DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Don’t give ammunition

DK’s Daily Shot of Pirates: Don’t give ammunition

The culture of Major League Baseball, and that includes people who cover it, people who follow it, people who participate in it, has spent such a long collective time in a non salary cap existence that it can’t even fathom, let alone understand some of the stuff that’s happening right in front of their faces. Good morning to you. Good Tuesday morning. I’m Don Kavajovich of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Pirates. It comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you’re into football andor hockey, I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Penguins in the same place that you found this. The New York Times reported yesterday, as if this was news, that there might be some special reason, that the Pirates and the Marlins, among others, are making noise about spending when they have never in fact spent, or seldom, I should say, in fact, spent in the recent past. and they reached the startling conclusion that this might have to do with the work stoppage that’s coming up. Listen, I’m not going to keep repeating the same stuff I’ve shared with you. Wow. It’s been for years now if you’ve been with me that long about how the salary cap system works in, you know, all the other sports anywhere. But in this specific environment where the owners want to take the sport into that system, they’re going to have to do a number of things to curry some public favor because they’re going to get lambasted. Let’s be real here. It’s not even just that everybody loves the players and everybody hates the owners. Players are the ones you cheer for. The owners are the big bad rich guys. And I got to be honest with you, at that level, I’m kind of with them on this, you know? I mean, who the heck would take the other? But they’re also going to have to deal with, I think, first and foremost, everybody’s counter who’s in defense of the current system. That the only thing that’s really wrong with the way things are now is that Bob Nutting is cheap and whoever owns the Marlins now is cheap. And listen, those are real things. Nutting is cheap. The pirates don’t spend enough on payroll. These are true things. But I’d like to think that if you asked anybody in this city who’s informed on this subject, that’s actually why we need this system. That’s why the cap systems a must. Doesn’t guarantee that the pirates will be good. In fact, under the current management, they’ll be even more exposed for the things they do terribly. But maybe someday they’ll have intelligent management and processes that can work within an equitable system to make the Pirates good. So, in these months leading into what’s likely going to be the last baseball season for a while, everybody needs to start kind of getting these things into a row. And the one thing that Rob Manfred more than anybody else is empowered to do is to be influential over specific situations like this. They all communicate all of the owners. There are relationships with in that that would surprise you and they obviously communicate with the commissioner’s office regular basis here. Again, way more than you might think. And if I’m Manfred, one of the things that I’m telling Nutting right now is, “Listen, dude, we don’t even care if you can’t afford to be at 110 110 million.” The figure I reported exclusively last week that was shared with me by a source that the I I don’t know if they’re actually doing this, but that the pirates are telling people that they’re going to be at 110. and Manfred and his side, which is the owners of the equation going into the presumed labor dispute, can point to the Pirates and the Marlins and whoever else and say, “Listen, when they have it, they’ll spend it. When they get it, it’ll be put into players if both of those teams go out and do that sort of thing. if they generate some splash. And by splash, I don’t mean whispering something to ESPN like Ben Cherington did last week. I mean actually going and spending the money. But when there’s even a perception, which might be reality, but if there’s even a perception that the Pirates are taking the Dodgers revenue sharing money and the Yankees and the Mets and that Nutting is running off and are we still using the ski lifts line even though he doesn’t own Seven Springs anymore? I guess let’s just do that. Running off and and fixing ski lifts and whatever. He loses a whole lot of oomph. in his argument. And bear in mind that his argument, meaning Manfred’s, isn’t just going to have to play out in negotiating sessions or even in the court of public opinion. I don’t want to scare anybody here, but let’s remember that every single time there’s been a labor issue in baseball, the antirust exemption has come up. And that means making your argument in a court of, you know, justice. Lots and lots of layers to this, my friends. And when it comes down to the pirates specifically, and I’ve been bringing this up now for a couple of weeks, don’t be excessive in giving them credit once they finally spend. For one, they have first chronologically cut a ton of payroll heading into 2026. Second, if this ends up getting semi-imposed upon them, that they need to raise payroll that they need to be at 100 or 110. I’m not giving credit