The single most reprehensible term that gets spoken by the Pirates' front office is 'small market.'
To start, it's flat-out factually incorrect: There are 53 metropolitan markets in the U.S. with at least 1 million people, and Pittsburgh ranks 20th among those at 2,635,228, or close to the upper third, according to one analysis. It ranks 26th among those at 2,333,367, or right in the middle, according to official U.S. Census data. Within Major League Baseball, where this garbage is regurgitated most often, the Pirates rank 18th, right behind St. Louis, per the first study, and 21st per the Census.
'Small market' is a senselessly denigrating term applied by the Pirates to wash their hands of their own bad business practices.
Want proof?
In a January interview with a national radio network, Neal Huntington had this to say regarding the playoff years in 2013-15: "When we put a winner on the field, the 29th-largest fan base in the industry brought us to just about league average in attendance. As a result, there were additional revenues."
Oh, for real. That's how they see the market. Not by its actual population but by what percentage of the population would call themselves fans.
Well, who created that situation?
Here are three more related Huntington quotes, all from the past seven months:
• "Take a look around the industry, especially in small markets. How have they been able to build championship teams around one specific player who's a huge chunk of their payroll? The answer is, they haven't been able to. That's the challenge we face."
No, it isn't. The challenge for all teams, but especially those that don't operate with lavish payrolls, is to draft and develop enough quality and quantity so that team success can contribute toward being able to keep such a player. When Andrew McCutchen and Neil Walker get drafted by the previous management team, then need to be surrounded by free agents, that's when payroll becomes a problem.
• "All I've ever known is small markets. I love the challenges. This is what I was raised in. This is what I know. This what I believe in."
Huntington worked in Montreal and Cleveland before coming to Pittsburgh. Montreal is a "small market" only among baseball people who can't think beyond the concept of a player payroll. Montreal happens to be the second-largest city in Canada, the ninth-largest city in North America and, for the record, continues to grow exponentially with the population recently passing 4 million.
• "I've been told by some of my friends who've gone on to bigger and better things to be careful what you wish for sometimes. The bottom line here is, we need to do things a little bit differently. That's the part of the challenge that makes it fun."
This one's my favorite. The "bigger and better things" he describes are, you know, running a baseball team in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and the like. That's how he sees this situation. Like Pittsburgh is the albatross.
It isn't.
Because if it is, good luck explaining the Brewers.
The Milwaukee market is roughly two-thirds the size of Pittsburgh at 2,043,274, ranking 30th in the country, next-to-last in MLB. And yet, Miller Park has drawn more than 2.5 million fans for all 16 years of its existence. It's averaging 34,605 right now on a pace to top 3 million, TV ratings on Fox Sports Wisconsin are up 36 percent to an average of 42,577 households, all while the Brewers' player payroll has grown to $107 million, passing the Pirates like a sausage blowing by a pierogi.
Oh, and another thing: The Brewers arrive into town tonight as the National League's best team -- by a mile -- at 55-38.
Bigger and better, indeed.
How they've done it is textbook through and through.
The vocal, visible owner, Marc Attanasio, has built up enough trust with the locals -- and I hear about this every summer on my annual baseball trip up there -- that the fans stood behind him even in 2016, when an announced rebuild saw the payroll whacked in half. That's because they remember that, when the Brewers rose up a few years ago with Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun and company, he bent over backward to add CC Sabathia and others for the playoffs. Attanasio didn't just say things. He took action. He earned that trust.
David Stearns, their bright young GM, was 30 years old when he was hired away from the Astros, where he learned under Jeff Luhnow and the rest of the brilliant crew in Houston. He's made smart move after smart move and, in a couple cases, outright heists like prying third baseman Travis Shaw from the Red Sox for middling reliever Tyler Thornburg. Shaw's been an .841 OPS player in Milwaukee the past two seasons. He's also been bold, bringing over journeyman slugger Eric Thames from Japan, then trading four prospects to the Marlins for Christian Yelich and signing free agent Lorenzo Cain on the same seismic day in late January.
And even after giving up all those prospects, their minor-league system still ranks ahead of the Pirates'.
