Breaking news: Bob Nutting's still cheap.
The latest evidence is the ridiculous Bryan Reynolds dispute. The Pirates and Reynolds are headed toward an arbitration hearing over a difference of $650,000 — pennies in the baseball world. Reynolds asked for $4.9 million this season. The Pirates are offering $4.25 million.
I don't believe in giving players anything they want, but we're talking about the Pirates' best player here. We're also talking about the very real prospect of them shredding their best player — picking him apart — in an arbitration hearing during the season (normally, such hearings happen before the season).
What good can come of that?
Everybody seems to believe Reynolds will be unfazed by the proceedings. Great. Just know that Neil Walker didn't feel that way when the Pirates took him to arbitration.
"It's not ideal," Walker told the Fan Morning Show. "It's an exhausting, exhausting process. ... It's just so bizarre because it's like, 'Well, you don't do this well, you don't do this well, you don't deserve this money.' And then as you leave, they pat you on the pack, and say, 'Hey, but you know what? You're going to play center field every day and hit third and we need you to be the leader of this team.' And you're like, 'What?'"
He added: "For me, it took a couple of days to get back in the right head space after going through one of those."
What do the Pirates possibly have to gain here, other than $650,000? They're already spending next-to-nothing on players (and I wholeheartedly endorse one last year of tanking). Pay the man and tell every other player in your system that if you work like this guy and produce like him, we might give you what you ask for someday, too.
This is just a silly, unnecessary embarrassment — the latest in an endless string.
Meanwhile, I never again want to hear Nutting or anyone in his organization complain about Major League Baseball's economic imbalance. Just a year ago, Nutting told the Post-Gazette that MLB had "the most unlevel playing field in all of sports." He also said "the current system of economics in baseball does not work for the Pittsburgh Pirates."
Those sounded like fightin' words, but when the fight got real, Nutting kneeled. He raised the white flag instead of the Jolly Roger. The new collective bargaining agreement is pretty much the same as the old one as it pertains to competitive imbalance. It's worse, actually, for the lower-revenue teams because the upper-end clubs will be able to spend more without penalty.
If the playing field was "uneven" then, it's more uneven now. If Nutting claimed the "system of economics" didn't work for the Pirates then, how could it possibly work now?
And yet, Nutting voted with all his fellow owners to ratify the CBA (small wonder, given how much the Pirates benefit through MLB welfare). The truth, of course, is that the system works quite well for Nutting if the main idea is to remain, shall we say, fiscally fortunate.
All of which does not mean the Pirates are wrong or unnecessarily cheap 100% of the time. Behold the Oniel Cruz ordeal. Fans who still care are outraged that Cruz, a compelling 6-foot-7 slugger-in-the-making, is headed to the minor leagues to begin the season, all so the Pirates can save a buck.
I'm here to tell you that even if the Pirates were the Los Angeles Dodgers, sending Cruz to the minors for a few weeks or slightly more would be perfectly defensible. Sensible, even.
The fact that they are the Pirates makes it an absolute no-brainer because they could save a full year on the other end of Cruz's contract.
By keeping him in the minors for maybe a month at most — nobody ever knows the exact time frame — the Pirates move Cruz's first year of unrestricted free agency to 2028 instead of 2027. They'd be fools not to make that trade.
Who cares if Cruz is here for the first part of what is sure to be another wretched season? I'd rather have him here for an extra year when the team might be good. Or at least have that extra year as a bargaining chip when the Pirates inevitably trade Cruz when he becomes good, which might not be the worst thing if you watch how the Tampa Bay Rays do business.
Let's revisit the Kris Bryant case. The Chicago Cubs kept a clearly ready Bryant off their opening day roster in 2015. They sent him to the minors for eight games. In exchange, they pushed his free agency year from 2020 to 2021.
Eight games for a full year? That's better than Austin Meadows, Tyler Glasnow and Shane Baz for Chris Archer. Besides, Cruz has only played two games in the majors and is just learning to play the outfield.
I don't blame any Pirates fan who walks around in a perpetual state of outrage, but it's simply not warranted in this case.
