The Pittsburgh Pirates are a sham. They’re a fraudulent, directionless skilled sports activities franchise that doesn’t have any severe aspirations for profitable, 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 at all times going to be a given primarily based on their report (47-62) and placement within the Nationwide League standings.
However that is not essentially the largest downside with what they did underneath the management — if you happen to can name it that — of normal supervisor Ben Cherington over the previous couple of weeks.
The issue is that they’re even on this place to should promote.
Not solely is that this Cherington’s sixth season operating the Pirates (greater than sufficient time to determine some kind 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 may be the most effective. They’ve already wasted the primary two years of his profession by means of a scarcity 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 path, it was time for the Pirates to once more dump their items for some lottery tickets and magic beans. However they might not even do this proper.
The Pirates maintain making an attempt to ship a message that they wish to compete as quickly as potential, and particularly for the couple of years that they nonetheless have Skenes on their roster. Even perhaps as quickly as 2026.
However nothing that the Pirates have accomplished 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 nearly no one that can contribute anytime quickly.
Bednar was probably the most worthwhile commerce chip they moved, and in a yr the place elite closers — which Bednar actually is — had been going for very excessive costs, all of the Pirates may pry away from the New York Yankees was a 24-year-old catcher (Rafael Flores) who solely has Triple-A video games underneath his belt and doesn’t venture to be an above-average starter, and two A-ball prospects. Bednar was additionally nonetheless a full yr away from free company.
Falter nonetheless had three years of crew management and has been a median 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’ prime 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 typically a plus participant regardless of the shortage 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 constructive, contributing gamers and didn’t get a single participant that can make an instantaneous impression or any top-tier or upper-level prospect.
Whereas doing that, in addition they one way or the other managed to not commerce their pending free brokers (Isaih Kiner-Falefa, Tommy Pham and Andrew Heaney) that might be leaving in just a few months for nothing in free company.
Some huge cash might 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 possibly can 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.
Profitable video games? That’s solely a secondary concern for the Pirates. Which is why they’re a bottom-tier franchise.
