30 mil a year.”
Right, but why DO you have sympathy for those who have over 30 mill, and even like 500 mill or a billion? You hate the players salaries but are quiet about owners annual profits. So bizarre. I guess the owners using their wealth to influence the media really did work on some people, because this whole narrative on player salaries and this offseason malaise is rotten and does not matter as much as you think it does.
The player is taking all the risk: Their body. Their ability to produce is a time related function. They have x talent that declines over time and injury can negate that talent in an instant. They are the ones who risk. Owners have very limited risk: They are all subsidized by the tax payers thru public stadiums and/or tax deal with the local government plus a government granted monopoly on the market plus tax write offs for players contracts in the form of depreciation> they make a lot more than they claim. They have no risk. Its all deductible and mostly subsidized.
You’re exactly right strike four. Why people want the owners to decrease salaries while making record profits is beyond me.
Strike Four – he’s not feeling sorry for the owner. Players pick which team to sign with. They don’t have to play for a certain team if they don’t like their spending habits. We’re not siding with the owner, we just understand how a busniess works and a team is a business. Throwing money at players when they aren’t worth that much does not solve the current problem. When you own a team, you can do pay players whatever you want but until then don’t act high and mighty over another commentator.
You are totally glossing over that the profits stem directly from the players and acting like the owners must be hurting if they sign $100M and the player doesn’t produce. It matters none. It hurts none, other than the feelings of some $40,000 desk jockey who feels they work hard too but don’t get that money and therefore player salaries are too high.
Its not being able to understand that being a baseball player is a highly-profitable skill that not many have. And the fact that billions of dollars are thrown at it, why do MLB salaries not increase at the same rate as overall profits made by owners?
What does the average CEO make vs their average employee?
When the Pirates spent over $100M, was there a significant difference in their on the field record, attendance or team income? If not, then why spend the money? If many of the people are going to the games purely for the entertainment value and don’t really care whether the home teams wins or not, or is + or – 10 games from 500, why spend the extra money on a free agent? When the Pirates are paying marginal major league players like Jordan Lyles, Lonnie Chisenhall and Kang each $2M+ in 2019, it’s hard to side with the players that they’re being screwed.
“When the Pirates spent over $100M, was there a significant difference in their on the field record, attendance or team income? If not, then why spend the money?”
Because there are a LOT of variation in baseball player output. Tommy Pham can go from meh on the Cards to a superstar MVP on the Rays out of nowhere. Greedy owners seem to think “well we got burnt once, never again!” but this is literally how the Red Sox have operated their way to 4 titles in 15 years. You HAVE to keep spending the money no matter what, or else you are only hurting your fanbase.
Business owners always make more than their employees…
@Strike Four
Where did I state anything about owning players? Oh, and if the players are unhappy making millions of dollars, let them go do something like the common man does.
That’s the problem. These are not common men. You seem to be missing the fact that these players went through hell and back to get to where they are. Sure they could’ve chosen to just flip burgers, but no. They bet on themselves and worked day in day out to perfect their craft for no pay all the way through HS and college, and for an average pay of $2,150/month at the AAA level. And that’s only for 5 months! Only the best of the best make it to the major league level and make the big bucks. Is it outlandish what they make? Perhaps. But I bet if you tried to pay Gordon Ramsey McDonald’s prices he’d be pissed too. I believe the players make too much money, but to tell a premier athlete who worked his butt off to get to where he is to work an average job is just dumb.
Wow, you need to read my comment again, and this time try not to reword it to fit whatever argument you’re trying to make.
Oh, and Gordon Ramsey? Really?
sufferfortribe your comments are all pro-owner/anti-player trash, why would anyone read it twice?
“if the players are unhappy making millions of dollars, let them go do something like the common man does.”
“I believe the players make too much money, but to tell a premier athlete who worked his butt off to get to where he is to work an average job is just dumb.”
Seems pretty fitting. Also, do you prefer brain surgeon being paid family dr money as the comparison?
