BRADENTON, Fla. -- Bryan Reynolds isn't getting traded.
Don't ask me how I know. Suffice it to say that the Pirates' first workout of spring training for 2022, on this cloudy, muggy Tuesday at LECOM Park, coincided with the momentous occasion -- for me, anyway -- of the first up-close conversations I've been able to have with anyone on any team in any sport for two years, thanks to Major League Baseball being first to reopen locker rooms to reporters post-pandemic. And, amid the course of several hours of actual Zoom-free chit-chat, I came across conclusive proof that this franchise's best player is staying put.
So, once more, with gusto, without ambiguity: Reynolds isn't getting traded, no matter what any reports -- most of them emanating from Miami, for whatever reason -- might suggest to the contrary.
We all good with that?
Cool, because, to be honest, it would've been a big challenge trying to make sense of literally everything else happening down here if that weren't the case.
As it is ...
"I don't think they know," Ke'Bryan Hayes replied at this stall when I asked if he felt Pittsburgh -- meaning everyone back home -- had a sense for how much quality and quantity's been amassed in this system under Ben Cherington.
"Within these next two, three years ... yeah, we're gonna be really good," the kid continued. "All the talent we have throughout the organization, we just got a glimpse of it last year when Oneil Cruz and Roansy Contreras came up in that final week. Getting those guys in here, once they're comfortable, once we're all together ... it's gonna be fun, man. It is."
How about that? We good with fun, too?
All right, go ahead and spit it all out:
So what's that mean, that they'll lose 100 instead of 101?
Awesome! Another FIVE-YEAR PLAN!
Has this individual seriously not been told who owns this operation?
How long before Reynolds, Hayes, Cruz and Contreras are Yankees?
No, for real, why should we care about this team or any of these players, even the prospects, since they'll just be gone as soon as they're good?
Feel better?
Also cool, because there's a very real conversation to be had on this broader front. And in fact, it's the one I'd most hoped to have while down here, with as many people as possible.
I mean, there's no point in following any process that's hopeless. It's irrational bordering on insane to feel otherwise. And I'm sorry, but that's got to be where a big chunk of the Pirates' remaining fan base was left after the new labor contract, which didn't change a blessed thing for the better when it comes to the game's gross economic imbalance: The Dodgers can keep spending into infinity, the Yankees and Red Sox and a few others can reach into that range, there's no hard cap, no floor of any kind and, in turn, nothing to help and/or force Bob Nutting to spend at anything close to a competitive level.
So, even if it'd require stretching reality to the limits, I arrived with a goal of at least grasping what genuine hope might look like.
And here's what I came up with, after all these conversations, almost college-thesis style:
1. Keep adding talent.
This is a no-brainer, but there's a type of talent and a type of temperament that's required. And it's been Cherington's strongest suit as a GM to date has been that he's yet to take his eye off this particular ball.
He's utilized every avenue of acquisition available to him toward adding high-ceiling type of talent, even if that comes with extra risk. He's gone for prospects who can do things that others can't, even if they aren't as polished, with an aim of infusing the basics along the way. The best instructors on the planet can't coach up 100-mph heat or burrowing sliders or bullet-speed swings. That's either there out of the womb or it isn't. The instructors with whom I've spoken here rave not about their own heroics -- the Neal Huntington administration did a ton of that -- but rather of this raw material that's been handed to them. It's maybe the most glaring difference since the sweeping front office change three years ago.
As for temperament, that shouldn't be an issue. Cherington's as unflappable as they come. Here again, not at all like his predecessor, who fretted over what everyone was saying or writing about him. Cherington's hardly out of touch. It's just that he's more like Kevin Colbert of the Steelers, in the sense that he's too busy with his own work to worry about anyone's outside evaluations of it. As such, it seems far less likely that he'd ever start making safe, sideways deals like trading Gerrit Cole for a steaming pile of mediocrity. Or three of his very best prospects for Chris Archer.
Eyes on the prize. The pipeline can never, at any stage, go dry. This is paramount.
