Are the Pirates Wasting Their Incredible Young Starters? If So, How Much?
I went to the Pirates’ RosterResource page this morning and thought the following thought: “Man, is Isiah Kiner-Falefa really going to lead off for this team? God, that’s depressing.” Not that I have anything against IKF; it’s just symptomatic of a Pirates team that seems built to do little more than participate in the coming season.
The Pirates being an afterthought is nothing new; on the contrary, it’s been the default state of affairs for most of the past 45 years. But recent developments have made this a particularly frustrating time for Pirates fans.
At the risk of oversimplifying things, there are two kinds of good players: Players you can get and players you have to have drop out of the sky for you. Like Willy Adames is a really good player, and worth the monster contract the Giants just gave him. But if he’d signed elsewhere, the Giants could’ve found another player like him.
Not so Paul Skenes.
Skenes is a demigod. And full credit to Pittsburgh for recognizing it and picking him; the top of the 2023 class was absolutely loaded, and any one of three or four players might’ve gone no. 1 overall. The Pirates brought the big right-hander to the majors some 10 months after they drafted him, and from the moment Skenes’ spikes hit a big league mound he’s been one of the best pitchers in baseball.
The best compliment I can pay Skenes is that after less than a full season in the majors, people are talking about him the way they talk about Connor McDavid or Joe Burrow or Victor Wembanyama: in terms of wasting him. If the stars align to put a player like this on your team with the first overall pick and you don’t win a title — or at least come damn close — you’ve screwed up.
So what are the Pirates doing to capitalize on this once-in-a-franchise-history break? Well, they’re filling bench spots with free agents you thought had retired years ago. I haven’t seen a Pirates team with this many holes since Lieutenant Robert Maynard’s men shot up Blackbeard’s ship off the coast of North Carolina in 1718.
As currently constituted, the Pirates are wasting their messianic pitcher. (And Skenes went to LSU, so he’s probably seen a lot of people get wasted.) And it’s worse than that; the Pirates actually have three good young pitchers under team control, with Jared Jones and Mitch Keller taking up the next two spots in the rotation.
But even if you look at this as the Three Musketeers, and not just one Musketeer, there’s a limit to how valuable a bumper crop of young front-end starters can be. A franchise pitcher just doesn’t have as much impact as a franchise quarterback or a franchise center (either kind). And unless the Pirates body-swapped Bailey Falter with prime Randy Johnson this winter, their rotation looks pretty ordinary after their top three.
Still, how good is this big three? Just for a quick-and-dirty estimate, I went to next year’s ZiPS projections for starting pitchers and picked out a three-man rotation for each team. Usually, that meant the three guys with the highest WAR totals, but occasionally I overrode that number because of injury or some other consideration.
Limiting each team to three starters cut out a lot of good players: 2024 All-Star Ranger Suárez, 2024 AL Rookie of the Year Luis Gil, Bryan Woo, Merrill Kelly, the list goes on. The Pirates did pick up both Chase Shugart and Carson Fulmer this offseason, so it’s comforting to know that Ben Cherington and I have similar taste in feisty undersized college pitchers from the mid-2010s. But that does little to reinforce their rotation.
Even if you don’t ding the Pirates for their lack of depth, their front three compares favorably to other rotations, but not as favorably as you’d think.
| Pirates | Median | Mean | Maximum | Minimum | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WAR | 8.2 | 6.7 | 6.9 | 10.6 | 3.4 |
| RA9-WAR | 8.7 | 7.3 | 7.1 | 11.6 | 3.5 |
Skenes-Jones-Keller is good, but that trio is 10th in the league in projected WAR, and eighth in projected RA9-WAR. Let’s call it a win and a half advantage over an average top-three, and a similar deficit to the top three-headed monsters in baseball: Arizona, Philadelphia, Seattle, maybe Atlanta.
A win and a half is not a trivial thing. Staying on that quick-and-dirty path, it’s worth about $12 million. But neither is it transformative. Hey, since we have playoff odds out now, the Pirates are projected to win 78.3 games this year. If they had the median top three starters, they’d be in line to win 76.8 games.
But hey, what if ZiPS is underrating these young pitchers with little track record? Skenes projects for 3.7 WAR, which is just the seventh-best figure for any no. 1 starter in the league. Unless he gets hurt, I’d bet on him to blow that figure away, which he did in only 133 innings last year.
So let’s goose the numbers and make Skenes, Jones, and Keller the best top three in baseball. If this trio was worth the expected production of the Phillies’ top three of Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, and Cristopher Sánchez, Pittsburgh would be in line to win 80.7 games.
How big a difference is that, really: 76 wins to 78 to 81? I guess 81 gets you to .500, which would be something of a moral victory. Is that worth spending a year of Skenes and Jones on?
