The Pittsburgh Pirates are in last place in the NL Central. At 49-65, they are 20 1/2 games back of first place, and they have no hope in the Wild Card race either. They have Paul Skenes leading their starting rotation, but that isn't enough to save them from the hole they've dug themselves in 2025. The future doesn't look bright either.
They don't spend a lot of money. Their biggest problem is not General Manager Ben Cherington, but rather Owner Bob Nutting. This drew the ire of Commissioner Rob Manfred, who tried to take action in 2023.
"Manfred dispatched Morgan Sword, MLB’s executive vice president of baseball operations, to Pittsburgh in 2023 to meet with Nutting. Sword expressed the league’s dissatisfaction with the Pirates’ lack of spending, particularly given their receipt of revenue-sharing money," John Perrotto of Pittsburgh Baseball Now wrote.
"However, little has changed since Sword’s visit.
The Pirates’ payroll at the end of the 2024 season was $87.3 million, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. That ranked 29th among the 30 MLB teams.
The payroll was $85.5 million at the start of this season, which was 26th in MLB."
Pirates lack of spending may spur action from MLB
Major League Baseball clearly did try to take action in 2023. Even prior to that, they put penalties in place for teams that spend below a certain amount of money.
But that hasn't stopped Nutting from being cheap. In fact, he hasn't faced any disciplinary action for not spending.
While spending money on players isn't the only way to build a good team, the Pirates have consistently been unsuccessful, and spending a little in free agency might help them get back to where they were from 2013-15.
But now that Nutting has ignored Sword's warning about his lack of spending, the time may be near for MLB to take action and potentially force Nutting to sell the team.
While general managers are often made out to be the scapegoats, owners make the final call on financial decisions. Cherington, and several other former Pirates GMs for that matter have been hamstrung by Nutting's unwillingness to spend.
Soon, we might see MLB do something about this. It will be interesting to see what comes of this. But Nutting clearly did not heed the warnings of Sword and the commissioner's office. The fact that even Manfred is concerned over this should speak for itself.