Seems you have.
My problem with all these players/owners or actors,(movies or tv) is that they have made everything so expensive a common man cannot afford to take his family to a game or at least get seats close enough to see the players. But take away sports and movies, and while they will be missed life will go on. Take away the farmer, the fireman, doctors or such and they will be missed. And I am sure most farmers and their employees dont make 30 million a year. I understand what the market will pay, and yes they do what alot of people could never do, but they are playing a game, not saving lives. The only other group in the world probably paid more for there job that in the scheme of things is our leaders in Washington DC!
Well said.
Don’t forget that the owners set the prices. Tribe
If the players are paid too much then perhaps the owners are charging too much to see their product
NYY If the trip to MLB is like going to Hell and back then why are so many players willing to do it?
They know that very few make it to the ML,but they are willing to spend a good part of their youth taking the chance.
Don’t make it out that they are not very lucky to have the body and talent to even get the chance to be able to make the decision.
Strike four,yours are the same for the players.
But then again I do not think that you fool anyone.
Is this not exactly what you’re doing for the players side?
The players and the fans are mostly on the same side whether they know it or not
The more teams spending, the better baseball we, the fans, get.
This is really the mind-boggling thing about pro-ownership commenters… They’re actively arguing against their own interests…
I respect your opinion but disagree somewhat. Free agent spending is not a guarantee of better baseball. Outside of Machado, what SS could the Pirates sign and expect more than marginal, at best, results in the win column?
I guess to me the question fans should be asking more loudly is ‘with the market being this slow for Machado, why aren’t the Pirates more involved?’
He would make a significant difference in the quality of the team, but instead they’re settling for the next Freddy Galvis… How exciting…
That’s fair. My guess is they really like Cole Tucker and know he’s a year away. That alone is probably enough to push Galvis and others away as I’m sure they’d like multi-year deals, let alone Machado.
you do realize that same owner would still make more money in a year than you will in a lifetime even if he decided to spend enough to put a good product on the field, right?
it’s not like any owner in the sport has to choose between making a profit and fielding a good team.
cheap owners are just giving you an inferior product so they can pocket more money, and you’re taking their side over that of the people you actually pay to see…
Exactly correct, petrie000
Yes it is a shame when profits supersede any semblance of environmental or social conscience, … though some would disagree.
So overspending on players is now a requirement for a social conscience? Or are saying, paying people like Kang, with 6 total at bats in the last 3 years $3M for 2019 is somehow polluting? I’d say it’s throwing money away, but I don’t know if it’s a lack of environmental conscience? Or are you just prone to hyperbole?
The word “overspending” is a fake news media buzzword that is entirely against what the freedoms of the nation promise us. You are just a slave to the owners narrative they want you to think. Please take a wider look at it, you’ll find you’ve been duped.
Capitalism is evil and needs to be eliminated, overthrown , whatever. Capitalism is the root of every problem in this country. Anyway, the way I see it, no owner should expect to make money off of a team, to me buying a team is like buying a Ferrari, it’s a toy for the mega rich to have fun with, for those that want to spend millions to try to win even if it means losing 100 million over 5 or 10 years. No owner should expect a profit from sports team ownership
It’s so nice of you to decide what owners should do with their money. I’m against cities paying for their stadiums without any kind of direct payback from the team, but to say that the teams are just toys of the rich is a joke. Maybe your comments on capitalism weren’t sarcasm, in which case you’re a fool.
Capitalism would not have “years of control”, “luxury tax”, etc. Owners want socialism when players are young & capitalism when they get “old.” Typical. Rich want it when it works for them, and protection from it when it works for someone else.
100 losses for bucs. maybe more but last place is certain. believe nothing from upper mgment. they didn’t do sh– this offseason.
