Brief and to the Point ...

Bob Nutting spoke the following Monday morning in Bradenton, Fla., when asked by reporters what the Pirates might have culled from their 2016 season: "Recognition that there is no entitlement to winning any game. That we need every day to push ourselves whether it is on the field — where it really is one pitch at a time, one inning at a time, one game at a time, our players can’t lose focus."

Translation: Twenty-game dive in the standings? Sure wasn't on us.



"We did not perform up to the level of talent that we had on the club. That level of performance is just a couple runs, just a couple outs, just a couple plays each game.”

Translation: It's. The. Players'. Fault. Do I stutter?

"We ended up with the season we did because the team and organization underperformed with the level of talent that we had. I don’t think it was nearly so much that we did not have sufficient talent to make the run."

Translation: We had no doubt that 30 starts each from Ryan Vogelsong, Jeff Locke or Jon Niese could challenge the Cubs and Cardinals, and we're stunned it didn't work out like that.

"We had some very good players who did not perform up to the expectations that we had."

Translation: Feel free to write in your articles that Andrew McCutchen and Josh Harrison were both terrible so that no one will complain when we trade those contracts. Oh, and pay no mind to the statistical reality that our offense actually was improved from 2015 to 2016 and that, as a result, these things didn't matter anywhere near as much as the Vogie-laden rotation.

"I need to have a little bit of a longer view and goal set."

Translation: Never focus on any single season! Kick the can down the road!

"I love that our fans are as passionate as they are. That’s really important. That they will continue to push, to question, to have high expectations is great."

Translation: This would all be so much easier if you'd all just believe what we say.

"We’ve talked about dollars. We’ve still never taken a salary from the team. That absolutely is not the focus that we have."

Translation: Why take silly symbolic money from the operation when our franchise value has increased roughly five times over since I took control in 2007?

"We will always have the same strategic goal of improving the organization. We have not embraced, as many teams have, that you have to go in cycles and you have to double down and commit to five years of a bad team and a rebuilding cycle."

Translation: We haven't won a blessed thing in the decade we've been in charge.

“We need to always have flexibility to be opportunistic."

Translation: Money comes first. What, you're new here?

"If there were a way to keep him, clearly that would be wonderful to see him in a Pirates uniform. He loves Pittsburgh. His wife Maria loves Pittsburgh. And we love Andrew.”

Translation: Yo, Cutch, Southwest or JetBlue?

"I think frankly we’ll be well-positioned to help Jung Ho get back on his feet, get himself re-established, be in a community that will support him and at the same time will hold a high level of expectation and demands on him."

Translation: I barely lifted a pinky finger for Frank Coonelly's DUI, and now I'm going to ditch a $17 million non-refundable purchase? Play ball!

"At the broadest picture of how we allocate dollars, we need to have a commitment never to back away on the amateur draft again."

Translation: We used to draft OK and not spend much money. Now we spend OK and don't draft well. ... Hey, wait a minute! NEAL!

"The degree of transformation, I think, really is remarkable. And it takes time. None of that was something you could do in one year or just a couple of years."

Translation: Which part of progress is confusing here? The year we took over, we won 68 games. This past year, we won 78.

And then, we achieved the pinnacle of our sport:

Winter Classic 2011, Heinz Field. - GETTY
TAYLOR HAASE / DKPS

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