The Pittsburgh Pirates are a sham. They’re a fraudulent, directionless skilled sports activities franchise that doesn’t have any critical aspirations for successful, and proceed to be a black eye and stain on Main League Baseball as an entire.
They confirmed that once more main as much as the 2025 commerce deadline on Thursday.
It is not a shock that the Pirates had been sellers. That was all the time going to be a given primarily based on their document (47-62) and placement within the Nationwide League standings.
However that is not essentially the most important downside with what they did below the management — when you can name it that — of common supervisor Ben Cherington over the previous couple of weeks.
The issue is that they’re even on this place to must promote.
Not solely is that this Cherington’s sixth season operating the Pirates (greater than sufficient time to determine some form of aggressive core), however they’ve a participant in Paul Skenes that’s, at worst, the second-best pitcher on the planet, and on some days he is perhaps one of the best. They’ve already wasted the primary two years of his profession via an absence of spending from possession and incompetence from Cherington’s baseball operations crew.
They did nothing over the offseason to construct round Skenes, and now that the season has gone in its anticipated route, it was time for the Pirates to once more dump their items for some lottery tickets and magic beans. However they may not even try this proper.
The Pirates hold making an attempt to ship a message that they wish to compete as quickly as doable, and particularly for the couple of years that they nonetheless have Skenes on their roster. Maybe even as quickly as 2026.
However nothing that the Pirates have completed over the previous 12 months, and nothing that they did this week, makes any of these empty phrases plausible. It makes these phrases a joke.
By buying and selling nearer David Bednar, left-handed starter Bailey Falter, third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes and reliever Caleb Ferguson, all of the Pirates did was make the 2025 and 2026 groups weaker, whereas additionally bringing again virtually no person that may contribute anytime quickly.
Bednar was essentially the most useful commerce chip they moved, and in a 12 months the place elite closers — which Bednar actually is — had been going for very excessive costs, all of the Pirates might pry away from the New York Yankees was a 24-year-old catcher (Rafael Flores) who solely has Triple-A video games below his belt and doesn’t undertaking to be an above-average starter, and two A-ball prospects. Bednar was additionally nonetheless a full 12 months away from free company.
Falter nonetheless had three years of staff management and has been a mean to above common beginning pitcher the previous two seasons for the Pirates, posting a mixed WAR (Wins Above Alternative) of two.9. They traded him for a veteran reliever (Evan Sisk) and an undrafted prospect (Callan Moss) that was not even among the many Kansas Metropolis Royals’ high prospects.
Hayes could not hit, however he’s arguably among the best defensive participant in baseball no matter place. His glove is so good he’s nonetheless usually a plus participant regardless of the dearth of a bat. Buying and selling Hayes wasn’t about getting shortstop prospect Sammy Stafura, it was about shedding the rest of the $36M they owed him.
They traded optimistic, contributing gamers and didn’t get a single participant that may make a right away affect or any top-tier or upper-level prospect.
Whereas doing that, additionally they someway managed to not commerce their pending free brokers (Isaih Kiner-Falefa, Tommy Pham and Andrew Heaney) that will likely be leaving in a number of months for nothing in free company.
Some huge cash will likely be coming off the books, which needs to be music to proprietor Bob Nutting’s ears, particularly when he doesn’t make investments any of it again into the roster.
That’s the solely factor you may take away from any of this. It was all about saving cash. Financial savings from not paying Hayes. Financial savings from not having to pay Bednar or Falter in arbitration.
Successful video games? That’s solely a secondary concern for the Pirates. Which is why they’re a bottom-tier franchise.