Now I don’t think that the Pirates are going to contend, but no way they’re going to lose 100 games. Comparing them to other 100 loss teams last season (Royals, Orioles, White Sox) the Pirates are well ahead of either of those 3. Yea I know other teams in the division got better, but they didn’t get so good, nor did the Pirates get that bad, to the point where they go from an around .500 team to a 100 loss team.
How do you figure?
I’m curious as to why players are upset over the fact that there are no long-term contracts being handed out when the majority of major-money deals have opt outs anyway? Does a 10-year deal really mean anything if you can opt out after three years?
Yes because a ten year deal with the option to opt out in three years guarantees you a ton more money than a straight three year deal.
yes, it’s a 10 year deal of the opt-out is not exercised.
I mean, the options the Pirates have at shortstop right now can’t do worse than Jordy Mercer did for the past few seasons, right?
Bingo!
And yet,one of the greedy colluding owners still is going to pay Mercer over $10.5M to play middling baseball for the next 2 years.
Exactly. I don’t think Galvis really moves the needle anyway.
Yes there are no guarantees in baseball but your chances are better of winning if you buy the best personnel you can
I know this is an unpopular opinion but I think Nutting is willing to spend a little more, it’s just that Huntington doesn’t want to. He’s content with trying to be the smartest guy in the room, find the next hidden gem, and dumpster diving. They’ve extended players, signed over slot picks, and added payroll midseason, but a few of the moves haven’t worked out and I think NH is afraid. It wouldn’t hurt to spend at least 100M, even if the pickups aren’t long term, at least get some trade chips.
Also, aspiring to be the next Freddy Galvis is NOT something you should be hoping for.
You may have a point HC.It is an interesting take at least,although NH may not want to stray too far from the owner as that can affect job security!
NH has been in his job so long that I could see him wearing into a rut like you imply.
He may not have fear but I think him to be basically conservative and at ease with this stance.
I also have come to think that he lacks imagination which is a by product of conservatism.
It is also a lot of hard work to sign free agents who actually produce well.
Unfortunately,in any industry,it is all too often that people get too comfortable in their jobs if they have been in them for a long time.
I like NH and think him to have done a good job,but the Pirates have seen their three year mediocre time window,so they need to contend at least for the next three years.
I hope for the sake of Pirate fans that he has been given that mandate.
Pirates, go sign Dallas Keuchel to round out the rotation. 3 years, $16-$18 AAV for 3 seasons with an option for a 4th. A rotation of Taillon, Keuchel, Williams, Archer, and Musgrove is pretty good. Then go out and get a relief pitcher or two (preferably a left hander) to fill out the pen. Edgar Santana pitched a good amount of innings last season, but is having TJ surgery and will miss most of if not all of the 2019 season, and so will Chad Kuhl who was also looking at a potential bullpen job. Not only will it improve the pitching staff, but also bring the payroll up to or right around $100 million.
kuhl is out for 2019 as well
I know, and they need more pitching depth. That’s the biggest problem right now. If Mercer’s output is the bar for shortstop, I feel pretty confident with the current options then. That makes pitching depth the biggest hole right now.
kingam, lyles, brault hopefully can hold out until keller comes up. i agree another option would be nice
Yea, like I’m not saying that they need to go out and get Kimbrel, but why not roll the dice with like Adam Warren, or Zach Duke?
Or Oliver Perez or Gio Gonzalez or Jose Iglesias.Heck,they could have even gone after Sonny Gray to stir things up and been no worse off money wise than with Ivan Nova.
Keuchel gets anywhere from $12-$15M season. Pirates would never do it. Bucs had a chsnce to deal Marte for Carasco (Indians) pre16 season and did nothing.
Even up that would clearly have been a bad deal for the Pirates at the time when Marte was one of the best young players in the ML and a full time outfielder capable of playing a fine centerfield.
If the Pirates got Keuchel and Kimbrel they’d be a lot more of a serious threat.
Both of these pitchers have seen their best years,and clearly want too much money and years for the market to bear. or they would have been signed by now.
