As a person who grew up in Pittsburgh, it is been really frustrating to watch my baseball team these last few years. They had not made the playoff since 1992 with the exception of three glory years in 2013-2015 where they got to wild card and promptly lost. The current owner, Bob Nutting, is universally despised in Pittsburgh – with good reason.
I’m tired of buying a ticket plan, investing hard-earned money, and sacrificing for an organization that just constantly rips my heart out and steals my joy.
That pretty well sums it up. There is a reason that the MLB Players association has filed repeated grievances against the team.
The MLBPA has filed a second grievance against the Pirates, The Athletic’s Rob Biertempfel reports. While Clark did not specifically address the Pirates when he spoke to Biertempfel, he said, “We view revenue-sharing recipients who remain in that perpetual rebuilding mode as a concern. It’s one area that in collective bargaining we’ll look to increase the club incentives for competitiveness. That’s part of the concern we have had and that we have voiced over the last handful of years, and it will be reflected in our proposals across the table.”
The Pirates have undergone more change at the top, as executive vice president and general manager Neal Huntington was let go, as were president Frank Coonelly and manager Clint Hurdle. They were replaced by Ben Cherington, Travis Williams, and Derek Shelton, respectively. The club did not make many roster upgrades and actually traded away All-Star outfielder Starling Marte. Now a new front office has another grievance on its hands.
The go-to story among Pittsburgh Sports Fans is that Bob Nutting is cheap. And he is – a lot of other small-market teams do more with the same money. The simple truth of the matter is he is also inept.
This latest disaster against the Chicago Cubs shows us the results.
There were two outs. Two! They could have stepped on the bag at any time. How much damn money does that infield cost the Pirates? Waive them all immediately.
Somewhere in the afterlife, Bob Prince is weeping.