This is kind of a poor man’s version of the Angels never making the playoffs when they had Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout. One or two stars don’t get you that far in baseball. We just did weeks of Félix Hernández Hall of Fame discourse; surely that should reinforce how bad a team can be even with a total stud of a young ace.
Skenes and Jones aren’t Trout and Ohtani, but they’re good enough to push an average team from the muddy middle into the Wild Card picture. What if the Pirates were merely average outside their young stars? Imagine if they were an 81-win team without Skenes instead of somewhere in the low 70s, which is what they would be without him now. Dropping Skenes in for an average pitcher would be enough to push them into the true-talent 83- or 84-win range. That’s the edge of the Wild Card picture. If Skenes is replacing a replacement-level starter, that’s NL Central favorite territory.
The advantage conferred by a rotation like this is not that big: a few wins over the course of a season. Skenes and Jones are not McDavid or Leon Draisaitl, or Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase. That’s just not how baseball works.
But the frustrating thing about the Pirates is how easy it is to get to a point in the win curve where a few wins make all the difference. You don’t have to be smart or rich — you just have to be mediocre everywhere else. When the baseball gods bestow a player like Skenes onto a team, that’s the gift: Build something unremarkable around him, and you’ll become a contender. Instead, the Pirates are relying on their savior to drag them to mediocrity. What a pity.
Michael is a writer at FanGraphs. Previously, he was a staff writer at The Ringer and D1Baseball, and his work has appeared at Grantland, Baseball Prospectus, The Atlantic, ESPN.com, and various ill-remembered Phillies blogs. Follow him on Twitter, if you must, @MichaelBaumann.
well they just signed tommy pham so this sure aged poorly
Hopefully /s
Yep, a 36 year old outfielder who was an above average MLB player as recently as 2019 will definitely make a big difference. They’ve also got McCutchen, so they’ll have plenty of veteran leadership in that clubhouse.
Replying to myself, because, when I make a snarky comment about MLB players, I sometimes think about how unfair that is, and this is one of those times.
Pham and McCutchen are, today, probably still amoung the best thousand or so baseball players in the world.
They are very good at this baseball thing, I was very bad at baseball back when I played at all. To say they are in a different league than I ever was is to grossly understate how much better they are. They put an enourmous amount of effort into being good at baseball, and if a better team had signed them, we’d be discussing platoon matchups and the importance of depth pieces.
But they weren’t signed by a better team, they were signed by the Pirates, so I’m still feeling snarky about it, but the snark should be aimed at the team, not the players who are doing the best they can, and it’s a very good best.
You were right to begin with
Signing Tommy Pham is exactly what the article is pointing out. How about signing Anthony Santander instead of Tommy Pham. What a shame that Bob “Nothing” is such a tightwad owner. Beautiful Park, great history, the Roberto Clemente Bridge and all the nice fairly new Bars & restaurants near the PNC Park.
“See, Michael, we’ve got an outfielder now! Yeah, he had to sign a minor-league deal with the worst team of all time a month into the season last year and then put up -0.1 WAR, but hey, we did something!”
Every pitch thrown by paul skenes in a non playoff year is a fireable offense and an insult to the spirit of baseball.
They are sort of doing what the White ox did from 2013 – 16. Hope to get enough out of the team to make the playoffs in a weak division, then lean on a few starters and hope they dominate. For the White Sox it was Sale and Quintana. Those two guys put up 38.2 fWAR over those 4 years and made zero playoff appearances. They had only 14 hitter-seasons and 3 other pitcher-seasons of 2+ WAR during those 4 years and played terrible defense. Eventually Rick Hahn gave the famous “mired in mediocrity” speech and was given permission to tear it all down and try to acquire more than 2 players to in with.
There are two fairly important differences between the Pirates and the White Sox of that era. First, the Pirates’ starters and back-ups generally play good defense. Second, the Pirates would seem to have more pitching depth.
The dumbest thing about that era of White Sox baseball (well, other than the Drake LaRoche saga, trading Tatis Jr., or late-career cameos by Jimmy Rollins & Justin Morneau) was that they already had much of the supporting cast they needed, but traded them for garbage (Marcus Semien, Chris Bassitt) or non-tendered them (Tyler Flowers) because they didn’t understand pitch framing. They then made things even worse by giving a ton of PA and innings to utility guys and backend pitchers who weren’t just bad, but produced significant negative value.
Just to illustrate the point, in 2016, the White Sox won 78 games – but simply keeping Marcus Semien (2.7 WAR) and Tyler Flowers (2.5) instead of Brett Lawrie (0.9) and Dioner Navarro (-1.8), not giving 488 PA (-2.5) to JB Shuck, Yolmer Sanchez, Jerry Sands, Kevan Smith, Charlie Tilson, and Hector Sanchez, and not letting James Shields, Matt Albers, Jacob Turner, and Anthony Ranaudo throw 217.2 IP (-3.3) gets them to 90 wins and a WC berth, and actually having functional depth and bench players capable of producing positive value puts them right there with division champion Cleveland at 94 wins.