These are the type of free agent signings where clubs try to get rid of their burdensome contracts the next year.The Pirates to their credit have really only had to do that once,with Liriano,and he had been a very good pitcher for them for three years and not a free agent pitcher.
They need a solid #5(like they had with Nova),and lefty and righty depth RP’s to have a chance to contend.
What a terrible post. Like, every single word of it is wrong. Are you trolling?
“They need a solid #5” – Kuechel is more than that. You don’t want him though? Why?
Kimbrel out of the AL East in the NL would dominate and you know it.
You are clearly a shill for the Players Union.
Is your name Tony Clark?
Posters like you who are so heavily biased one way do not add anything to the discussion.
To say that one team should add four of the highest free agents is so ludicrous that it is laughable.
Hopefully you are a troll who just goes away.
What team wouldn’t be?
i tend to agree, erik and freddy could be very similar
other options may still be available though.
i dont care about payroll so much, as long as the team improves. seems like the team hasn’t gotten worse….
Books should be laid wide open for everyone to see. Salary caps, floors, revenue sharing should all be on the table. MLB right now has 4-6 legitimate FA bidders.
The Pirates actually have a decent team this year but I think that the NL Central plays the AL East which will be tough with three good teams.The NL Central is also going to be better and more evenly balanced.I see them winning 83-85 games
The Pirates are run in a business like manner but they do not take chances and give their fans hope.There are plenty of short term deals available that can incrementally make them better but their conservative nature precludes them from getting an edge
Their lack of elite scouting and coaching groups precludes them from real contention.
If salary floors are started in the next bargaining session it should increase the salaries of the good young players and give teams automatic opt out clauses in long term contracts for sub performance issues like employees get in the real world.
What too many posters ignore though is that the Pirates’ ticket prices are still very reasonable for the group that gets screwed the most,the fans.A salary floor will almost certainly affect that group adversely for teams like the Pirates and neither the owners nor players will care.
Why don’t the Pirates give Pablo Reyes the starting job at short? He did much better than any of the other current options they have set up to take over at short. He reminds me of a Josh Harrison type. He can play anywhere you put him, has some speed, a bit of pop, and a decent glove.
I do not think that they trust that the end of year splash is sustainable for Reyes.I think that they see him as an SRod type of player.In my opinion he has not played enough shortstop to entrust him with that demanding position.
I think NH backs himself into a corner when he makes a blanket statement like he made about free agents.I think it is right most of the time but there have been good team friendly free agent deals also.The GMs just have to work hard to get them and take chances.
I think that they could pay the Tigers 2018 shortstop for two years and then at least get a first rate fielder with range who is a decent hitter.That signing would not break the bank.
Though what risk would there be to try him out as the starting SS to start the season? I get that they don’t fully trust his sample size amount of plate appearances, but it’s not like any of their current options are worse than him.
…because Reyes can’t play SS. He’s below average at SS., passable at 2B/3B, good in RF.
Run prevention is as important as run scoring hence Erik Gonzalez and Kevin Newman.
Gonzalez has been waiting for a chance to start. How about we see how he performs? Stranger things have happened.
Easy way to add a few wins to the Pirates: Not have nearly 200 wild pitches next season.
For sure!
Free agency is often a losing game, sure, but it’s also a necessary game to fill significant holes on your roster if you want your team to actually be competitive more than once in a blue moon.
I have reached a point with the Pirates where I just don’t care. For the first time in close to a decade, I did not attend a home game last year. Sadly I won’t be attending another this year or in the future. If ownership doesn’t give a $%&# about winning. Why should we fans? This franchise is a joke!
Mind if I use your tickets?
Players need to accept the fact they approved the current CBA and owners aren’t fans anymore. They are business men and know how to run a business now their hiring bean counters in the front office who can find cheaper and younger alternatives. Large contracts never agree well since the steroid era ended. Besides, baseball isn’t dependent on a single player when it comes to wins.
