Pirates PLAYERS Speak Out against franchise

Pirates PLAYERS Speak Out against franchise

Here’s Brody Brazil. When it comes to the question of who is the worstrun franchise in Major League Baseball, I can’t just tell you automatically that it’s the Pittsburgh Pirates because unfortunately it seems like there’s a lot of competition for this claim. More than a small handful of major league teams operating in ways that often don’t make sense. I will tell you at the very least, the Pirates are problematic. They’re definitely in this category, in this competition. Some of their anonymous players will tell you as much by the end of this video. Stay tuned for that. But also, coming off another rough season in Pittsburgh, they’ve already committed to the same front office. They’re basically already committing to a similar payroll next year. What do you think is going to dramatically change from 2025 to 2026 if you’re just going to take the same approach you have for years and basically now going on decades? All of this with the beautiful setting of PNC Park and the river and the skyline of downtown right over right field. This is such a platform for great baseball and unfortunately through the years and yeah through the decades it’s been problematic. And I’ll just run through the quick events of 2025. Starting with opening day. Bags were already on the heads of fans with sell us Bob as in the owner Bob Nutting. Fans want him to sell the team. They had the bags on their heads. They flew the banner over the ballpark for opening day. There was also this scene like a Paul Skins scene. You may notice that right there. Somebody wearing a Pirates Paul Skins jersey. He’s their ace. He’s their superstar. Hopefully, he’s the player they sign to a long-term deal and build their franchise around. You’re so lucky to get talent like that. Do you see somebody already with the Yankees pinstripes? And no, they don’t put names on the back of Yankees jerseys. I realize that, but this person did to make a point because they feel like already Pittsburgh is growing Paul skins to become the big superstar that’s going to become a free agent and land in New York either with the Yankees or probably Mets or maybe Dodgers or with one of the cities that has a huge payroll, one of the teams that actually pays its players. All of this just painting such a negative image and feel and Bob Nutting instantly responding, I understand their anger. I understand their concerns and I understand they want the team to win. I do too. The owner said, I have led organizations and I have filtered out and focused on the most important tasks and that exactly what we’re that’s exactly what we need to do here in Pittsburgh. We need to focus on winning. He was already making these statements like a couple weeks, not even a full month into the regular season. The pressure was already on. Then there was the whole Roberto Clemente sign debacle out in right field. You can see the old picture on the far left of your screen just on the fair side of that right field foul pole there in that line. There was a Clemente 21 sign. It was modeled after a sign they used to have at Three Rivers. They brought it over to PNC Park. They’ve had it there forever. Right field, Clemente, 21 ft wall, all that. Well, until one day, nobody said anything and they replaced it with an ad for Surfside, which I believe is like a hard vodka or a hard tea lemonade type drink. I still haven’t tried it. I still do want to try it. But yeah, you just don’t replace an an icon like a a sign like this. And I realize there are other things to honor the legacy of Roberto Clemente in right field, but that’s the most prominent part, that big sign. Clemente 21. Fans are just used to it being there. You don’t put it there as a temporary thing. Roberto Clemente Jr. saw this and yeah, that was his response on social media. So now the Pirates are dealing with uhoh, I think we made a mistake. People are piling on. and Derell Rivas. This is not at all a good representation of ownership. Clint Hurdle, my lord. Right. So, the reaction is pretty much one way and it’s all negative. And there’s the serve side ad. That’s what it looked like. And there’s a small like 21. You can see over the word league, the letter E right there. Couple other 21s, but yeah, they took away the big Clemente tribute for a Surfside. Is it iced tea and vodka? Is that what it is? An ad out there. Pirates came out with a statement initially. The 21 foot high wall that officially bears Roberto Clemente’s name continues to and will forever display his 21 on two in two separate locations. The temporary wall sign in question was put in place prior to the 2022 season and was never meant to be a permanent tribute. They basically tried to go back and say, “Well, this wasn’t permanent. This wasn’t what we were always going to be doing, even though that sign had appeared in different places.” Well, guess what? Eventually, they made this