Truly one of the most hilarious roster-building catastrophes I’ve ever witnessed, which was then of course compounded by one of the worst trades in MLB history. I can’t imagine Rick Hahn ever gets another job in baseball.
Hahn catches a lot of flack and he was the GM so he deserves it. But to this day I don’t know who was in charge or who had which idea. A lot of those deals feel like Kenny Williams’ style, was it him? Did Jerry Reinsdorf dictate that strategy? He has a well known love of bad baseball players.
A lot of Hahn’s tenure feels like he was forced to execute other people’s bad ideas and only got to do it his way after those didn’t work.
I don’t think we will ever know.
Agreed, but Hahn would have taken the credit had it worked, so he gets the criticism too, even if he’s really just a stand-in for the entire dysfunctional organization.
After leaving this comment, I actually did a way-too deep dive of who would have been on the 2019 White Sox had they sat pat and literally just not traded anyone – and holy shit is it depressing. I cheated a little bit by putting Tatis in CF, but again, just by not making any trades, all of these players would have been under contract in 2019:
C: Omar Narvaez/Tyler Flowers
1B: Jose Abreu
2B: Marcus Semien
SS: Tim Anderson
3B: ?
RF: Adam Eaton
CF: Fernando Tatis, Jr.
LF: Avisail Garcia
DH: ?
BE: Leury Garcia, Adam Engel, Yolmer Sanchez
SP: Chris Sale
SP: Jose Quintana
SP: Carlos Rodon
SP: Chris Bassitt
SP: ?
Per those players’ 2019 stats, that’s an 83 win team without a 3B, DH, SP5, entire bullpen, and another bench bat. Make a few good moves in FA and they’re a legit WS contender. Instead, in real life, they lost 89 games.
Trevor Bauer waits by the phone.
Keep waiting.
So does Jamie Moyer
Even if they added a great starter, which he may or may not be at this point, they need bats more anyway. So it doesn’t really matter, even ignoring his…situation.
I thought he just re-signed with the Yokohama “there’s no Japanese word for Me Too” BayStars?
They’ve had Skenes and Jones ONE year. Angels wasted six years of Otani and trout.
The comparison is weak
Do better Fangraphs
Article also doesn’t mention trading three good prospects for Spencer Horowitz or the fact they have the next Jared Jones coming up in Bubba Chandler.
I think Horiwtz should be solid, and I am not sure any of the guys going to CLE look too notable. That said, any time Cleveland is asking for 3 of my MiLB pitchers, I should suddenly be wary as a GM…
I think Horwitz is an underrated acquisition and Chandler may give them the chance to be at or near the top in rotations–I agree that both should have been included in the article.
But I also think the point stands that given where their payroll is, they should have done more this offseason. Maybe there is still a move to be made.
If Horwitz is your big acquisition, then that is the problem.
LSU alumni after reading the subhead:
AlonzoMourningShakingHead.gif
Yes, the Pirates are wasting their incredible young starters. But that is very small potatoes compared to how much Bob Nutting is wasting the support and goodwill of the people and fans of the Pittsburgh area,
“Incredible young starters”? Keller is rather ordinary and Jones is pretty good, but incredible 3? Skenes is stellar, but lets be real, would it surprise you if this June he was removed because of an “elbow tweek” and pretty soon they are comparing brace surgery with TJ surgery options.
Aside from an excessively frugal owner, their biggest problem is their inability to select and develop young offensive talent. You really need some good solid regulars that you develop on the farm to fill your lineup if you really want to compete. Instead, the Pirates get Jake Suwinski, Henry Davis, Ke’Bryan Hayes, and Nick Gonzalez.
Agreed that Keller is more “solid” than “incredible,” but Jones finished top 30 in MLB for K% and K% – BB% among pitchers with 120+ IP as a rookie, and Skenes just put up one of the best rookie seasons by a SP ever. If you asked all 30 GMs to start a staff by selecting two SP off the same team irrespective of contract, a couple might prefer some combination of Gilbert/Kirby/Miller from Seattle, or Yamamoto/Sasaki from LAD, but most are going to take Skenes/Jones. If you factor in contracts, 30/30 are taking Skenes/Jones.
Any pitchers’ arm could explode tomorrow; that’s just the nature of baseball nowadays. Skenes and Jones are the most valuable 1-2 in MLB, and it’s a not even close to a stretch to describe them as “incredible” – even if you’re including Keller as the Ringo to their McCartney and Lennon.