Good to see Huntington’s talent for spewing BS hasn’t diminished. If he honestly believes there aren’t better alternatives out there to Gonzalez/Newman, then he’s delusional. And unless he’s content with ~.500 seasons then he absolutely needs to spend money to keep up with the rest of the division, especially in this cratered FA market. It’s honestly embarrassing listening to this man talk.
Signing Jose Iglesias and Gio Gonzalez to 1-2 year deals, in this market, would not only fill their 2 biggest holes, but still be cheap enough to the point where they’d still be well below $100M in payroll, which is still nothing in today’s world. The fact that they aren’t even open to an idea like this is not only negligent to the on-field product, but insulting to the fanbase. And this is after the Archer/Kela deals that they claimed would help the team for this very window.
Unfortunately,I have to agree with you J.T.The two players that you mention would come at no great cost,and both would help the Pirates.
The signings by themselves if for no other reason would show that management is trying to contend in this three year window.
If they do not try to win now they rightly should lose much of their fan base.
I think that NH should realize this now instead of jabbering about bad free agent deals.Nobody is yammering about signing Patrick Corbin or Bryce Harper but one must spend at times of contention.
I hope for the Pirate franchise sake that management wakes up and gets out of the rut that they are in before there is talk of moving the franchise again.
NH is fairly famous about saying, “were doing this and that” and then going and doing something else.
I doubt he’d sign Jose and/or Gio or that they would take such crappy deals.. but i’d put money on that they have or are talking to them. we just don’t know.
Of course they make WAY more than you. They have a business to run, they are your boss. They have responsibilities to hundreds of employees and their families, a stadium to take care of, and a thousand other headaches. All you have to do is play baseball, so shut the hell up. So sick of this socialist mindset. Other than the big 3 – Machado, Harper, and Kimbrel (who are asking too much!) most of the decent FA’s picked up fair contracts already.
Sick of this socialist mindset? So it’s good when it comes to building stadiums and bad when building rosters??
The only reason I can think of to pay players more money, is that the fans are already paying for it. It is no longer affordable to go to multiple games like the old days because of the ridiculous salary spikes, so they may as well pay these primadonnas hundreds of millions of dollars to play baseball. It really is a young mindset though that thinks it is normal to be paid this kind of money to play baseball.
Actually the price of a ticket has nothing to do with player salaries. Prices are what they are because that’s what the demand allows them to be… Player salaries are just what some rich dude told you so you wouldn’t get mad at him when he decided he was gonna raise your ticket price.
If prices were in any way related to player salaries, they’d be going down because the percentage of revenue going to the players has been declining for years, as has the average AAV of free agent deals.
They’re not.
Congratulations, your heart is bleeding for the guy who just gouged you AND lied to you…
This argument is specious at best.
Ticket prices affect revenue and revenue is used to pay player salaries.The owners do not separate out the money into piles.It all goes into the bank.
Player salaries have not gone down.The % versus revenue has gone down from a high of 63% in the early 2000’s.Owners have gotten smarter since then.But this does not mean that ticket prices would go down,just that they should have increased at a lower annual rate.
an argument can’t be specious when it’s been proven correct.
A team can slash it’s payroll down to under 30 million and still say it needs to raise prices for one reason or another.
the percentage of revenue going to players is at it’s lowest level in something like 15 years
the average free agent contract has declined for 5 straight off seasons.
prices are at an all time high
a specious argument is one that is counter to the facts in front of you. Like a misguided claim that it’s the players fault ticket prices keep going up..
all of this is readily available information. you should use it, THEN form an opinion..
I stand by my post.
Even a communist would think that the player salary level % 15 years ago was way too high.Of course it is going to come down over a long period of time.
Player salaries have not gone down during that total length of time.
Your bias has blinded you.
You also do not mention other costs that teams have,concentrating only on player salaries.
Try looking at things from an overall perspective to get any correct and comprehensive judgement.
