Oh, they're hunkering down, all right.
After spinning the usual half-truths in front of their own endangered-species faithful at PiratesFest a couple weeks ago -- or, in Bob Nutting's case, finding a way to avoid contact -- Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington are moving toward exactly what they've truly wanted going way back to the fall of 2016, when the Pirates' general manager went all-out Freud with that "bridge year" line.
That's how these guys viewed 2017, remember?
They'd just completely blown it in 2016, following up a 98-win season with a spring rotation that included Ryan Vogelsong, Jeff Locke and Jon Niese. And when that season went as anyone outside their employ would have expected, they turned right back to the only solution they've ever truly embraced.
"Bridge year."
Or whatever they're amusingly calling it these past few weeks. Reloading. Retooling. Maybe it should be regurgitating.
This front office saw 2017 as a wasted endeavor before the first pitch was thrown at Fenway Park, and their moves throughout powerfully supported that. And now, they've already thrown voluminous clues that they don't think much of 2018, either. A week ago at the Winter Meetings, Huntington went so far as to admit one of the factors they're weighing is how good the rest of the Central Division will be.
No, really. A general manager of a professional sports franchise spoke that out loud.
Well, get ready for the bridge half-decade or so. Because it sure smells like that's on deck.
Reports were rampant deep into Thursday night that the Pirates and Yankees were making rich progress on a trade that would send Gerrit Cole to New York. Jeff Passan, the lead baseball writer at Yahoo! Sports, took it further and suggested that, even if this deal falls through, the Pirates are 'motivated' to move Cole.
Oh, you bet they are. That's getting right to the core of what motivates these guys.
I've written a lot of this before, but it feels that much more pertinent now that it's all finally bubbling out into open view: This is no longer a sports franchise. It's a sports business. Because the business is the foundation, and it fuels the philosophy.
And it's one that's shared from top to bottom over at 115 Federal.
That's the reason that Nutting extended everyone by four years. That's the reason Coonelly and Huntington speak endlessly of wanting some "sustained cycle of success," a term they've used ad nauseam over their decade in charge. It's because it comes without accountability. That's the constant. There's no financial risk because the profit margin -- every business owner's entitled to a profit, but I'm stressing margin -- is prioritized over winning. And there's no baseball risk because, anytime anything goes awry, just push the plunger, pretend there's help coming through the minors, and preach patience.
And hey, should the public or the press or both get particularly riled up, as is happening this winter, just pull down the blinds and wait a while. Because all those suckers outside those windows -- their view, not mine -- will soak it all up again next summer when there's a pleasant little winning streak or a wonderful walkoff home run.
This time wouldn't be different.
It's not that Cole's indispensable. He isn't. And it's not that there couldn't be a fine return for him, as there was with Felipe Rivero for Mark Melancon. Rather, it's that Cole's exit wouldn't, couldn't, be the only one. There'd be no point in keeping Andrew McCutchen heading into his final year before free agency. (Especially not when the Cubs and Cardinals could be sooooo scary.) And if Pittsburgh's generational baseball talent is sent out the door, might as well go for the mass exodus.
That, to repeat, is what they've wanted ever since they blew it in 2016.
They've looked around at teams, notably the Astros -- who have a management team that's legitimately as smart and innovative as this one thinks it is -- and see a model of slashing the payroll to bare bones, then building it up with excellent player procurement and development, something this group's never even approached. You'd better believe Nutting noticed what happened in Houston. That's his dream scenario right there ... well, at least the first part of it.
Now, here they are, timid as ever, tiptoeing through manufactured indecision about which way they'll go in 2018.
“The flexibility to be able to go in either direction,” was how Huntington described it at the Winter Meetings. “For us, it’s not a completely in or completely out scenario. It’s do we go in ’18 because that’s our best choice on the players and this setup, or are we pushing our window back a little bit? Again, retool versus rebuild if we decide to go in that direction and we may not. … We feel like we’re in a good situation.”
Oh, man, just say it. For once, just say it.
Just say there's no intention of adding to payroll, despite not being far at all from bona fide contention, despite the $50 million check coming next spring from the Disney purchase of a Major League Baseball tech division.
No, better yet, just say the right thing, if that's even fathomable for anyone to believe.
Here, just for giggles, is a wholly fictional speech -- minus laugh track -- that Huntington could have made to the people who showed for PiratesFest:
You know what, fans? We're really glad you came. You certainly didn't have to, but all of us -- including Bob over there at the door greeting you as you entered -- are grateful you came.
The hard truth is, we blew it in 2016. I blew it. Me. I made a bad trade, sending away Neil Walker for Jon Niese. I also showed terrible judgment in thinking we could replace A.J. Burnett and J.A. Happ with roster-filler in the rotation. We all did a fine job in getting to 98 wins the year before that, but then we fell asleep. We blew it. I blew it.
But you know what? We saw how you supported us, and we value that more than anything. We want to make Pittsburgh proud of this team again, like the Blackout. Like the two playoff appearances after that.
So we're going to level with you here: We're going to take this roster, which has Cutch and a pretty good lineup around him, and we're going to give it one more go. One more year. We have good depth in the rotation, we've found a potentially great closer, and maybe we just need another starter, another bat and a couple bullpen arms. The good news is, we've got this $50 million check coming in the spring, and we know we can commit that money to this team and to you.
We hope it works. We'll push like crazy to make it work. And we hope you're behind us because we need you in this, just like Bob was telling you at the door. But understand this, too: If it doesn't work, if things aren't going well by July, we hope you'll see that there might be greater value in moving some players -- yeah, Cutch, too -- and you'll stay behind as we rebuild, like Houston did, like others have.
Hold us to that. These can't be just words I'm saying. Hold all of us to that.
There. How hard was that?
It wouldn't be about PR. It couldn't be about PR because, as the mythical GM just said, proof would be required. But it would be the very first case of this front office showing any sort of spine.
They don't show that, though. They never do. Even in a year in which they'll be negotiating a new local TV contract and stadium naming rights, they still won't and can't stop thinking small. They see attendance drop, and the only reaction is to cut payroll. They see their baseball fortunes drop, and the only reaction is to start completely over. That's safe.
Never mind that, in the process, they'll again get pennies to the dollar on both deals compared to their major-league brethren, especially on the TV deal. Because if anyone thinks the execs at AT&T SportsNet didn't notice those September ratings that at times didn't even register -- for real, not even an actual number -- then they've already forgotten how badly Nutting and Coonelly were schooled in the last such negotiation.
As it is, go nuts.
Trade Cole. Trade Cutch.
Before long, no one will notice, no one will watch, and those big checks from New York will still be stuffing the mailbox. And that bridge can stretch way out over the Chesapeake for all anyone will care.
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