You must be a Pirates fan. Comparable or better top twos: Sales and Strider. Wheeler and Nola. Cease and King, Burnes and Gallen, some combo or Yamamoto/Sasaki/Ohtani.That’s just the NL (I don’t know the AL that well…)
And finishing in the top 30 in K% and K%-BB% is nice enough, but that seems awfully cherry-picked of a stat. I mean, yeah, Jones is pretty good and shows promise and MAY develop into a front-line starter.
Look, I have no dog in this fight; I am not trying to hype or diss the Pirates (although it would be good if they could FINALLY be competitive for a change). Skenes and Jones are a pretty good 1-2 punch, and as you say, at those salaries, it is a great start. But just a start.
Not better for the money!
Teams would take them first because they would only be paying them peanuts and could then use the $$ to sign some position players & put a solid team behind them..Pittsburgh is just pocketing the $$ & running out IKF at SS!
Unfortunately, I’m a White Sox fan, but this is ridiculous.
Everyone you named, except for Sasaki, is either signed to a huge contract or a pending free agent. Most of them are entering their age 30 or older season, one is returning from his second UCL tear, and Ohtani’s hitting ability obviously doesn’t count for the purposes of this exercise. Not only is Jones not a FA until 2030 and Skenes not until 2031, they have two and three pre-arb (league minimum) years left, respectively. That’s why they’re the most valuable 1-2 in MLB.
Also, K% – BB% is literally the most predictive pitcher stat. There’s nothing “cherry-picked” about using it whatsoever.
Excellent post Alderman. The Pirates have time to build a winner behind their 1-2 punch….if only Bob “Nothing” would sell the team.
Sale and Strider are a legit inclusion into the discussion.
Strider provides excellent long-term value and cost certainty via his contract the next 4-seasons, has a $22M option for 2029, and was considered by many the top young arm in baseball as recently as 10 months ago. Sale is affordable for one year, and the controllable/affordable for another year via an $18M club option for 2026 and was arguably the top pitcher in baseball as recently as… this year.
Obviously skipping Flaherty for this type of hypothetical – Skubal and Olson should probably be in the discussion too. From a mileage over age perspective, you can almost squint and get Ragans and Lugo in there. Ok, maybe not them, but they’re good. I may not agree with his suggestions outside of ATL being an option teams would have to consider, but I do agree with the spirit of the message that there are lots of dynamic 1-2 options out there that could challenge a Skenes/Jones duo currently and for the next 2 years. Anything longer than that with pitchers in today’s day and age feels like a fool’s errand anyways.
Please read the conversation before responding; I was answering the question: “If you asked all 30 GMs to start a staff by selecting two SP off the same team irrespective of contract” and acknowledged the salary thing. So you are disagreeing with a straw man here.
Yes if they just talked about a 1-2 punch and cut an average Keller from the conversation it is very impressive. Jones is already good and has a good chance of turning into an excellent pitcher. Keller has actually been a disappointment.
Agreed. There is no doubt that Bob “Nothing” is the big problem. Regardless of who is the GM or Manager you can’t add to your team if the owner refuses to spend.
I think this brings the “Dodgers are ruining baseball” narrative into equilibrium.
Pittsburgh has a .450 winning percentage (equivalent to a 72-90 record) since Barry Bonds left in 1993.
Most other small market teams have seen success during this time through player development, or even just sheer luck. But not Pittsburgh.
I think they are the worst franchise in all of MLB.
I think the Rockies are worse, but at least they have had some playoff success recently, are willing to sign free agents, and can partially blame the Coors effect.
Now, that “success” was 7 years ago and meager, and they have been signing the wrong free agents, but they appear to be trying at least.
The Marlins are still a thing.
The Pirates last won a playoff series in 1979. It’s clearly the worst run franchise in baseball, and it can give the small handful of other terribly run professional sports franchise a run for their in worst run overall.
The Pirates ran a $100M payroll in 2015. In today’s dollars, that would be $132M. Their current payroll is estimated to be $81M. There’s $50M of space even by their own penurious standards. Fans should support the protest. Only show up for Skenes. Boycott otherwise. Don’t by concessions or gear. Write to management.
Ah memories of the 1979 “we are family” World Series. So sad because the Pirates have such a proud history and arguably the nicest Stadium/Park in Baseball. I’m a big Yankees fan and I was barely born then, but the 1960 World Series stunner where the Pirates beat the Yankees is one of the coolest World Series stories ever. Hail to Bill Mazeroski !!
I fully understand the calls for a boycott, but I can’t help but think of the 2013-2015 Pirates whenever people ague they’re the worst-run team. There’s plenty of room for criticism of every GM, and especially Nutting. But I have to think that the franchise would be viewed differently if things had played out just a tad differently.
They won the second most games in MLB 2013-2015! They just happened to be in the same division as the Cardinals, who won the most (by like 5 games over three seasons).