right. They reversed course on this because they had to. But initially they tried to say that this was only a temporary thing and fans were like no it’s absolutely a permanent thing when you do Roberto Clemente. Then there was the bucko brick scandal, right? So there were these bricks placed outside of PNC Park about 25 years ago when they built the yard and uh people paid to have their names and messages etched on these bricks and they were right outside of the Honus Wagner statue there in front of PNC Park until one day without telling anybody, they just got rid of the bricks. After months of frustrated fans asking KDKA, “Where’s my bucko brick?” Tonight, we can now tell you those bricks that line the sidewalks outside PNC Park. In many cases, honoring family members have been found. Thanks for joining us at 6. I’m Ken Rice and I’m Kim Gable. In a story only on KDKA, our Chris Hoffman learned today, it looks like those bricks are gone for good. Where’d they go? Pictures and videos sent to us show those bucko bricks being brought to facilities like this one in Reserve Township where building material is brought to be recycled. You took people’s tribute bricks and just threw them away without saying anything. No. The team went back and said, “Well, we’ve had a plan here. We’ve actually replaced these several times before. Have you though?” And nobody noticed. Like this is the first time people called you out on it. And they they just found these bricks again. Had you explained this? Had you got out ahead of this and then done this, it wouldn’t have been as much of a problem. And I know we’re talking about a lot of off the- field stuff here, not even the baseball team. Like, we’ll get to the team in the payroll in just a second. They also had this incident this summer, and this is not necessarily the fault of the Pirates, but a 20-year-old did take that fall from the right field fence during a game against the Cubs. Look at Andrew McCutchen’s reaction. Look at some of the Cubs players reaction. I mean, this was a big deal early on in the baseball season, and we did not know if this this young person was going to make it, but again, a 20-year-old not legally able to buy drinks, and we believe that might have been a factor in his fall. Luckily, he he lives, he survives, but there was a lot of question of what did we just witness at a Pirates game. Again, I’m not saying that this has anything to do with the baseball operation side of the Pittsburgh Pirates. These things are all just tied to a very rough year. The Pirates were the first major league team of this past season to fire their manager Derek Shelton. So obviously on the field, things not going well. In the stands, things not going well. There was a fight at PNC Park between a fan and a stadium employee. Now, I don’t remember exactly the the beginnings of what caused this. I do remember that there were some inappropriate things said and done. And the bottom line is this happened. This was captured. This was shared on social media. So all of that, right? And I I tried to get through that quickly as best I could. Then there’s the baseball struggles like the team on the field. They’ve only made the playoffs three times now since the 1992 season. Was Barry Bond still on the team in the 1992 season? And those three years that they made the playoffs were sequential. 13, 14, 15, the Andrew McCutchen years, right? The the Garrett Cole years. So they had lightning in a bottle for a couple years. They never got past the NLDS and they’ve never really even won since then. They had one winning record season now in the last 11. Overall, they’ve had four winning record seasons in the last 35 years. 35 years. Four winning seasons. It’s almost like I I can’t believe what I’m even saying right now. 71 and 91 this year, 20 games under 500. They were the last place team in the NL Central division. Then there’s this, the way they treat players. Andrew Haney, pitcher, starter, designated for assignment by the Pirates. This was on August 26th. So about a month left in the baseball season. Had a bunch of starts under his belt. Had more than 100 innings pitched. Wait a second. Andrew Heene designated for assignment. Jared here saying the Pirates don’t do bonuses. What does he mean by that? See, Andrew Heeney doesn’t do bonuses. Oh, he’s got a performance bonus in there. $50,000 if he gets to 120 innings pitched. And then you start to see it escalate. $100,000 for 130 innings pitched. So, the difference in those 10 innings from 120 to 130 is 100 grand. Is it 100? Now, this is not clear. It’s 50 for 120. Does he get an additional 100 grand? Right. But also 150 each for 140, 50, and 60. So I’m wondering if this is 50 more or 100 more. It doesn’t matter. It’s a large amount of money if he gets to another 10 innings pitched. Well, guess what? Andrew Heene was DFAD at 120 and 1/3 innings pitched. So, we know for sure he did get the $50,000, but the Pirates didn’t want to shell