93.7 The Fan Pirates Insider Jason Mackey of the Post-Gazette scored an exclusive one-on-one interview with Pirates owner Bob Nutting.
Nutting is a polarizing figure in Pittsburgh and the butt of countless jokes about the Pirates failures.
But in the piece Mackey wrote for the Post-Gazette, Nutting comes across as an owner who cares deeply for the organization and is frustrated by the lack of success.
On Fans
Nutting tells Mackey he knows the fans care and when they get angry that is only proof that they want the team to be better like he does.
“I know how much fans care, and I know how much they want this team to be better,” Nutting said. “We’re working every day, putting the right people in place to accomplish that. I hope they know how much I care, too. There’s nothing more important to me than getting this right,” Nutting tells the PG.
Looking forward
Nutting tells Mackey the organization became “blinded” after success in 2013-15 and the club didn’t evolve. That being said, Nutting says they’ve learned from their mistakes and are looking forward, not backward.
“What’s exciting for me right now is we’re a year into this process and just beginning to see it have some real impact,” Nutting said. “We’re not where we need to be, but we’re moving forward.”
And Nutting is right, the Pirates are moving forward. Ke’Bryan Hayes is poised to have a rookie of the year type season.
Kevin Newman, Adam Frazier and Brian Reynolds should all have bounce back years in 2021. This upcoming season isn’t all gloom and doom. General Manager Ben Cherington is doing exactly what he said he would do when he was hired. Build this team up by investing in younger talent. His work has paid off with MLB.com putting the Pirates farm system in the top 10 for the first time since 2017.
Losing players like Jameson Taillon, Joe Musgrove and Josh Bell is hard but those are decisions the previous regime refused to make.
When Neal Huntington pulled the trigger and traded for Chris Archer, fans and critics alike applauded the move. Now, it is seen as one of the worst deals in Pirates history.
Nutting said seeing players like Austin Meadows, Tyler Glasnow and Jameson Taillon succeed on other teams mad him angry. Fans and analysts were left scratching their heads when the previous regime would stifle players by not letting them show their strengths.
“Baseball changes all the time,” Nutting said to the PG. “The tools that worked in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, or in 2013, are not necessarily what are going to bring us to a championship in the 2020s. I think the success blinded us to what we needed to do to stay nimble and change. We are absolutely on a different version of that track now.”
Nutting tells Mackey that those poor trades and draft picks put the Pirates in a hole, but they are now digging out.
Nutting
You can say its hyperbole, but Nutting tells Mackey that he is not happy with losing. The Pirates failed to win 20 games in last year’s shortened season.
“I don’t handle it particularly well,” Nutting said. “I’ve been through enough seasons that I know there are a lot of games, but no. You take a year like last year, where we just played badly and underperformed, you definitely have those moments when the frustration level can be high.”
That is only the tip of the iceberg, please go check out Jason’s one-on-one here to read more about payroll,