That bumped them to the one game wild card playoff three times: one they one (2013, Cueto dropping the ball game), one they lost to maybe the best playoff pitcher of all time (2014 Bumgarner) and one they lost to a pitcher on an all time heater (2015 Arrietta).
In the 2013 NLDS, they took the Cardinals to 5 games, and very easily could have won. If you swap them in for the Cardinals, maybe they make the World Series!
But even before the what-ifs, I have to imagine no other team in contention for “worst run franchise” has had a recent multiyear run where they were second in the bigs in wins.
the pirates rebuild is going great. after the Pham signing, they now have the 3rd oldest starting lineup, by roster resource projected starting lineups. Behind just LAD and PHI.
All that separates Pham and Freddie Freeman is one year of age!
And 43 career WAR.
Wow… that’s insane
No need for the Willy Adames slander. Just who is that free agent SS that is better than him? Jose Iglesias? Maybe instead chide the Pirates for failing to replace David Bednar with JORDAN ROMANO, Phillies fan
I don’t think it’s slander. Adames is a top 10, top 5 in a good year. But top 10 shortstops hit free agency or are available in trade all the time even if not this year. Hell the giants had the chance to get the guy right in front of Adames in WAR since 2021 twice in the last 3 years, and they could’ve gotten Adames in 2021 too. Very valuable, but not one of a kind.
Paul Skenes may be the best starting pitcher in baseball as soon as next year, and aside from Corbin Burnes, if you don’t grow those they almost never come around.
Adames is a fine player, I’m not going to argue about that – and neither does Baumann. But teams weren’t exactly falling over themselves to off him $300 million, like the top free agent SSs have gone for in the not too distant past.
If Skenes was a free agent right now, he’d blow past the biggest pitcher free agent deal. Would there have been any point where had Adames suddenly become a free agent, he’d break the record for a SS? I don’t think so.
I’m confident Ben Cherington had the green light from ownership to add payroll in order to start capitalizing on having cost-controlled Skenes, Jones, Cruz, et al. The problem is the Pirates have generated a ton of ill will over the last 9 years, culminating in releasing Rowdy Tellez on the cusp of earning a measly $200k bonus. Who wants to sign with a team that won’t spend to add the talent necessary to at least compete for the playoffs, and then will do everything in its power to keep you from earning contractual incentives? No free agent is signing with Pittsburgh unless (a) they lack alternatives or (b) the contract is head and shoulders better. And ownership is so risk-averse, they’ll never pay a premium, ever. Nutting is still sore from signing Liriano to a $39M extension that went sour in year 2.
Citation missing and BADLY needed
I’ve been giving Cherington the benefit of the doubt this whole time but this offseason may completely erode that. There were several far better and I think attainable solutions to RF. The devil’s advocate counterpoints are the ill will they’ve generated as a destination for players, and I’ve also heard someone raise the notion that Nutting (and other risk-averse owners unconcerned with on-the-field product) doesn’t want to sign any multi-year market rate deals extending beyond the current CBA.
I think it’s probably all of the above, to degrees.
Not trying to be a jerk, what exactly makes you confident that Nutting gave the green light to add to payroll?
Nutting has always increased payroll the year after an increase in attendance, and attendance did increase. They also have stability now in year 2 with the RSN they co-own and recently launched a subscription service, which is a new revenue stream they hadn’t had previously. I think it’s reasonable to assume some of that extra cash goes into payroll.
Is that a few million, and payroll winds up in the high 80M range? I think that’s the base case. Given the payroll they cleared from ’24 that’s a ~$20 free agent budget.
I did think the Pirates were ready to be opportunistic with the free agent pool above that level, particularly among OF (Buster Olney wrote as much, for what THAT’S worth), but one by one all the difference makers signed elsewhere, and Cherington’s just going to do what he always does – spread it around to dudes who will generate between -0.5 and 0.5 WAR each.
If it increases after an attendance bump, it’s miniscule. And not nearly substantial enough.
Nutting is awful and BC is not nearly imaginative (such as flipping Bednar for a haul before 2024) enough. It’s a bad combination.
You are correct that Nutting has always tied payroll to attendance. Even though the RSN has stabilized, that doesn’t mean that revenue is the same as or greater than what they were receiving under the previous deal.
I speculate that Nutting is being tight because he is receiving less from the new deal. This would be typical Nutting behavior. Don’t spend money on the team, which means lower ticket sales and now lower TV revenue since they now have an app to stream games locally. Since revenue is lower, cut payroll and continue the cycle.
An owner of a business that wants to be successful needs to invest in the business before generating revenue. If Nutting would start spending, he would generate excitement from hard core and casual fans. Then revenues would increase from higher ticket sales and TV purchases.
Nats have similar problem.
Nice article,Dodgers not top 3 pitching teams?
