There is a curse associated with working for Bob Nutting, the cheapest owner in sports. If you are his general manager or manager, you don’t have access to top players because he won’t pay the going rate. His Pirates payroll is near the bottom of baseball every year. You know what that means. This is America. You almost always get what you pay for.
But there also is a blessing that goes with working for Nutting. No matter what you do or how poorly you do your job, your chances of being fired are minimal. The last thing Nutting wants to do is to pay someone for not working and then have to pay his replacement to do the same job. That would cut down on his profits, heaven forbid.
So it is with Neal Huntington and Clint Hurdle.
The two always should be remembered well here because they did what I thought was impossible under Nutting by leading the Pirates to three consecutive playoff appearances from 2013-15. But their work since has been mostly awful. This latest of many collapses under their watch would get most general managers and managers fired, but they are safe because they have contracts through the 2021 season. The team could lose its next 20 games and they still would be safe.
It is brutal to watch these Pirates.
Maybe this collapse isn’t as bad as the one in 2011 when the team started 53-47 and finished 19-43. Certainly it isn’t as bad as the one in 2012 when it was 63-47 on Aug. 8 and still managed to finish below .500 for the 20th consecutive year with a 79-83 record. That might have been the worst collapse in major league history.
But these Pirates are awful. They can’t catch a popup. They can’t get a bunt down. They can’t get a big hit. Their starters can’t go more than five innings. Their relief pitchers keep giving up home runs. Their best player, Josh Bell, is producing less than he did last season, has hit .184 with two RBIs since the All-Star break and hasn’t hit a home run since July 5. They are bad on the bases and bad in the field.
“It’s our third time this year we’ve been in an extended losing streak,” Huntington said Sunday on his radio show on 93.7 The Fan. “Our record, obviously, indicates that there are a number of areas that we need to be better, are working to get better and will have to be better.”
Worst of all, the Pirates are playing as if they don’t care.
They should be ashamed.
That final indictment is on Hurdle, whose message appears to have stopped getting through to the players. The same thing happened to him with the Colorado Rockies before he was fired in 2009 after seven-plus seasons.
The rest of the deplorable mess is on Huntington, who hasn’t done nearly enough with what little Nutting has given him to work with.
“I am accountable for everything that goes on in baseball operations,” Huntington acknowledged Sunday. “This is the club that I put together. This is the club that I felt good about.”
Give Huntington credit for getting Bryan Reynolds and Kyle Crick in a trade for Andrew McCutchen. It hurt everyone to see the popular McCutchen go, but that deal had to be made. Also give Huntington credit for signing Melky Cabrera as a free agent. Cabrera should be attractive as a bench player to every contending team before the 4 p.m. Wednesday trade deadline.
But Huntington’s trade for Gerrit Cole looks bad. I like Colin Moran and love Joe Musgrove’s want-to, but they haven’t been good enough. The trade for Chris Archer looks worse. He has been less-than-mediocre after the Pirates were expecting a top-of-the-rotation starter. The signing of free-agent Jordan Lyles was great for two months but now must be considered a mistake. Lyles has been really bad and still wouldn’t be in the rotation if Hurdle had other options.
But Huntington’s two biggest blunders were trading for Keone Kela and signing Lonnie Chisenhall as a free agent. Kela’s anger-management issues with the Texas Rangers should have been well-known to Huntington, but he still made the trade. Kela was suspended for two games last week after a reported confrontation with a Pirates staff member, an inexcusable act at a time when the team still was fighting to save its season. And how about Chisenhall? His injury history with the Cleveland Indians was well-documented, but Huntington still signed him to a one-year, $2.75 million contract. Chisenhall won’t play one inning with the Pirates all season. He’s not even around the team rehabilitating whatever injury he has. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Huntington should be ashamed.
It’s hard to have faith in Huntington with the trade deadline approaching. Will the failure of the Archer trade make him afraid to make another major move such as trading one of his two best veteran assets, Felipe Vazquez or Starling Marte? If he does move one, are you confident he will get enough value in return?
It doesn’t matter, I guess.
There is no pressure on Huntington. Like Hurdle, he is safe with Nutting.
On second thought, maybe that, too, is a curse.
Getting fired, taking some time off, getting paid and then looking to work for a better owner might not be such a bad thing.
Ron Cook: rcook@post-gazette.com and Twitter@RonCookPG. Ron Cook can be heard on the “Cook and Joe” show weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan.
First Published: July 29, 2019, 11:00 a.m.
