It's a bloody shame this needed to happen. But it needed to happen.
Pirates general manager Ben Cherington inherited a wasteland of an organization. He immediately recognized that a total rebuild was in order.
Neal Huntington had a similar revelation 11 years earlier and executed his plan perfectly but was unable to sustain it. Which is a compassionate way of saying Huntington eventually steered the ship into an iceberg.
The Pirates sank back into hopeless, future-less oblivion. And that led to what you have endured for the past three years: a tank job the likes of which this town had not seen since the early 1980s Penguins.
These Pirates were designed to lose, and lose is what they did (and what they're still doing), often in unimaginable fashion. Rundowns between home and first. Cell phones falling out of pockets. Missing first base on a homer. Men named VanMeter and Spitzbarth attempting to play baseball. In-game meals at third base. Dropped pop-ups in the infield.
This season alone, the Pirates lost 21-0 and 19-2 and 18-4 and 16-0 and 14-2 (twice). They are just now completing the third-worst three-year stretch in the franchise's 141 years, in terms of winning percentage (the early 1950s were worse, believe it or not).
For all major league managers who've worked at least 300 games, third-year skipper Derek Shelton has the worst non-expansion team winning percentage of the modern era.
Shelty entered Wednesday's fray 101 games under .500 for a winning percentage of .366. According to Baseball Reference, the only manager since 1946 with a lower mark was Roy Hartsfield who "led" the expansion Toronto Blue Jays to a 166-318 record (.343) in their first three years of existence.
So, yeah, things haven't gone real well.
They have, however, gone according to plan. It's still amazing to me that people attempt to analyze these Pirates, this season, as if they were designed to win.
This was intentional. This was necessary. The last place you want to be in pro sports is middling around .500 with no chance to win a championship (somebody tell the Steelers).
The Pirates are in line to make a fourth consecutive top-10 pick next season, still with a realistic chance for another No. 1 overall pick if they win the draft lottery (the only thing they could win this season). They have accumulated all kinds of draft picks and stockpiled prospects and now it needs to end.
You have suffered enough.
It's terrible that tanking happens, but it's also the way so many franchises make it back. Look at the Astros, Orioles, Braves and many others. Look at the hockey team across town (two epic tank jobs netted them Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby).
But enough's enough. This offseason, Bob Nutting needs to pump the payroll past $90 million. It's really the least he can do. He has the skeleton of a decent baseball team here. Some of the high-end young talent has flashed of late.
I can see a middle infield of Oneil Cruz and Rodolfo Castro hitting for some serious power. Ke'Bryan Hayes needs to hit more, but this is just his first full season at third. I can still see him as an impact player. I can see a rotation starting with Roansy Contreras, Luis Ortiz, Mitch Keller and Johan Oviedo (and with 2019 first-round pick Quinn Priester rising fast).
Ortiz has the look of a game-changer. Veteran analyst Bob Walk isn't prone to hyperbole when analyzing pitchers, but this is what he said about Ortiz during a recent weekly spot on 93.7 The Fan.
"There was a point (in Ortiz's season debut) where he threw a 100 mph fastball, just painted with it, and I chuckled on the air, like, 'Are you kidding me? Look at this guy,'" Walk said. "It's been a long time since we had a starting pitcher look like that in the first inning he pitched. ... I don't want to say he's going to be Gerrit Cole, but that's the kind of guy he looks like. He has not only the ability to throw the ball very hard, but he looks like he's got some idea of how to pitch."
Suddenly, it's a rotation with tantalizing possibilities. That is different than one with guarantees, of course, but as Walk says, "You see it and say, 'Wow, we have something now that could make you competitive every night.'"
So add to it, by trade or free agency. Huntington made the Pirates a playoff team by finding incredible bargains in A.J. Burnett and Francisco Liriano and bullpen pieces such as Jason Grilli, Mark Melancon and Tony Watson.
Cherington found a bullpen piece like that in David Bednar. He needs more pieces — and it doesn't always have to be flea-market shopping. Nutting needs to open the checkbook.
He could start by signing Bryan Reynolds to the franchise's first $100 million-plus contract, then give Cherington the financial freedom to find a veteran catcher to be the bridge to 2021 top overall pick Henry Davis (or Endy Rodriguez). After that, Cherington could shop for some professional hitters at first base and the outfield, although newcomer Miguel Andujar is intriguing if he plays first, and Ji Hwan Bae, Jack Suwinski and others are young, interesting outfield candidates.
The Pirates' payroll was low even when they started winning back in 2013, but it did grow from $85 million in 2015 to $99 million in 2016.
Get it back there, Bob, and get this thing moving in the right direction.
It really is the least you can do.
