BRADENTON, Fla. – Bob Nutting knows that many of the Pirates fans do not like him.
That does not bother him personally, the owner said Wednesday morning when he met with reporters at Pirate City while the Pirates conducted a spring training workout. However, he is concerned that it is hurting the perception of the team with the public.
“I think the only piece that worries me is to the extent that it negatively impacts the club,” Nutting said during a nearly 50-minute session. “And that’s unfortunate and up to me to do everything I can to make sure that the degree of commitment that I show -- and I’ll say show as opposed to have, because I deeply believe that I am fully committed to this organization and to its success and devote all the energy I possibly can to seeing that happen -- if I need to be more effective to communicate that in order to help and support the team, that’s on me.”
Attendance has dropped each of the last three seasons at the PNC Park since the Pirates won 98 games in 2015 for the second-best record in Major League Baseball, then lost to the Cubs in the National League wild-card game. That marked the Pirates’ last postseason appearance.
Last season, the Pirates drew just 1,465,316 — down nearly a million from 2015. It was the club’s worst attendance since 1996 when they played at Three Rivers Stadium and Jim Leyland was in the last of his 11 seasons as manager.
Much of the anger and apathy from the fans stems from the Pirates’ lack of spending. They are annually in the bottom third of the major leagues in player payroll, which is projected to be the second-lowest in the game this season at $73 million. Only the Rays, at $60 million, figure to be lower.
However, Nutting did not agree that the fans would have a better perception of him and the team if he opened the wallet a little more.
“I obviously think it’s much deeper than that,” Nutting said. “The spending is a band-aid and a little bit of a distraction. I think we’re spending appropriately in order to achieve the goals that we’ve set out, which is to win a championship. I think we’re allocating between the multiple buckets that we need to allocate dollars in a smart, efficient way to be able to drive the very best team on the field that we possibly can.
“All of those, the performance and the intent and the desire, absolutely are there. If I need to do a more effective job communicating that and allowing people to see that, and allowing people to have the same faith in the organization that I have, the same faith in our baseball leadership team that I have, the same faith in the coaching staff and this young group of players that I have, then that would be the ideal.”
Another small-revenue franchise, the Padres, agreed to terms on a 10-year, $300-million contract with star infielder Manny Machado on Tuesday. That led Commissioner Rob Manfred to say he believes it is good for a certain number of big-name players to play for such franchises.
Nutting was asked if signing a player the stature of Machado would help change the fans’ perception. The owner, though, made it clear the Pirates won’t be going down that road even if it would greatly strengthen their claim that their goal is winning the Word Series.
“Neal (Huntington) can speak to this more specifically but he has a strong belief that if you have an overweight with one player in the payroll and an imbalanced payroll, that you have a much more challenging team dynamic, a much more challenging clubhouse dynamic, much more limitation in crafting an overall roster that can bring a championship,” Nutting said. “I’m not sure that that necessarily makes a team – a team – more competitive and ready to win a championship.”
Nutting gave basically the same answer when asked why the payroll has been cut $17 million from $90 million at the end of last season. When asked, he said the number was not lowered because of any financial problems with the franchise.
Of course, the Pirates did not win a championship last season. However, they went 82-79 for just their fourth winning record in the last 26 years – all coming since 2013.
Nevertheless, the attendance fell by just more than 454,000. Even a finish above .500 and the trades for Chris Archer and Keone Kela in July didn’t win the fans back following the January trades of Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole.
However, Nutting said he is most concerned about the fans who attend the games at PNC Park. He believes the Pirates will be better this season and that will correlate to higher ticket sales.
“I’m really appreciative of the fans who support the team,” Nutting said. “There’s a lot of passion with Pittsburgh sports fans. That’s real. It’s a group with very high expectations. I think the expectations going into (last) season didn’t match the reality of the performance of the team. I’m sure that was a piece of the attendance disconnect.
“I think we have the opposite this year, where we have a lot of confidence and enthusiasm with a young team coming in. There’s no question we have a stronger core, a little more experienced core, some good additions. I think we should see the opposite as we’re coming into 2019.”
Perhaps.
Yet there are many fans who are still skeptical of the Pirates’ motivation to win following an offseason when the biggest additions were shortstop Erik Gonzalez, outfielder Lonnie Chisenhall and right-hander Jordan Lyles.
“I don’t want to guess or speculate for someone else, for what they believe or feel,” Nutting said of the wary fans. “What I absolutely do know is that the front office and ownership are absolutely committed and we’re working really hard to field what we believe is a better team, a good team, an improving team that has the opportunity to win this year, in 2019.
“The enthusiasm is contagious, whether it’s from the players, whether it’s from the coaches, whether it’s from the front office. That’s why I love being down here for spring training, because you can really feel the excitement for this team.”
The Pirates’ television rights contract with AT&T SportsNet expires at the end of this season. Their stadium naming rights deal for PNC Park ends following the 2020 season.
It would stand to reason spending more money to better the chances of fielding a contending team would pay off financially. More people watching the game on TV or attending them in person would seemingly drive up the rights’ fees on both fronts.
However, Nutting doesn’t agree with that line of thinking.
“I think those are separate issues,” he said “I think that we’ve had a very good response from AT&T. Last year, ratings were up significantly. Obviously, the team performed better last year than it had the year before, so you see those pieces moving together. But our relationship with them has been excellent, and we certainly hope to be able to continue that good partnership.”
One of the complaints I continually hear from the fans is they feel the Pirates’ brain trust of Nutting, Frank Coonelly and Huntington often seems to be talking down to the fans and insulting their intelligence.
I brought that up to Nutting and he seemed pained by it.
“We certainly respect our fans,” he said. “We certainly appreciate our fans. If we fall short on communicating effectively that to our fans that falls on us. That’s obviously something we need to be aware of and that we need to work on.”
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