Standing by a theory that can’t stand up to scrutiny just makes you willfully ignorant, which isn’t as cool as the internet would have you believe
You can accuse me of bias, but until you prove it, it’s a meaningless statement
And what standard are you using to decide what is or is not too high a percentage for the players?
You’re entitled to your opinion, but unless you can actually base it on anything of value, it’s kind of a worthless opinion.
I still stand by my post.
It is clear to me that you formed an opinion and then tried to make the facts fit your opinion.You just don’t realize it.
You do a good job at explaining your opinion,and of knowing the facts,you just do not look at the question and research it first in a comprehensive unbiased manner.
Check out all of your posts and I think that you will agree that you consistently look at it from the players’perspective.
When did ticket prices start increasing rapidly-with the advent of free agency.
Who got hurt the most- the fans.
Both the ML players and the owners are the ones who are feeding at the trough.
I am not using any standard % at this point.Perhaps that will come out at the next bargaining session.I suppose one could determine a fair one by comparing it to other industries where the % is known.
Not sure that your arguement has been “proven correct” by anyone except in your own mind.
Which statement are you standing by? The one that payroll drives ticket prices or that the unknown, unprovable mystery expenses you just assume the owners have justify it? You’ve tried to argue both now that you know the data doesn’t support your initial assertion.
Percentage of revenue spent on payroll in going down. You can’t deny that because it’s fact. If ticket prices were linked to payroll, they’d follow the same trend. That is also a fact you cannot ignore… Because if there’s no inherent link, there is no link.
Payroll percentage is dropping, ticket prices are not. Only intelligent conclusion is something else drives ticket prices.
Most likely the undeniable economic law of demand driving prices much more than expenses…
But sure, we’ll pretend I’m the one who doesn’t know what he’s talking about…
I didn’t say nor mean your last statement,only that you are so heavily biased you cannot comprehend the whole picture because of your bias.
The businessmen owners are concerned with one thing ,revenue,and that affects ticket prices.They do not particularly care if it comes to them from more fans or lower player salaries.You overcomplicate what I said.
What posters like yourself do not seem to grasp is that most of the long term commitments spent by since unemployed gms and naive owners have come to harm the entire baseball team organizations,and all of the employees.I do not fault the players,I fault the owners for being that stupid.What you are seeing the last few years is that those same owners have wised up.And average salaries have gone down partly as a result
It is not rocket science.One has to be able to relate to the aspects of the total organization.
We do not see their books so we do not know if your conclusion is intelligent or not.
There continues to be the same argument from both sides regarding the trends in free agency. On one end you have the hyper fan who says sign machado, Harper, Dallas etc and give them what they are asking for and try to win a World Series. On the other end is the businessman saying it’s not smart to sign free agents, these deals for older players don’t work out.
Neither are wrong. The average fan wants the team to be competitive or at least try. The issue we have now is that the owners have found a way to barely spend and not try to win. Giving guys 10 year contracts doesn’t usually work out, so I don’t fault the owners for that. Where I see the issue is that the AAV seems to be decreasing as well on 1 and 2 year deals.
Simply put, players are not being paid full market value for production in their prime. Owners are smart businessmen and are using the system to their advantage.
Honestly, I havent’ seen any players get really shafted this season. Some made a little more than predicted, some made a little less, and some are asking for the world which never should have happened. Same goes for arbitration. Although I do think Javy Baez was shortchanged, he was the exception to a generally fair offseason. But no way should Arenado be rejecting 24M, that is just wrecking the game.
The owners do not have a monopoly on being pigs as far as money is concerned.
They totally do, but sure go off, guy who cannot fathom that playing baseball at MLB level is a skill few humans have and wants the same money for doing whatever button pushing job they have.
You have already struck out.Your name proves it.
Other than Corbin who I think got a great deal, you see many other franchises with the same mentality as the pirates GM. They aren’t even thinking about too tier free agents. They make it publicly known like in this article that they don’t want to spend in free agency. So clearly you don’t spend in arbitration, no you aren’t spending in free agency?
