The Pittsburgh Pirates' Reality is a Matter of How It’s Defined
It’s not a secret that there are teams functioning on different planes in the MLB. Many use it as an excuse as to why their squad can’t compete, others just change the definition of the word itself. The English Premier League is arguably the most successful major sports league in the world, at least on a level with the NFL. They have a system built that keeps this issue at bay without a salary cap called relegation, essentially if you can compete with the big boys, you stay in a league with the big boys, if you can’t or won’t you are relegated to a lower tier.
Believe it or not during the 1994 strike in MLB this was discussed as a solution before they ultimately chose to implement revenue sharing and a luxury tax. I bring this up because not choosing to physically split the league into the haves and have nots hasn’t prevented many clubs such as the Pittsburgh Pirates from still identifying as such.
This is best illustrated by simply looking at how different words and concepts are adopted by clubs to the point many fan bases have even adopted them when discussing their favorite baseball team.
Let’s dig in and see how simply changing definitions can become self-fulfilling prophecy if you let it. This is very much so not a small market versus big market discussion, there are plenty of small to mid-market clubs who don’t allow circumstances to prevent them from staying in the discussion year after year.
"Competitive"
Pirates: The Pirates have essentially defined competitive as anything better than .500. It's understandable that you might want to move the goalposts when you’ve gone 20 seasons without even reaching that mark, but now that this has been achieved, it's time to move on and catch up with the rest of the league. Fans have been fed this word as a ceiling for so long, many forget this should not be confused with being a threat to win it all. Coming close to a wildcard is success, we just needed a few things to fall our way.
Winning Clubs: Being competitive is defined by not only what we do but what the rest of the league does. We’d ideally be in a race for the wildcard and preferably the division well into August or September. Coming close to a wildcard is fine but if we don’t make it, we have failed and need an evaluation of what we’re doing and understand if we are on the way up or backsliding. More importantly, we won’t rest on this, instead we will take steps to improve, rather than hope our players all improve at the same time.
"Afford"
Pirates: For us, it is a stretch to say we can afford big money free agents or to retain players that will require big money. We have the ability, and have shown it in the past, to spend more but we don’t want to put a large percentage into one or two players because it cold hurt our ability to remain competitive (see above) moving forward. By enacting this policy for more than three decades our fans will eventually start to say we can’t afford certain players also, making it easier for our philosophy to take hold.
Winning Clubs: First, its worth losing for a couple of seasons in the future to win right now and capitalize on the roster we have constructed. If we miss out on a free agent, it will rarely be due to our offer and more about players having free will to choose where they want to play. It’s on us to make our baseball team and city more appealing to potential players. Free agents will be able to clearly see we have a culture where the ultimate goal is winning a championship, not to have them play 3 of the 4 years they signed for and be traded.
"Development"
Pirates: Development of talent is our most important job, because we can’t "afford" (see above) to bring in talent from outside. We believe players should be polished and very close to a finished product before being promoted to the majors. There are also times when we have pricey player on the roster who is inferior, talent wise, to a prospect. When this happens, we simply can’t afford to have that player come off the bench, so we will look for a trade or the prospect will have to wait for injury or failure too big to ignore.
Winning Clubs: Development of talent is our most important job, because it will allow us to build a roster and afford us the opportunity to strategically add players in order to win. We believe players will have learning to do when they reach the majors and we will take what they are good at right now versus waiting for everything to come together. If they excel and outplay the incumbent, so be it, as this can only make our roster stronger. If there is an area, we have struggled to develop talent in we will evaluate why rather than assume we missed on everyone we drafted at a position.
"Fan Outreach"
Pirates: Fans want to see winning, when we put a competitive (see above) team on the field the fans should come out and support the players. It’s still an affordable and fun night out with the family, and fans coming to games is a direct reflection of the revenue we will have to spend on the product on the field. If fans don’t understand their part in the dynamic, we are clearly not educating them on the climate of MLB’s structure.
Winning Clubs: Fans want to see winning, if we are winning and fans aren’t coming to games, we might have an issue. If fans don’t attend when we’re losing or building, we understand that we have some responsibility there and at the very least hope they see what we’re trying to do. It’s very important that fans realize we don’t think losing is acceptable any more than they do, and we will make sure we show them.
There are countless ways these teams look at the same concepts differently. Some of the excitement from the introduction of Ben Cherington came directly from hearing his takes on many of these concepts. He sounded like a winner, he said things we hadn’t heard here in years about accelerating development, spending when the club is close, understanding that fans owe the club nothing until the club has shown a commitment to winning. Most importantly, winning is defined as actual winning, not coming close or the aforementioned definition of competitive.
For the Pirates to really move to the next level, the victim mentality needs to exit with the last regime. As fans, we too need to find a way to move past that mentality. Thinking this team “can’t afford” to bring in a high dollar value free agent is simply not true. We can say they won’t, or they shouldn’t, but can’t is a symptom of believing we’ve been eating filet mignon while actually eating a healthy dose of Hamburger Helper. I’ve called for transparency from this club since before the new management team was named, and I still feel it is the quickest path to healing and winning. Evasive answers about payroll and budgets may help Mr. Cherington prevent himself from being pinned to statements made prior to really getting his hands around the situation, but it does nothing to show the real change needed.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the hires, and I will give them room and time to turn this ship around, but the situation that was created still has its face, Bob Nutting. So Cherington’s job is even more difficult than simply getting better players or patiently reconstructing the draft and development system. Surely those things need to happen and will bear fruit but having an open discussion with the fans to illustrate just how much things have and will change, what has changed in the thinking, is important for right now.
Comforting ourselves with creative definitions won’t help the team improve, changing the issues that cause you to need to be creative with words is the recipe for success the Pirates need to find.
Follow Gary on Twitter: @garymo2007