OnlyBucs

Bob Nutting spent $5,000,000 on a second round pick. I'd love to see more of that Bob Nutting and less of the current one.

080D0A0C040E170A0310161B620 wrote: Bob Nutting spent $5,000,000 on a second round pick.   I'd love to see more of that Bob Nutting and less of the current one. 


he did spend on that, now he needs to spend it on major league salary since there are caps involved for draft and international signings.

He needs to approve spending for a couple of pitchers, and a catcher this offseason in order that the Pirates can be competitive in the Central.

242829727B727A77706F75420 wrote: He needs to approve spending for a couple of pitchers, and a catcher this offseason in order that the Pirates can be competitive in the Central.


do you mean competitive in the real sense, or as NH defines it?

$5M is pretty impressive until we realize it’s MLB. The reality is $5M is John Jaso territory. $5M was good strategy at the old draft but doesn’t move many needles at the ML level.

2621373F3126616D143339353D387A373B39540 wrote: $5M is pretty impressive until we realize it’s MLB. The reality is $5M is John Jaso territory.  $5M was good strategy at the old draft but doesn’t move many needles at the ML level.   
Exactly. Because of the vast difference in scales, the Pirates were willing to overpay to draft prospects for amounts that would be underpaying productive MLB players. The dismal cheapness of the Nutting regime requires a lot of spin to attempt to keep the fan base from becoming disinterested. The signing practice was a way to deflect the criticism of cheapness by being able to boast of above average spending on drafted prospects while still keeping operating expenses at a minimum by not paying market price for MLB players. It was a smart plan for the Pirates' purposes because it enabled them to occasionally obtain good prospects while preaching to the fan base that the Pirates were not cheap and that they would build a winning team with home grown talent. Of course the reality is that for every Bell there was a Tony Sanchez or a Stetson Allie so it's not as if the Pirates were stocking the system with great draft picks. And a player like Bell who excelled at the MLB level would have a brief career in a Pirate uniform because the cost of keeping such a player is prohibitive to Nutting.

That $5 million dollar bonus will always be a sore spot for me and an indictment that MLB doesn't actually want small markets to win. After the Pirates made that move, MLB drastically changed the bonus rules so that no team could ever do that again. The Pirates had pretty much no place where they could spend wildly and get a potential good ROI...except spending a bunch on the draft trying to riskily get HS'ers to skip college. But MLB shot them down. Still pissed about that.

Hey. We've still got that Dominican academy!



It makes me laugh that Nutting used it as an explanation for where the MLBAM money was going.

One thing that stops me short in conversations like this is that if Bob Nutting wanted to sell the team, he could and probably within a month be a literal billionaire.  If it were just about making money he'd do that.

487A76766250737A77727D7A1B0 wrote: One thing that stops me short in conversations like is that that if Bob Nutting wanted to sell the team, he could and probably within a month be a literal billionaire.  If it were just about making money he'd do that.
Yes, he must enjoy the celebrity status of being an MLB owner. In 2012 CNBC reported that he was the 10th wealthiest owner including $130 million in liquid assets in addition to his stake in the Pirates, newspapers and Seven Springs. He has tons of money and no need to sell the Pirates for that cash and he's making a profit from them. He runs the Pirates as if it's all about making money. He keeps a low overhead via consistently maintaining one of MLB's lowest payrolls and he doesn't take any risks such as committing large sums to a free agent or buying out a Pirate's FA years in the hope that doing so will result in enough increased fan revenue to pay that salary and still profit. He plays it safe by paying out just enough to field a team the fans will believe has a chance to compete and he has a GM who spins it that way to the public. He receives the MLB luxury tax benefit and appears to have pocketed some if not most of the 50 million Disney payout. And after this year he can get a new TV deal. This method of doing business is counterproductive to building a championship caliber ball club but it is a profitable business venture. He's not in it to win, he doesn't need the money he could get by selling, and as long as that enterprise turns a profit, he's satisfied. So he must simply enjoy the idea of being an MLB owner.