It has become commonplace in this town about this time of year – and, heck, I can't blame people.
They beat the Pirates up and they beat the Pirates up pretty bad.
They make the wisecracks and jokes. They hammer the owner about spending money.
They talk about how some Johnny NoName is going to be the fifth starter and have an ERA of 45-something.
I get it. I really do. No one wants the Pittsburgh Pirates to win more than I do. No one dies with them more than me. Lifelong fan here {raises right hand} so I understand the frustrations and, truth be told, hold many of the exact same ones that I hear on 93.7 The Fan when someone calls to rip the organization.
But know what is fair? Pointing out something that is a drastic organizational change from where things were during the past management team; a past management team in Neal Huntington, Frank Coonelly and Clint Hurdle that had reached successes but grew very stale and stubborn at the end.
On Thursday morning I was perusing the news and came upon Jason Mackey's report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. A portion of it went like this:
The Pirates made an important first step in the team-building process this spring by offering rookie sensation Ke'Bryan Hayes a contract extension, but the offer was declined, a source confirmed to the Post-Gazette on Wednesday.
Good.
Really good.
I know what you are asking now --- how in the world could being rebuffed by Ke'Bryan Hayes be a good thing? Well, logic tells everyone he isn't going to ink a long-term deal right now.
The guy is going to bet on himself a little while longer (and also hope the Pirates get better as an organization) before he so much as reads through any contract offer for more than a millisecond. But here is where the Pirates deserve praise:
They tried to keep someone who they view as the future of the franchise around and they told you about it. Yep, they made an attempt to lock up the best player they have and let it be known, through back channels, they were trying to keep him in Pittsburgh.
This was a longstanding disagreement in philosophy I had with the old regime --- they would never leak any sort of contract offers to the media or secretively pass along information so that it would hit the paying customer.
I thought the paying customer, especially in this town, deserved as much.
In short, Huntington and those guys could never counter when a fan would scream "YOU NEVER EVEN TRIED!!!"
In this case, it is obvious that either President Travis Williams or General Manager Ben Cherington (or someone in the highest reaches of the organization) confirmed the offer was made to Hayes.
Good.
This is an escape from the past. This is something the Pirates should do and a great way to go about business. Ultimately, it is up to the ownership group to pony up the money a talent like Hayes wants when he feels it is time to cash in, but pushing the information into public consumption that the organization put an offer on the table should satiate and appease those who griped in the past that the Bucs never even tried with players like this.
Good on them. Good on them for making an offer to Hayes. And good on the team for making sure we know about it. The past president and general manager of this organization wore out their trust with the fan base; displays like trying to lock up your best player and making sure the city knows about it can only serve to help build that trust back with this GM and president.
Wins will go a long way. But honesty and transparency is a really nice start.