Spending doesn’t mean sign Harper/machado. It means signing solid players that can make an impact. I think any smaller market organization like the pirates are much better off getting a few players over one big name. What hurts the game more than what Nolan asks for, are teams coming flat out saying we are no spending. If you can do that and win games like the Rays and the Athletics then go for it. For the pirates and others who aren’t competing, this directly benefits their bottom line. Therefore the players make less, the fans are still charged a lot to visit a game and the owners make more money.
Many people are thinking black and white as far as who should be making the money, players or owners. That is not what truly the discussion is about. I agree that the owners deserve to make the largest gain for putting the production together. The players union is upset because team revenues and values are rising significantly faster than that of the players, and the players are now getting a smaller piece of the pie.
megaj11 – you have not been looking hard enough
2 WORDS
PIRATES=JOKE
The pirates pocket luxury tax and revenue sharing money while leaving their great fan base in the dust, What a shame smh. They just try to rack up reclamation projects and hope to get lucky.
What great fan base? Doc Emrick? The overwhelming majority of the fan base is nakedly fair weather.
People here cheered the attendance drop last year more than they did the 98 win season.
How long can you reasonably expect a fan base to stick with a team that repeatedly chooses not to take the necessary steps to reward their loyalty?
At some point every team has to spend to get over the proverbial hump. Just a fact of life. The Pirates got to the hump…then decided not to spend…
Nutting goes to Family Dollar for players !!!
If free agency is such a losing game then why are most of the other teams playing it?
Everyone above is missing the forest for the trees. No one gives a rats behind who is making all the money. Every fan wants one basic thing: for their team to win a championship.
Which teams win championships? Is there correlation between spending and championships? Not winning seasons. Championships.
We all know the answer to that. To win a World Series teams need to spend. The Pirates won’t win a World Series spending $75 million. The Red Sox wouldn’t win a World Series if they reduced their salary to $75 million.
It’s about hope. There is no hope my Pirates will win a World Series. That is a painful fact.
All of this could’ve been avoided years ago if they would just do some common sense things like a salary floor, salary cap, and limit the max length on a contract. Every team knows how much they can/must spend and players know they can’t make outlandish contract requests.
Heard Neal Huntington offered Freddy Galvis a three year deal at the league minimum. Freddy couldn’t come down in his asking price.
Huntington’s comments about free agency make sense—if he was a GM for an NFL team. He has a philosophy of building through the draft and not overpaying to keep/sign players. The Pittsburgh Steelers do this all the time.
The problem is everything is equal in the NFL. There is a salary cap, a salary floor, no special rules on how much you can spend in the draft or international free agency, etc. While there are NFL teams that tank, they have a more realistic chance of rebounding quickly than MLB teams since the incoming talent is ready faster, not toiling in the minors for several years.
The Pirates has success when they were the early adopters of a practice. They looked for players in rounds 5-10 of the draft and overpaid them to get them to break commitments. This advantage disappeared when the draft rules were rewritten a few years back—everyone now has a pool (of varying sizes) with penalties for going over. The Pirates were also early advocates of pitch framing and the shift. They had success in finding players that fit that scheme that weren’t valued by other teams. Now the league has caught up.
Its not realistic to compete by being the first to think up a new way of doing things—it either works and everyone copies it, or it doesn’t and you’re toast. Barring fundamental changes (salary cap/floor), the only thing the Pirates can do to compete is spend money, which they certainly can do, to a point. They would never be in the top 5-10 payrolls, but if they were consistently just under the league average they’d have a chance.
Great take. The frustrating thing about the Pirates is that they’ve done all the work, they sold the farm for Archer, it’s go-time for them, and Machado/Harper, Kuechel and Kimbrel would turn them from very underwhelming to dark horse for the NL. But the owners are crying poor now, and their stooge Huntington is towing the line. They CAN afford 2-4 of those guys, with ease, but won’t because the owners would rather buy 4 mansions this year, not 3. It’s disgusting and MLB needs to step in more and force more owners who claim poverty to spend or sell to someone who will.