Which is to say nothing of the Brewers being the apparent frontrunner to win the Manny Machado sweepstakes, even if that means conceding their top pitching prospect.
Meanwhile, on the field under longtime fan favorite Craig Counsell, the players have found the confidence and chemistry to push through still-persisting outside expectations of mediocrity, and they've done so in style: Yelich, Cain and Jesus Aguilar lead an offense that's second in the National League with 120 home runs, and the pitching carries top-10 ranks across the board. And there isn't a star in the group, with Braun, now 34, a shell of his former self.
Well, maybe one budding star in the late-blooming Aguilar, who's got 23 home runs and a .307/.375/.608 slash line.
He got quite a nice surprise Wednesday, by the way ...
@JAguilarMKE drew 20.2 million votes en route to securing his first Midsummer Classic selection. His vote total marked the second-highest total ever in a Final Vote, behind only Justin Turner of the Los Angeles Dodgers (20.8 million in 2017). pic.twitter.com/5jzlmVKns3
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) July 12, 2018
Hm. Didn't see anything there about Milwaukee's market size. Just a lot of fans voting based on a lot of faith being rightly rewarded.
• For the record, the smallest market in any big-league sport is Green Bay, presuming one ignores that nearby Milwaukee is 100 percent cheesehead. If one doesn't count Green Bay for that reason, the smallest market of all ... is Winnipeg, of course, at just 778,489. But I've heard the Jets are doing OK up there despite that.
• Continuing the theme, the Reds' president, Dick Williams, told fans this week that his team's payroll will see a 'nice increase' for 2019. It's currently at $102 million, also higher than the Pirates'. And yeah, Pittsburgh's a bigger market than Cincinnati.
• There can't be a more mindblowing statistic in the majors this summer than the Pirates' pitchers having 10 shutouts. But it also underscores, yet again, the perils of young pitching. It can tease one day, crush the next.
• Is it OK to talk about Starling Marte when he's going great?
Well, I'll do it anyway: He's having a terrific bounceback year, with a .282/.334/.468 slash line, his 11th home run
yesterday shown just above, 40 RBIs, 30 extra-base hits, 23 walks, 23 steals in 28 tries, and nine outfield assists to tie for the major-league lead. And in the past six games alone, he's gone 11 for 23 with a home run and five steals.
Can't just blast him when he does something boneheaded. He's a pretty good ballplayer.
• Austin Meadows doesn't need to start every game, but there's no rational mindset that explains Jordan Luplow, a pedestrian prospect at best, starting ahead of him, as happened Wednesday. And never mind that Meadows has now started once in the past six games. He's had nine total at-bats in the six games since the team flew back from Los Angeles, and three of those resulted in hits.
What a franchise. One of the few things that's gone right for them in 2018, and they're sticking him on hold.
• Adam Silver, the NBA's commissioner of all commissioners, is strongly suggesting his league's about to do away with the one-and-done rule that forced high school kids into a year of college before becoming draft-eligible.
A couple minutes of thoughts on that:
• On the subject of small markets, it's France vs. Croatia in the World Cup final, now that Croatia, home to 4,164,103, will become the second-smallest nation in history to advance that far. The other was Uruguay, which won it all in 1930 and 1950 and is currently home to 3,469,807.
• If you aren't watching this and you love sports, that's a mistake:
Croatia continued their incredible FIFA World Cup run by upsetting England in extra time.
See how it happened in our 90' in 90" ⬇ pic.twitter.com/YTqPwBvaAR
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) July 11, 2018
• So a pitcher homered off a hitter late last night in Denver:
⚾ #MLB | De esas cosas rarísimas en el beisbol...Germán Márquez le acaba de conectar HR a Daniel Descalso, ahí todo parece normal, hasta que recordamos que quien se voló la barda es pitcher y quien permitió el cuadrangular es jugador de campo ? pic.twitter.com/rXHOpptBrV
— Carlos Morales (@C_MoralesD) July 12, 2018
First time since 1986 that happened. The Rockies were obviously up big, so Daniel Descalso was summoned to pitch to German Marquez.
One final reminder this morning that baseball can be awesome anywhere at any time.