Looking at the teams that are in contention for these players, one would think there are only 16 teams comprising Major League Baseball again.  The fact that only about half of the franchises will contend to sign these players indicates the inequalities that exist.

Yeah, Nutting’s a problem.  A big problem.  But he’s not going away.  The Pirates can certainly afford some of those players, like Taillon, for example.  But we’re all fairly certain they’ll be non participants in the free agent market.  If Baseball doesn’t change in order to put all of the franchises on equal footing, and force someone like Nutting to be a real owner, the Pirates will remain as they are:  schedule fillers.

Let the market reign.

The market will tell BOB what to do and not do.  For every person who's complained to me about BOB's unwillingness to land big fish, I have three more who complain about over-paid baseball players and tell me that the Pirates should "play the kids."

The list of teams that generally don't sign many veteran FAs:

Tampa until recently
Cleveland
Kansas City
Pittsburgh

And, Oakland fluctuates.

The problem's with these clubs, not the other 25.

Most have made it their business models to focus mostly on internally-developed talent.  Like it or not, the 25 competitors aren't going to dictate to the five how to run their operations. 

The large market Milwaukee Brewers club goes about things their way.  BOB and the Pirates have chosen to take another route, and that's his prerogative.

I'll go along with that.

The bulk of these teams' payroll usually goes toward keeping their talent rather than acquiring guys after they've left other teams.  We saw Cleveland open the vault for Jose Ramirez. 

Oakland has gone back to being frugal because of never-ending stadium issues. 

Teams of all cities have plenty of money.  No one expects a team to go out and sign 25 players for huge amounts.  All can afford a couple.  It's just that some clubs are more conservative than others.  Our owner prefers internal development over other sources, and I don't see how competitors should be expected to force him to change.

Chad Kuhl, Trevor Williams, Jameson Taillon from long in the Bucs system along with Jose Quintana and Tyler Anderson from recent dumpster dives.

Would that be a better starting rotation then Contreras, Keller, Brubaker, Oviedo, and Ortiz?

Chris Archer is available once again, as is Miguel Sano.  Remember when he was an amateur youth and was thought to be the next great player, and how the Pirates somehow screwed-up in signing him when it was thought they had him all locked up?  Other than a couple of good HR seasons, he was mostly pedestrian.

Possum wrote on Nov 8^th, 2022 at 5:23pm:

I recall reading that Guyo was spreading the story that Sano was older than everyone thought because the Pirates didn't want other teams to offer more money. Sano and his family were angry about that and refused to sign with the Pirates.

The Dodgers are trying to figure out what they’re going to do about bringing back Justin Turner, Cody Bellinger, and Clayton Kershaw.  How happy do you think Nutting is that he doesn’t have that to deal with?