I don’t think they could afford all 4, but it’s inexcusable not to be in on at least one of them, especially Machado. Shortstop is a blackhole and Machado is the best SS available. Keuchel could also make sense, but isn’t needed as much and I wouldn’t go for Harper or Kimbrel for similar reasons. Hell, sign one of them and Huntington could probably get a parade down Forbes Ave.
NFL is very different though. Baker mayfield signed a $32m deal which includes a $21m (appx) bonus. NFL is easy to control because players are getting paid immediately and making an impact immediately.
The timing is just off with MLB now, and these guys in the NFL will be retired by the time someone like Aaron judge hits free agency at 30/31 years of age.
True and non-guaranteed contracts also make a huge difference.
Anyone who thinks there will ever be a salary floor without a salary cap is smoking turpentine.
A salary cap/floor system based on a 50/50 split of revenues would put an extra $1 billion per year into the player’s pockets as MLB players currently only get 39% of revenue.
And it fixes the game’s biggest problem, competitive balance.
But some people are still too busy fighting 1994 to see the obvious.
Boom, another great angle not talked about by the “owner superfans” who are polluting these threads.
Sorry, I can’t justify the Pirates low spending ways anymore, when they do nothing to try to improve the team. All of the NL Central teams are set to have a payroll of over 100 million except the Pirates with a projected 40 million below the Reds. I’m okay with the pitching staff, but they’ve done nothing to address anything else. Polanco is going to miss a decent amount of time. He provided some production (but you don’t know what your going to get from him). So they replace him with Lonnie Chisenhall, Ozuna, and Jason Martin? That does nothing. 3rd base is up in the air, Moran is a back up at best, Kang is unreliable. Short stop Newman/Kramer unproven so far, Gonzalez? Ditto…. 2nd base, who knows? Would like to see Frazier their every day. 1st base – Josh Bell has potential you don’t know what you’re going to get with him. Catcher – Cervelli is solid, but injury prone, plus the Pirates want to get rid of him anyway because of his salary. Diaz – could be solid, but who knows. LF = Dickerson is solid, but I don’t see them keeping that much longer due his salary. CF- Marte is solid but the same as above – how much longer will they want to pay him before they trade him? I don’t care about a low payroll, but when you make no effort in trying to improve your team in the off season to address needs that need to be made. The Pirates roster still has a lot of questions and management is servants to Billionaire Bob who say and do the same routine.
the owners dont always make big $ last year the reds made 14 million and votto made 25. the owners put years worth of capital in this. they need a hard cap. some teams just dont jave 250 million a year. they also need to pay minors players more. and geez has not one of you taken accounting 101? you pay for their salaries. if it goes up the owner is not going to pay that you will.
The owners Reds also stunk last year, which is probably the biggest reason they weren’t making money hand over fist…
Econ 101 : people will pay more readily for quality. Especially when it comes to comes to TV rights, the biggest source of revenue disparity.
And the whole Cap argument falls flat when you realize it would be much closer to 200 million than 50 (MLB makes more money off the big market teams so would never cap them severely), so the small market teams wouldn’t get much of anything out of it.
Cap is worthless without a floor as well. Make the floor 130 or 140 million and the cap roughly 40 million above that, so 170-180. That way teams have to spend but teams can’t print money and buy everyone up.
May be good in theory but utterly useless as a practicality with the gross disparity in revenue produced by ticket prices,size of population affected,and television revenue streams.Complicated situations usually are not nearly so easily and readily improved.
opps I meant econ 101 lol
That’s a cute rhetorical trick by Huntington. Defining being the successful (i.e. highest) bidder for a FA as having “overbid.” So literally NO free agent is a good value. Why? Because nobody bid more! So if you are successful, you lose! Well, why bother trying if winning equals losing??? Wow. Pirates fans must love that “logic.”