By projections for their top 3 when looking at the next 3 years? No chance.
Dodgers have by far the most rotation talent and probably the best top 3 in terms of talent looking out over the next 3 years but health uncertainty is always going to significantly limit projections.
Ohtani coming off not pitching at all last year, Yamamoto only threw 90 regular season innings in his debut season, Sasaki lacks of both innings and MLB track record, Glasnow coming off injury and his highest innings total ever (at a paltry 134), Snell is either a CY or can’t throw 130 innings.
Hayes has been a huge disappointment. At one point they had to assume he was a middle-of-the-order bat with great defense and now he can’t get in the lineup and when he does he disappoints.
I can’t disagree with your points, because it’s all true, but as someone who herniated a disc in his back last January then spent most of July and August wondering if I’d ever get a full night’s sleep again after exacerbating the injury in June, that kind of injury can be no joke depending on how extensive it is and the location.
It’s definitely dampened the range of motion in my lower back in terms of being able to bend or contort my body (slight pain at the extremes or doing to fast a movement) and it’s something that needs to be constantly managed. Discs don’t heal but the bulge can shrink to the point where the nerve is no longer impacted.
I was just ramping up marathon training when the worst of the pain started. On the bright side, running keeps your core and lower back in a stable, good postured position so I actually felt better after running. But the lack of sleep and recovery tanked my training cycle from the start and I wasn’t able to get where I wanted to be.
I couldn’t imagine being a professional athlete and dealing with herniated disc symptoms especially a 3rd basemen who has to put his back in precarious positions via bending over, rapid changes in direction, laying out, and swinging a bat.
While I feel constant improvement in my symptoms and am again to rock climb, play softball, and run pain free, I’m also more careful than I’ve ever been for fear of re-aggravation. Symptom severity is different for everyone but I have a lot of empathy for professional athletes with any kind of back injury after going through one.
I’m so sick of Nutting that I barely attend games anymore. I didn’t even go watch Skenes or Jones. Why should I give him my hard earned money when a he refuses to put a winning team on the field?
The team sent out a survey to fans/recent ticket buyers asking questions like “Do you think that the Pirates are serious about winning?” “What is your perception of the Pirates organization?” The team was mocked locally and the survey was pulled two days later.
I really wish that Nutting would sell to someone who cares about winning.
Why should you? You shouldn’t. I don’t. Bob Nutting is monetizing our sentimental attachment to the team, raping us of our money and laughing all the way to the bank and back.
F*CK BOB NUTTING
I’d be curious to see where Skenes, Jones, and Keller rank if you prorate their ZiPS projected WAR to their median (FDGC: 513) or high (Steamer: 537) combined IP projection rather than the 453 ZiPs has them throwing, which looks like a borderline outlier based on my hazy recollection of college statistics.
Are McDavid and Burrow “getting wasted”? They’ve already each played for a title…
And Wemby is only playing in his second year… he’s not being wasted yet, if he is at all.
& San Antonio just traded for an All-Star PG, has a ROY type guard in Stephon Castle & has more draft capital than they know what to do with.
Trust me, they know what they’re doing & I fully expect they’ll be on the NBA Champ challengers for the better part of the next 15 years.
Part of this conversation is about wasting the inexpensive years of star talent.
That said, Wemby doesn’t belong in this convo at all.
The Oilers I can see. They have been a McDavid/Draitsaitl carry job until last year when the defense saw a lot of improvement. And they still haven’t found a way to put a functional goalie in net. Skinner is worse than a lot of #2 goalies on other teams.
The Bengals probably have the toughest hand as Burrow is stuck with Mahomes, Allen, and Jackson in the AFC (with Jackson being in division) and the team now needs to sink a lot of cap into both Burrow and Chase.
A healthy Burrow keeps the team good enough to miss out on high draft picks which means they really need to be excellent in drafting and developing talent, but they’ve been pretty abysmal there outside of offensive skill positions.
They’ve landed almost no defensive difference makers and their track record with offensive lineman is about as bad. Mims does look good and Volson has been great value as a 4th round pick. But you have to go back to 2019 with Jonah Williams to find another quality O-line starter the team has drafted and he’s no longer with the team.
Are RA-9 WAR projections public?
The Pirates are wasting more than Paul Skenes. They are wasting the entire franchise and fan base.
Bob Nutting is human garbage. I mean that. He is raping a city’s fanbase of it’s sentimental attachment to a sports team for money. And MLB is fully aware and letting it happen. End of story.
Faithfully Submitted,
Lifelong Pirates Fan
I’m boggled by why the other owners let him get away with it. IIRC, a few years ago his team finances were leaked, and they had a profit based on just MLB revenue and revenue sharing and the radio contract.
Every dime from TV and tickets went into his pockets.
