Feb 17, 2018 5 min read

David Freese has breaking news.

The Pirates stink.

They are one of the most pathetically inept major professional sports franchises in the history of North America. Freese went off on the loser’s mentality that permeates the Pirates from the front office to the locker room when he arrived in Bradenton, Fla., Friday.

“I walk in every day and the demand to win just hasn’t been in the air. That’s what you need.”

Freese showed up for his first spring training as a Pirate in 2016 after they had won 98 games and gone to the postseason three years in a row.

Maybe he got the impression that he had joined a real Major League Baseball franchise. How was he to know that the team he had joined was about to revert back to being what it had been for 20 of the last 23 years – a Major League Baseball franchise in name only?

The three winning seasons from 2013 through 2015 did a lot to fumigate the organization and at least cover up the stink, but everybody knows that the smell is back and most people acknowledge that the smell was always lingering.

It was only a matter of time before the window closed and the Nutting family got back to selling fireworks, food and a really nice view.

Freese made the mistake of signing an extension to his one year contract in August of 2016. He’s now stuck with the Pirates through this season.

Fans and media are celebrating Freese for speaking the truth and calling out the Nutting family for not trying hard enough to win. The consensus seems to be that the Pirates could compete with the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals and every other team in baseball if they weren’t so cheap.

Of course, Bob Nutting could spend more money, but do you really think he is ever going to be able or willing to spend with the Cubs and Cardinals?

It’s not going to happen.

The Cubs just signed pitcher Yu Darvish to a six-year, $126-million contract. Do you really think, if the Pirates had been willing to spend that much, Darvish would have picked them over the Cubs?

Why didn’t the Reds or the Royals sign him?

Where did all the big-name, big-money players end up?

Yeah, Milwaukee got better by trading four prospects to the Marlins for left fielder Christian Yelich and signing center fielder Lorenzo Cain as a free agent for $80 million, but let’s see if that means a playoff series win or two for the Brewers. They’ve won one playoff series since 1982. Not exactly a winning culture up there in Milwaukee.

If investing the money in Yelich and Cain gets the Brewers a wild-card finish behind the Cubs and Cardinals and an early exit from the playoffs, will it have been money well spent?

Not from the perspective of the fans, who will give ownership credit for trying, but from the owner’s perspective? If the Pirates spend $40 million less and finish fourth, which owner spent (or didn’t spend) his money more wisely?

The Nuttings will be laughing all the way to the bank again if enough fans show up to allow them to make a nice profit.

Freese apparently noticed that there are teams in Pittsburgh who are expected to win. “You look at the Steelers and Penguins, then you’ve got the Pirates. If I’m handling the situation, I’d be losing sleep trying to compete with those other two teams. To have all those teams in a city like Pittsburgh on top of each league, that would be incredible.”

Apparently, nobody, who was in the locker room Friday, thought to ask Freese about a salary cap. Do you think he’s aware that Pittsburgh’s other major pro franchises wouldn’t have sniffed the amount of success they’ve had without one?

And here’s something that very few if any fans or media will be willing to acknowledge: Based on the stacked deck the Pirates have to play against because of MLB’s stupid economics, making the postseason three years in a row and winning 98 games in 2015 might have been a greater accomplishment than the Steelers and Penguins playing for and winning championships.

The Penguins were every bit as bad or worse than the Pirates in the years before the 2004 lockout that produced the NHL’s salary cap. I remember how bad those teams were and could never imagine the Penguins doing what the Pirates did from 2013 through 2015 if there had not been a cap.

The Pirates’ problem is that fans are convinced, justifiably or not, that Nutting’s unwillingness to spend money is all that prevents them from competing for a championship. The talk shows and social media have been filled with people saying they have been reducing the number of games they’ve been going to the last two years, and this year it will be zero.

The Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole trades might have been the last straw for thousands of fans who didn’t hear anything from Freese that they hadn’t been thinking for a long, long time.