Former Pirates player begs Bob Nutting to do the unthinkable with Paul Skenes

It seems like the Pittsburgh Pirates find a way to reach a new rock bottom every week at this point. The most recent edition: a seven-game losing streak that precipitated the firing of manager Derek Shelton, and elicited a very pointed reaction from star right-hander Paul Skenes.

But that's not all: While Bob Nutting has refused to put a competitive product on the field, all that lack of investment is apparently helping him line his own pockets, at least if a recent report from Bob Nightengale is to be believed. Nightengale wrote over the weekend that the Pirates are "one of the most profitable teams in all of baseball, stashing a huge chunk of their revenue sharing monies instead of investing in their team year after year."

A team bereft of talent and an owner who has no interest in spending the money required to develop or acquire that talent? At this point, it's hard to see how Pittsburgh will ever get out of the whole it's dug for itself. And that bleak outlook has at least one former player ready to suggest the unthinkable: If the team is never going to be good, why not just trade Skenes now and be done with it?

Erik Kratz, an 11-year MLB vet who spent two stints with the Pirates in 2010 and 2016, suggested as much on the "Foul Territory" podcast.

"Right now, Paul Skenes might win 15 games a season for a 65 at-max, 70-win team. Go and see the value. Go and find it. Set a new bar. You have to do something new because you're not spending. So you don't have four years of control with him. You technically, in Pirate land, you have two and a half to three. Get something. Get something right now and change the bar."

On the one hand, you can't blame Kratz for wanting to throw his hands up at what's become of this franchise. But on the other, it's worth reiterating just how radical this would be, and what it would mean for baseball in Pittsburgh moving forward.

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Trading Paul Skenes would be the last straw for Bob Nutting's Pirates

To be clear: Skenes won't become a free agent for another six years. That's over half a decade that Pittsburgh still has to build a contender around one of the very best pitchers in the entire sport. If that prospect is so unlikely already, if the only way forward the Pirates can think of is to move Skenes now, then it's painfully clear that the franchise needs new ownership.

It's one thing for smaller-market teams to get out in front of losing a star player with a trade a year or two in advance of their walk year. But Skenes will be playing on one of the most team-friendly contracts in baseball for years to come; heck, he hasn't even hit arbitration yet. The entire reason that teams bottom out the way the Pirates have in recent years is to get their hands on Skenes at that price, one of the biggest team-building edges you can hope to gain. Willingly forfeiting that edge before you've even really tried isn't anything like smart management; it's a dereliction of duty.