Why do other owners accept giving him money to NOT spend on the team? If the money isn’t going to improve the MLB brand, then it’s pure waste from the POV of the other owners. The reason the Yankees and Dodger’s ownership groups accepted paying extra money to small markets is that more people will pay to watch a competative event and that’s good for all owners, but that breaks when someone just takes the money and laughs all the way to the bank while not fielding a really competative team year after year.
Because it’s one fewer team they need to compete against for players and wins, which are the two things they want. It’s a payoff.
It’s MLB and the MLBPA that should be up in arms – but MLB is a puppet of the owners rather than a steward of the institution (ref: Fay Vincent) and the MLBPA is a laughingstock of an organization led by a buffoon.
I would love, love, love for the Pirates to be a better team. Spend a little money, have a winning season, make the playoffs, all that jazz. They have a top-5 ballpark and wonderful, knowledgeable fans who deserve a World Series parade in their lifetimes. That said, the idea that a baseball player is somehow “wasted” on a team that doesn’t make the playoffs is an argument I’ve never really understood.
Paul Skenes is a great baseball player. Pirates fans will have a great time watching him play baseball. On days he pitches, the Pirates will be more likely to win than on days he doesn’t. This will all be entertaining, and entertainment is the purpose of this entire endeavor.
I would never say the Ernie Banks’ or Ron Santo’s or Luke Appling’s or George Sisler’s careers were “wasted”. I’m sure they would have liked to play in the postseason, but they nonetheless provided countless hours of joy to their fans, and made it to the Hall of Fame.
Winning is more fun than losing, but watching great players play great baseball for otherwise lousy teams is better than the alternative: not having any great players on your lousy team.
The difference is they have already started the clock of when he’s leaving.
How is that good for the franchise and the fans? Find a great player and after 3 years every discussion is when are you trading him/what are you getting. Fun stuff!!! It’s a ticking clock of doom
Those old time guys at least stayed on there teams for 15+ years.
That makes it sound like bad teams should hold their players down even when they’re ready to compete at an elite major league level just because the parent team is cheap and bad.
The problem isn’t that Skenes is already up, because he’s up and dominating to the point that he’s must see TV. Probably the most must-see SP in baseball already.
The problem is that the franchise is cheap and bad. And they’re cheap and bad regardless of if there is a young stud making history on the mound or not, so I’d ask how is it good for the franchise and the fans to deprive them of the one thing that’s gone absolutely right for them since Andrew McCutchen’s time through 2015?
I think you misunderstood what I meant. I would NEVER advocate a team keep a player down when they should be in MLB.
My point was trying to show how different it is now vs in the old days. Yes, you had bad teams back before free agency, too, but, at least if you hit on an Ernie Banks or Ron Santo or whoever, you knew they would play for your team for all/most of their career. & there IS value in that, even with the team being bad.
Today, Skenes is great, but, within 2-3 years every discussion is going to be “When will they trade him? What will they get? Better get rid of him 2 years before he comes a FA to maximize the return.” As a fan, that is terrible, you basically get a few years before all discussion becomes when is he going to leave. That sucks..better than having no good players, but it still sucks & certainly doesn’t drive interest to the team.
Most of it is Pittsburgh is cheap & bad, part of it is how MLB sets up revenue sharing/no salary cap/floor, etc. It is terrible for creating long term fans. compare to the NFL/NBA where teams like KC, Buffalo, Baltimore, GB, San Antonio can draft & keep great players for as long as they want.
I see what you’re saying now. Yeah, at first glance it came across as more critical of the timing and less critical of the Pirates not building around him or pushing any chips in.
Still, not sure that I agree with the revenue sharing model being to blame. MLB told the A’s that if they didn’t run a payroll of at least $105M this year, they would lose revenue sharing next year. Immediately they signed Severino, Jeffrey Springs, and Gio Urshela, and Leclerc signings, and they all happened quickly. And then Rooker was given his 5-year, $60 million extension, which with the 2 option years raising the possible commitment to 7-years, $90 million. Not only were these signings uncharacteristic, that Rooker extension was actually their largest contract in team history.
Eric Chavez 6 years, $66 million was their largest contract before, both in annual salary at $11 million, and overall ceiling.
The Pirates are a great parallel of cheapness. Until KeBryan Hayes got his extension, Jason Kendall for 6-years and $60 million was their largest. McCutchens extension was criminally low for the guy he was at 6-years, $51.5 million that maxed at 7-years and $66 million with the team option. And Hayes contract is 8-years, $70 million, signed 22 years after Kendall, so calling it “larger” feels wrong.
The A’s finished with salaries of $51M in 2022, $59M in 2023, and $63M last year. Again, they are set to receive $70M in revenue sharing this year, and the rule is that teams must spend at least 150% of the amount they receive in revenue sharing on their player salary.