for that either. When we come back, J1Q, if you’re looking for a great dining experience, look no further than Northshore Tavern. Located directly across Federal Street from PNC Park, next door to Mike’s Beer Bar, Northshore Tavern is Pittsburgh’s home for Steak on a Stone. Enjoy your steak finished on a hot lava stone in front of you, where you ensure each piece is cooked to exactly your liking. or try their rotating selection of entre, hot sandwiches, salads, and burgers, all while enjoying the ambiance dedicated to the great players and history of the Pittsburgh Pirates all around you. Come see why everyone’s talking about Northshore Tavern and Steak on a Stone. It’s Gun Storage Check Week. Help prevent unwanted access to your firearms. No one wants their unsecured gun to be used in an accident, a suicide, or a crime. Use lock boxes, safes, and locks to secure your firearms. Learn more at gunstorage check.org. That’s gunstoch check.org. Brought to you by NSSF, the Firearm Industry Trade Association. Today’s J1Q comes from Jay in Virginia who says, “Sorry, but I’m not going to get excited about the Pirates raising their payroll to 110 million, which is still below what it should have been and what they could have afforded for several years.” Jay, I’m not going to tell anybody, yourself included, how to feel about, you know, like anything in baseball or in life. I’ll share my own stance on this principally that it seems to me that the bulk of the public reaction to this so far has been that the pirates are pushing some narrative out to try to generate publicity or optimism. And I can tell you unequivocally that it’s infinitely more about what I brought up in the opening segment today than it is about that communicated with somebody inside the team a few days ago. And this is not something that’s an intentional spread. It’s just not. If anything, and this is common sense, you would want, if you’re the pirates, to not prematurely set out some sort of grand expectation because then what happens is if you get to 109 million, they didn’t say this, I’m saying this. If you get to 109 million, everybody’s wondering what you’re doing with the million that you didn’t spend. That kind of stuff. So, they don’t really benefit at all from that going out early unless there’s somebody somewhere who’s going to base a season ticket buying decision on it. And I can’t imagine there’s anybody that would do that. But yeah, that’s been most of the reaction to it. Whether I’ve spoken it or written it, what I’ve gotten back is, I’ll believe it when I see it. Well, so will I. But that’s not really the point here. If the Pirates are being told or even just nudged really hard by Major League Baseball to get their payroll to a certain level so that it strengthens the owner’s position against the players in the next collective bargaining that takes place, then they have to do it. Then they’re going to get there. And it’s not going to be to stick it to the doubters or whatever. It’s going to be because they were required to. My memory is a little fuzzy on this, but it was only about a year ago that the Athletics and the Marlins were being lumped together in something similar. They had to pay a certain amount on payroll or they weren’t going to be eligible for I don’t remember what it was. I don’t feel like looking it up either, but it was something along these lines. It was something that was bigger than the team level. and they went out and they got a couple of players and the people who had no idea what it was that was going on were like, “Hey, look at the Marlins and the A’s and they can spend. They want to spend.” No, they don’t. You think You think that John Fiser wants to spend ever in any situation? This is this is what I’m trying to get at here is don’t be thinking of anything that happens here as related to the pirates wanting to do something whether they spend it or they don’t. I really hope that made sense. Meaning I hope I did a good job of conveying it. Oh, the other point that I wanted to make to what you sent, Jay, uh, you ended it by saying that the $110 million figure is one that the Pirates could have afforded for several years. You might be right in a normal year. That’s a figure that I’ve been looking at for a long time, but there are a couple variables in that. One is the obvious, and I’m sure you would have thought of this yourself, Co. two is that the reason that the Pirates would have should have been able to spend 110 is that they would have done an infinitely better job of building a baseball team and thus building up local revenues. When the Pirates were over a h 100red million, they poked their heads through it three times in 2014 through 16, meaning each of the seasons after they made the playoffs. It was because, right, they were good, they had more revenue. Most unfortunately, when the owner chooses chooses to continue employing the worst executive in all of professional sports, he’s continuously putting himself in a position where he’s not going to have that money. I appreciate hearing from you, Jay. I appreciate hearing from everybody who listens to Daily Shot of Pirates. Be glad to have you here. We’re going to have another one of these for better or worse tomorrow.

Don’t give the union any ammunition.

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