SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — When Tony Watson entered the home clubhouse at Scottsdale Stadium on Feb. 19, the day he signed with the San Francisco Giants, the first players he saw were Alen Hanson, Chase d’Arnaud and Gorkys Hernandez. Watson found his locker directly beside Mark Melancon’s. Andrew McCutchen occupied a corner stall on the other side of the room.
“I was like, ‘This is weird,’ ” Watson said Wednesday, contemplating the miniature reunion of former Pirates. “We’re all over here. We’re all Giants. We’re in orange and black, and we’re excited.”
While the Pirates surrendered McCutchen and Gerrit Cole this winter, trading them for an assortment of young players, the Giants doubled down. The front office, confronted by a club that lost 98 games last year yet has three World Series titles this decade, acted quickly and added, stabilizing the Giants’ core with veterans. They acquired McCutchen and Evan Longoria, then signed Austin Jackson and Watson. They cranked payroll, readying for another run.
“It’s pretty apparent what this team is trying to do. That’s why I’m here," McCutchen said Friday, shortly before the Giants’ Cactus League opener in Scottsdale. “It could easily have gone a different route. I could easily have [been traded] to a team that wasn’t trying to win either.”
McCutchen paused and then corrected himself: “I won’t say ‘either,’ because that means the Pirates aren’t trying to win,” he continued. “They say they are, so we’ll leave it at that.”
Time and turnover have hollowed the roster that took the Pirates to the playoffs in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Of the 50 players who dressed for the Pirates-Giants wild-card game in 2014, the Pirates currently employ only four — Gregory Polanco, Starling Marte, Josh Harrison and Jordy Mercer. The Giants, meanwhile, still have 12 of the players in spring training camp, including three members of the former Pirates nucleus: McCutchen, Melancon and Watson.
Those three left the Pirates in a similar way — traded months before they reached free agency. Melancon and Watson were involved in deadline deals, but general manager Neal Huntington moved McCutchen before his final season under contract ever began. That, coupled with the Cole trade that preceded it, effectively closed the chapter on this Pirates core.
What went wrong these past two years?
It depends whom you ask.
In Pirates camp, David Freese criticized the “environment” in the organization, saying it lacked a “winning culture.” Josh Harrison echoed, “When you feel [winning] is not the main goal of everybody in the clubhouse or dealing with the organization, that’s hard to be a part of.”
McCutchen’s reply focused more on what wasn’t done than what was.
“You’ve got to push. You’ve got to make that second push,” McCutchen said in Scottsdale. “If it was making some moves that needed to be made — one or two — I think that’s something that needed to happen. We had that window. I think we had some key moves that maybe could have been made to make the team a little stronger. But that’s something we didn’t do.
“That’s what playoff teams do, man. Teams that make the pushes. Teams that make the runs. If they feel like they need someone, they go get him. Look at what the Astros did. Shoot, they went and got [Justin] Verlander. They made that rotation a little more powerful. Who’s to say they would have won [the World Series] if they didn’t get him?
“I think sometimes you’ve got to make those moves. You’ve got to take those chances, take those risks. I think that’s what we lacked. But it’s something you learn from. You go from there. You’ve got to have that not-satisfied mentality. But that’s out of my control. I try to do my part, and everyone else tries to do theirs. That’s all you can do.”
Watson, who set up for Melancon when both were in Pittsburgh, spoke of the chemistry the Pirates had during the playoff seasons. “You’ve probably heard the phrase, ‘We didn’t out-talent them; we out-teamed them,’ ” he said. “We had both.” He admitted there was some disappointment when management didn’t strengthen the roster after a 98-win 2015 season.
“When you’re there it’s like, yeah, we want to go for it,” Watson said. “But we’ve got to realize there are a lot of moving pieces and parts that go into it. It’s all one big puzzle. You’re just part of the puzzle. They’ve got to slide guys in and do things certain ways and be creative that way.
“Yeah, as a guy in the clubhouse and a competitor, you want to do as much as you can to win because it is all about getting that ring and playoff baseball. October baseball has a special feel to it. It brings guys and families closer together. But you understand it. It’s all business. There’s things that have to happen, certain things that have to align, for it all to happen.
“I guess that’s the best way I can say it. It’s tough, but it is what it is.”
Melancon's answer was shorter: “It’s baseball,” he said. He shrugged.
Melancon phoned McCutchen when he heard about the trade, welcoming him to San Francisco. One night earlier this month, Melancon told his children about Watson joining the Giants while they were eating dinner. His toddler son, Jack, screamed. His girls, Brooklyn and Ella, cheered and chanted, “Tony! Tony!” Later, Melancon said his reaction was “pretty similar to my kids’.”
Melancon said he hasn’t paid much attention to how the Pirates front office has operated since he departed. They’ve moved on, and so has he. To Washington, D.C., and then to San Francisco. This offseason, after pronator surgery, Melancon trained at IMG Academy in Bradenton, returning to the town where each of his four seasons — and three playoff runs — with the Pirates started.
“Those were special years,” Melancon said. “To break the playoff streak and the going .500 all the time and not being able to get over that hump. I think it was big for the city. It was a lot of fun while we were there, I know that. Some of the best memories.”
Stephen J. Nesbitt: snesbitt@post-gazette.com and Twitter @stephenjnesbitt.
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First Published: March 1, 2018, 11:00 a.m.