Please Pay No Attention
Pay no attention and stay the hell away! That seems to be the message the Pirates are sending to fans as they head to spring training. Are you hopeful this team is going to compete for a championship? Yeah, me neither.
Oh, you can say they have four good starting pitchers. Problem is you need five starters. They had five but had to do a salary dump on Ivan Nova because he was scheduled to make nine million dollars this year. What team would pay that much for a starting pitcher? Ok, anyone not owned by Bob “Ka-Ching” Nutting.
So now the Pirates will do what they always do and try to find pitching help on the “Island of Misfit Players.” Because, well… you don’t have to pay those guys anything.
Ok, so after they were the only team not to sign a free agent last year, they went out and signed Lonnie Chisenhall this off season. The minute I heard this I immediately went online to try to order my World Series tickets…Lonnie…Lonnie…Lonnie!!!
Then the Pirates went out and signed Nick Franklin…I have no idea who he is either. Oh, and they are bringing Francisco Liriano back from the dead. Not only is he cheap, but they probably still have a couple of cases of his bobble heads left over from last time he was here. Ka-Ching!
The Pirates do not have a shortstop going into spring training. They let Jordy Mercer go because he’s getting…can you believe five million dollars for one year. Then there was a rumor they might sign Freddy Galvis until he signed for, wait for it…five million dollars.
That’s five million dollars that can be shoved into the pockets of Bob “Ka-Ching” Nutting. So what do they Pirates do for a shortstop? Why not have a drawing each night and a lucky fan gets to start at short and bat eighth? It would make it more fun to watch than what they have.
All other teams in the division went out and tried to improve during the off season. Do the Pirates care? No, they dumped salaries and got the payroll down to almost half of what the other teams will spend.
GM Neil Huntington likes to say they do what they can for the market size they’re in. Hey Neil, why can Milwaukee sign decent free agents when they are a smaller market? The Brewers were one game from the World Series last year. They went all in last year after having a good run in 2017. Then this year they signed catcher Yasmani Grandal for $18, 250,000. Do you think Neil Huntington would have a job if he took 18 million out of Nutting’s greedy pockets?
Huntington also keeps feeding us the line that they have to save money now for when the younger players will have to be paid more. Yeah, well you’ve never done that before. That’s the time you give them away for a bag of sunflower seeds and a pair of old socks.
Just don’t lie to us. We know what’s going on. Baseball teams are making record money. That’s why the other teams in the division are spending.
This season, be honest and tell us what it’s really about. Have a ticker on the scoreboard showing the amount of profit Bob Nutting is making. Every game, after you show the paid attendance, the numbers can change.
After the increase in profit is displayed, shoot off a firework and the miniscule crowd can all yell,
“Ka-Ching!”
That’s what it’s really about. It sure as hell isn’t about trying to win.
One for me, one for me…one for me, one for me…
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