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“But he wouldn’t supplement a really good team when he could have.”

If the Pirates would have spent as much as the megamarket Cleveland Indians and KC Royals, I guarantee you that they would have appeared in at least one World Series from 2013 to 2015. I am not being a Captain Hindsight ... had they simply frigging spent a tiny bit more money at the start of the season for a 1B or RF in 2013 or 1B in 2014-2015, I can almost promise you they would have won the division 2 of those 3 years -AND- made it to at least one World Series.

They knew what they had at the end of 2012 ... after 20 consecutive years of a sub .500 record, you think they’d take a couple of risks. That wasn’t in the cards.

Here’s the sickening part ... I am not talking about signing some brutal $20M/year power hitter at 1B that costs millions ... we had power ... 1B was the only position where we had NOBODY that could get on base ... nobody. All they needed was a guy that could play 1B and get on base ... a typical $8M/year player these days.

The Pirates only trade prospects when they’re looking to dump salary (see the ‘Liriano to TOR’ trade in 2016). A couple of mid level prospects would have gotten us what we needed.

Instead, in 2015, they ran Pedro Alvarez out there ... the year where we had a phenomenal pitching staff and ferocious offense ... Alvarez committed over THIRTY errors. He did hit an appreciable number of solo-shot HRs, but the errors and overall horrible defense more than canceled that out. They were too cheap to simply have him on the bench as a pinch hitter (a great role for him against leftys) ... they wanted to get their money’s worth.

We won 98 games, the Cubs 97, but St. Louis won 100. Jake Arietta and the Cubs humiliated the Pirates in the Wild Card game.

I was done after 2015. I’m a lifetime baseball fan and I flat out couldn’t take it anymore. Despite record attendance, they cut salary and didn’t even make an attempt to field a team that would compete. This year was even worse. They flat out do not care.

MLB should either force that pig to sell or just contract the team out of existence. Bob Nutting has zero motivation to sell (it is free money ... why would he), therefore, just get them the hell out of the league. They dilute the talent pool and aren’t the least bit serious about winning. I’m sorry, but when Milwaukee, Cleveland, and KC spend an appreciable amount of money while you sit idle, you deserve to be kicked out of the league.

Again, sorry for the rant :-).