“I’ve been in some meetings where my jaw dropped because we had to wait a day to trade a guy because it was going to save us $30,000,” a former instructor said. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m hearing this.’ This is a $10 billion industry.”

That quote was pulled from an article published in The Athletic on Wednesday, written by Stephen J. Nesbitt and Ken Rosenthal.

It’s just one anecdote that paints the Pirates owner, Bob Nutting, with, well, let’s call it a frugal brush.

The article mentions how the Pirates wanted to upgrade their spring training facilities in the early-2010s for $8 million. How did Nutting, who is a billionaire many times over, decide to pay for it? He told his then-general manager, Neal Huntington, to dip into the money allocated for the team’s baseball operations to finance the project. That would mean neglecting other areas of the organization’s baseball operations. Which area took the hit? You guessed it, the payroll.

If you’re a Pirates fan, you might remember where you were in December of 2015 when you heard the news that Pittsburgh had decided to release first baseman Pedro Alvarez and trade second baseman Neil Walker. I recall where I was. I was driving home from work on Route 50 in Carnegie. I immediately pulled into the local Walmart parking lot to call my uncle and complain. “Here we go again,” I said. I was having flashbacks to 1993 when the Pirates, who had just won three straight National League Eastern Division titles, began to dismantle a team that included Barry Bonds and Doug Drabek.

The 2010s Pirates had advanced to the postseason in 2013, 2014 and 2015. They won over 90 games twice during that span–including 98 in 2015. The 98-win team may have been Pittsburgh’s best squad since the early-’90s. Like the previous two years, the Pirates couldn’t top the Cardinals in the National League Central Division and had to settle for the win-or-go-home wildcard game. Unfortunately, the Pirates went home that year, just like they did the season before. The only time they didn’t–2013–they lost the NLDS to St. Louis in five games.

That brings me to another quote from The Athletic article: “He pulled out so quick,” a former player said. “He was kind of comfortable stepping back and being mediocre. That permeates. That’s just what the organization does.”

The former player was talking about the Pirates’ decision to do a bit of a reset following the 2015 season. I believe Huntington referred to it as a bridge year. Not to sound too dramatic, but Pirates fans may have wanted to run to the nearest bridge (there are a lot of them in Pittsburgh) the moment they heard the general manager say that. They knew what it meant: A return to mediocrity. A refusal to spend money.

We saw it at the trade deadline every summer during the Pirates’ three-year postseason run. They never really went all in to land an asset that could have put Pittsburgh in a position to win the division and set itself up for what it was truly built for: Winning a best-of-series.

I can go on and on, pulling quotes from the story in The Athletic, but you can find it and read it for yourself.

I will offer up some more examples, however:

The Pirates fired their double A hitting instructor at the end of the 2023 campaign because third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes went to him in secret last summer and asked him to fix his struggles at the plate, which he did. Why did they fire him? It was a breach of protocol, they say. It was pettiness, I say.

It’s a baseball organization that refuses to pony up dough for outside free agents, while also punishing its people for helping its star players get better.

What does that tell you? It tells me the Pirates are a clown show with an incompetent owner. OK, I guess it’s hard to call a billionaire incompetent, but Nutting is clearly only interested in doing the bare minimum to win. He’s more interested in turning a profit than anything else. I suppose we already knew that. The evidence was right there in front of us, but when you see it in print (or text), and you read quotes from anonymous sources who worked for him, it brings it home like nothing else.

Look, I have always understood the financial constraints that baseball’s small market teams have been forced to operate under for the past 30-plus years. It’s not a coincidence that the Pirates, Reds, A’s, Royals, Orioles and Twins–organizations that were baseball royalty from the late-’60s through the early-’90s–all began to struggle to find success at the same time.

Baseball needed a salary cap in 1994. Baseball still needs one in 2024. No small market organization has truly cracked the code when it comes to winning consistently without having to tear it all down and enduring many years of futility. Yes, the Royals made it to the World Series two years in a row and won it in 2015. Yes, the Rays have found a way to compete in the mighty AL East without spending a lot on payroll. But Kansas City just lost over 100 games last year after losing 97 the year before. The Rays continue to make it to the postseason and the occasional World Series, but they have yet to host a championship parade.

The Royals have spent a ton of money on free agents this offseason, which is exciting for their fans. Will it work? And even if it does, how long before the fans are forced to endure more 100-loss seasons?

But, hey, at least the Royals are trying, right?

That’s really all Pirates fans want from Nutting. They want him to go above and beyond every now and then. I don’t think spending is the only way, but you have to supplement when the time is right. The Pirates just don’t seem willing to do that.

If Nutting would rather subtract money from his baseball operations than foot the bill for an upgrade of his spring training facilities, if $30,000 is that important to him that he’d wait a day to pull the trigger on a trade, he’s just never going to step up and spend on payroll when the time is right.

We should have learned that lesson in the mid-2010s, but so many people–including yours truly–refused to see Nutting for who he was.

Now, it’s clear as day.

Just because the Pirates are in Pittsburgh, that doesn’t mean Bob Nutting has to be the Pittsburgh Dad of small-market owners.