Pirates' desperate bid to win this season a losing proposition
Monday, May 08, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
There is outrage across the region as the sad-sack Pirates slink lower than even the most pessimistic fan might have expected. They lost again yesterday, 5-4, to the almost-as-hapless Washington Nationals. No one expected this. No one expected 24 losses in the first 33 games.
Those who fervently follow the team thought this might be the year the Pirates would challenge for a .500 record. Instead, they are careening toward a 100-loss season.
It's not just the losing. It's the lack of anything resembling a plan and the continuing inability to evaluate.
In the offseason, Freddy Sanchez, despite a strong finish in 2005, was deemed not the answer at third base, as was Ty Wigginton. This required the team to badly overpay for journeyman Joe Randa, who finished the 2005 season on a decided downturn. Randa, whose $4 million salary is almost twice as much as he earned last year, was plugged into the sixth spot in the batting order. After a disappointing start, he's on the disabled list. His replacement is Sanchez, once considered a bench player, but suddenly good enough to bat third on a daily basis. Wigginton, who was released, has nine homers and 30 RBIs for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
Although the team acknowledged that, other than pitching, catching was its deepest position (talk about damning with faint praise), it gave no serious consideration to switching the glaringly deficient Ryan Doumit to first base or the outfield either in the offseason or spring training. After a panic prep course, Doumit started at first base Saturday and might have been there again yesterday if not for an injury.
Ronny Paulino, given no chance to make the team in spring training, is the starting catcher and so seemingly entrenched he caught a day game after a night game yesterday.
If the present is depressing, the future could be worse.
There's a reason the Pirates overpaid for Randa; there's a reason they gave Jeromy Burnitz a 33 percent raise to $6 million although his offensive numbers declined significantly over the previous season; there's a reason they traded for Sean Casey and are paying most of his $8.5 million salary; there's a reason they outbid the New York Yankees and are paying about $2.75 million to 41-year-old reliever Roberto Hernandez.
The reason? Ownership is desperate to win in 2006 and proof of that desperation is its willingness to plunge some of its profits into a higher payroll. Ownership's preferred method of handling profits is to plunge them into its pockets.
This is a crucial year for Pirates ownership. Season-ticket sales, boosted by the opportunity to buy All-Star Game tickets, are up by more than 20 percent to over 11,000. Season tickets are the financial lifeblood of a franchise like the Pirates. The only way to keep those ticket buyers happy and coming back is to win, which is why the Pirates added payroll.
But it goes much deeper than that. There is reason to believe the Pirates might soon be on the market. Kevin McClatchy has hinted he might want to sell after the All-Star Game.
Sellers would not normally be lining up to purchase small-market franchises with a history of losing. But a winning season puts a different spin on the Pirates. A winning season wipes out so much. It puts those 13 losing seasons in the background. Instead of a dismal recent history, the Pirates would have a bright future. They'd be a young team with a winning record and a thick season-ticket list playing in the best ballpark in America.
That might attract a sale price in excess of $200 million.
If McClatchy could get that, he might be willing to leave. The Nutting family, which has the greatest financial stake in the team and which makes most of the major decisions, would gladly follow. They're not baseball people, they're business people.
A losing season changes that. A losing season, particularly one the Pirates seem to be heading for, would send season-ticket holders fleeing. And not just those who signed on for the All-Star Game but many who have been on board for the long haul. They've had enough.
Buyers wouldn't be lined up. There would be no fat profit from a sale of the team.
There would, instead, be retrenchment. With the season-ticket base depleted, payroll would be cut back to ensure a continuing profit.
In other words, same old Pirates.
(Post-Gazette sports columnist Bob Smizik can be reached at bsmizik@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1468. )
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