Owners of the National League’s longest active playoff drought (seven years and counting), the long-suffering Pirates have not resembled a competitive team in quite some time. With the deep-pocketed Giants and Mets scooping up every free agent in sight (the Padres have been similarly liberal in their spending habits of late), the gap between rich and poor has never been greater in MLB. It’s a vicious cycle that likely won’t stop until the league enacts stiffer luxury tax penalties (something that can't be accomplished until the next collective bargaining agreement), leaving small-market clubs, including the penny-pinching likes of Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Oakland, somewhere between a rock and a hard place.
That’s not to say you can’t win on a shoestring budget—the A’s did it for years, while the Rays, employing many of the same tactics popularized by Billy Beane (often credited as the architect of MLB’s “Moneyball” phenomenon), have been similarly successful, winning in the margins through superior player development, shrewd drafting and a nose for undervalued players in need of opportunity.
With six top 100 prospects including three in the top 50, some would say the Pirates, MLB’s third-youngest team by average age last season (27.46), are in an enviable position, stockpiling future assets just as the Astros did years earlier before blossoming into a juggernaut. Of course, building through the farm system requires a great deal of patience, which means it will be a long while before Pittsburgh is seen as an appealing free-agent destination. Nevertheless, the Pirates have a fan base to engage and an eager social media staff ready to put its talent to good use, which might explain this patently absurd hype video in acknowledgement of journeyman right-hander Vince Velasquez, now playing for his fourth team in three seasons.
We knew the Pirates’ situation was bleak (last year’s highlights included Rodolfo Castro losing his cellphone sliding into third and Ke’Bryan Hayes costing his team a run by snacking on sunflower seeds), but celebrating the arrival of a career underachiever (4.93 ERA over 726 1/3 MLB innings) might be a new low, even for Pittsburgh. The delusional, 30-second clip, presenting Velasquez as some kind of organizational savior, was predictably met by ridicule, the latest humiliating misstep for a struggling franchise that can’t help but embarrass itself at every turn.
A hard-thrower who once logged 16 strikeouts in a game, Velasquez is a worthy reclamation project (particularly at his $3.15-million salary) with the versatility to serve either as a back-of-the-rotation starter or as a long man out of the ‘pen. But he’s no one’s idea of a star, much less someone the Pirates should promote as a symbol of hope and prosperity. Until the lowly Pirates develop an identity, they’ll continue to be the subject of widespread mockery, a readymade punchline for the Twitter masses.
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