The Pirates finished with $48M in 2022, $59M in 2023, $70M in 2024.
With the national TV rights, every single team starts off with over $60M, not including revenue sharing. You have the Blue Jays, who are publicly held and answer to bloodsucking corporate overlords and greedy, selfish, heartless shareholders, spending 75% of their revenue on player payroll, while the Rays annually spend in the low 30% of their revenue on payroll, WHILE receiving subsidies that turn it into a dollar printing operation. The Jays are accountable for their spend in a way most teams aren’t, outside of Atlanta, who also invests in their product. Their books are open – they both make plenty of profit after all is said and done – enough profit to shut shareholders, which is saying something.
The A’s, Pirates, Rays, and Orioles are legit problems that wildly take advantage of the model. But it’s not the model, at least not as it’s designed, it’s those franchises and the league for some reason not enforcing the model consistently. IDK why it took so long for MLB to call the A’s out, and surely some of their quick compliance was so they didn’t put the timeline of their move to Vegas in jeopardy, but it’ pretty clear that when MLB actually enforces the rules that are in place, losing $70M in revenue sharing was a very good motivator. Instead of turning a blind eye for half a decade, go figure, when the rules are enforced, the rules work. The specifics may vary, but the spirit of the rules is to have teams invest in their product on the field, and a byproduct of that is seeing guys like Rooker get paid by the A’s and stick around for the fan base to root for, and in that regard, when enforced, the rules have their intended outcome.
And we do have teams that follow the rules. The Diamondbacks, Royals, Rockies, Blue Jays, and Twins, for instance, are examples of teams that receive or have received revenue sharing and appropriately invest those dollars into their player payrolls. The Royals just invested in their homegrown stud, and I’d bet dollars to donuts they don’t challenge for a championship in the 11-year that they’re under contract. The Rockies are never good, they don’t even try to win, but they do try to sign players for their fan base to root for, and are annually criticized for not trading those same players for young talent. Arenando had to force his way out of town, all others have to wait until their contract expires. And you know what, Coors field is a GREAT time. So we can’t have it both ways, it can’t be a problem that they invest in players and don’t trade them, AND also a problem that teams don’t invest in players.
So a lot of words to come full circle and say that you’re not wrong with pointing out the problem. But I disagree that the cause of the problem isn’t the Pirates being cheap. It is. They’re an atrocity, and a complete insult to the game of baseball. So are the Rays. And A’s, even if they are being forced to correct their behavior to the minimum level. The O’s haven’t been perpetual offenders like the Pirates’s/A’s/Ray’s, but they’ve never had the small market or ballpark to hide behind, and their territorial dispute and rebuild excuses no longer provide cover, so they absolutely belong in the discussion for most disgusting franchise around.
And then some of it is just the world is never happy anymore, regardless of what teams choose to do. I’d imagine, that just like me, you’ve been critical of the Rockies at times. I didn’t even realize how hypocritical that is of me to do until I wrote this out right now, but it is, because you’re right, the Cubs will always have Santo and Banks and that’s a good thing. And Rockies fans will always have Helton and Blackmon and CarGo and that’s a good thing.
I’m going to start being less critical of the Rockies. And learn how to say that without throwing up a little in my mouth! And I’m going to be even more critical of the Pirates, Ray’s, A’s, and O’s, because they are extreme outliers and clearly juicing the system from both ends, taking advantage of the MLB model, the fans, and the players, while giving nothing back on the field. It’s gross, and MLB deserves their criticism for not enforcing what’s in place, but what’s in place isn’t the issue IMO so much as the greedy personalities behind the decision and allowing this to go on when it’s as simple as enforcing the rules in place, as was done with the A’s this offseason..
There is a special, poetic beauty in how much less focus baseball has on playoff achievement with regards to legacy, versus other pro sports. I very much value that we can appreciate players who never sniffed a World Series but were still stellar. Mike Trout will be a hall of famer, almost certainly first ballot, even if he never plays another playoff game. Would that happen in the NBA? I don’t think so. And it’s to baseball’s credit that we can recognize the brilliance of a player despite the team and organization that form the backdrop against which we evaluate the talent.
However, as fans, I do think we should feel entitled to be angry when we don’t see teams legitimately doing their best to get transcendent talent to the playoffs, where the rewards and spotlight are both brighter.
One of the reasons I love Fangraphs is because it honors both of these sentiments: we regularly see articles illuminating the brilliance of players and franchises, as well as articles like this one castigating teams failing to do what we as fans feel they’re owed.
Fans can and should be irrational at times, which is responsible for both this demand that the Pirates strengthen their team and the love for the players who spent a full career on losing teams.
all of this to say? Fangraphs is great, and I’m glad I’m a baseball fan. And the Pirates should be doing more!