out either another 50 or another $100,000 for a pitching performance bonus. And Andrew Heene was not the only one in that category. Several other players got their at bats cut short this year. You could say it’s because they want to give younger players an opportunity. But when you have performance bonuses, don’t think teams aren’t paying attention to that. an anonymous Pirates player, a couple of them actually, spoke to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. I will link to that article below because you should definitely check that out. There is some great information in there, some great perspective firsthand from the Post Gazette. This is what a Pirates player told the newspaper. Quote, “People think we’re underachieving. Look around here. We’re playing to our potential. This is what $90 million gets you. Some of the teams we play aren’t even trying to win. They’re rebuilding, but still have a higher payroll than us. What do you think that tells us? I mean, that’s the most honest perspective you can get from somebody on the inside. We laugh at all of this. And I think this might be from a different anonymous player. Again, without their names and identities. I don’t know who said what. The last two quotes were from one player. I believe this quote is from a different person. We laugh at all of this blank blank behind closed doors. It’s just a bad organization. The fact that a player would even utter those words anonymously, but maybe taking a little bit of risk in knowing that that player said it speaks volumes. Of course, it would mean more with an attribution and this coming from a player who wanted to be named or multiple players, but at least the fact that somebody’s coming out to say this anonymously means something. The Post Gazette also has some more reporting on different situations surrounding the team this year. Earlier this year in 2025, multiple Pirates players were having trouble seeing the ball while hitting at PNC Park during afternoon games, particularly contests that started at 400 p.m., which is such a terrible start time, by the way. the shadows, the the bright, the dark, the pitchers in the sun, the batters in the shade. Some players requested that the franchise paint the batter’s eye black, claiming it could help the team offensively. That shouldn’t seem too hard, right? Are you honestly going to spend and I I think a batter’s eye out there is, I don’t know, 50 feet wide, 60 ft wide, 30 feet tall, maybe kind of hard to get to, but that’s what a commercial painting crew does. Or are we literally talking about a,000 bucks, 2,000 bucks? One coat of just two co three coats, whatever. Just dark paint. Black paint. Maybe it’s dark green now. Just make it all black. Make it easier to see that baseball. One square area, black paint. I’m confident that if you ask me to do that job with the right scaffolding and and right rollers, I could do that job. That request was denied by the Pirates. And if enough players go to the team and say, “Hey, we can make the team better here.” just just paint that wall. You would think that’s a small expense, a drop in the bucket. Another issue pertained to a lack of resources that could improve performance. Some players claimed the Pirates lacked information and technology to help adequately game plan for opposing pitchers. Resources that were available during their time with other major league clubs. Like, you’re not even on the same level as what other teams are doing. So, that’s the Pirates in a nutshell. So many things happened this year. Some, let’s be honest, things that I covered here out of their control, but they’re also just part of the whole ecosystem of what’s going on here. My biggest takeaway from all of this, I know I didn’t do a a takeaways page or slide there here on this video. It’s just that it’s just that what do you expect is going to be different? Uh different manager than you started last or this past season with. I understand, but you’re bringing him back. You’re bringing the general manager back. You’ve already said that payroll is not going to be that much different. What do you expect to change? And the answer is probably not much. And the owner, Bob Nutting, so long as the valuation of the team continues to go up and there’s not too many problems there. And I don’t know, eventually they’re going to have to figure out a way to probably do some improvements to PNC Park. Who’s going to pay for that? But as long as things are just steadily going up and the team is just kind of floating on without having to take on some big business expenses and you know pay for players and try to win, it’s probably just going to be status quo in Pittsburgh. Let me know what you think about all this in the comments section below. Also, thumbs up while you’re down there helps me this video, this channel. Don’t forget to subscribe. I would love to see you back here next time.

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