2. Spread the wealth.
All teams take a 26-man roster north. If half of that roster's comprised of pre-arbitration players -- three or fewer years of experience -- that means 13 players will be paid at or close to the major-league minimum salary, thus consuming only about $10 million.
This doesn't necessarily mean being cheap, so don't roll the eyes at this. It's actually much more relevant to the natural roster composition of an organization that stays focused on that pipeline and keeps moving younger players through PNC Park. And being blunt, if they don't have 13 players in Pittsburgh in that category once the going gets good ... then the going won't be good for long.
Better yet, let's make it 15. So, the cost is, like, $11 million.
"We'll need a lot of 'em," as one evaluator worded it, "and we'll need at least two or three of them to be freaks."
The Cruz/Contreras models, he'd clarify. But I could just as easily include Nick Gonzales, Quinn Priester and Henry Davis, given their potential.
Next, let's add five players in their arbitration years. These tend to be starting pitchers and/or Scott Boras clients, the kind hellbent on free agency no matter what. A team has them as long as it has them, and then bye-bye. These salaries tend to be in the $5 million-$10 million range, depending on position and individual value.
Where are we now with payroll, at around $40 million?
Nothing outrageous about that. So all that's left to pay are six players at a free-agency rate and, at least if the Pirates do the right thing and raise payroll to $100 million in 2023 and more in the years to come, we're talking about $60 million and eventually more.
And don't roll the eyes at this, either, since Nutting had the payroll in the $100 million range three years in a row, from 2014-16, and the sport's overall revenues have increased 33% since then. As I wrote a week ago, if he can't spend what he's already spent at other stages of his ownership, he really, really needs to get out of this business for good.
This isn't just doable. It's responsible.
Now, anyone who monitors the headlines for all the biggest free-agent signings can attest that it's impossible to fit six of those into $60 million or even $80 million. So the Pirates still won't/can't be players at that price. That's just life.
But what they can do -- and absolutely should do -- is lock up their own core talent to long-term contracts that cut into those free-agent years. That should mean Reynolds, who's got four more years until free agency. That should mean Hayes, once he demonstrates his wrist's fine. That should mean one or more starting pitchers. If any of them keeps performing at the anticipated trajectory, they'll be bargains by the end of those contracts. And most players and agents happily trade that off in exchange for the security of long-term guaranteed money.
Some click. Some don't. The Pirates' previous front office took this approach with Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte, Gregory Polanco and Felipe Vazquez, and I don't need to remind anyone which clicked, which didn't and why.
Bottom line: It's way smarter than trying to outspend other teams on an open market.
3. Get everyone on board.
That means everyone, including the more invested fans.
This won't be easy. The overall disdain for the Pirates in Pittsburgh might be at an all-time high. But I also know this: We're not talking about an expansion team. We're talking about a 136-year-old civic institution, one that courses through the veins of our city. Even when we claim to not care, we do so with a bite and a snarl that betrays the sentiment.
It won't be through talking. It'll be through winning. It'll be through making a bona fide stride forward in 2022, then breaking through in 2023.
No one on this complex was willing to talk timelines, which drives me nuts, but I'll say it, anyway: There's got to be progress. There's got to be something that's seen. Not just in Greensboro and Altoona and Indianapolis. But right there on the North Shore. This will be the third year under this management, and that's plenty enough honeymoon even for a complete overhaul.
If/when the winning returns, the communication will be easier. Fans will want to learn about who's coming up through the system, rather than seeing it as some diversionary tactic. Fans will want to learn more about the game's economic realities, rather than seeing them as excuses for Nutting to be cheap. Fans will want to learn why it might be better to move Good Player X at a certain point in his career for a trove of prospects, per the Tampa Bay method, rather than lumping all moves together into a lazy narrative.
Take it from someone who covers all three Pittsburgh teams equally: There's no base less informed than that of the Pirates, and that's wholly understandable since they're less interested. Heighten the interest level, and the awareness goes up with it.
4. Win.
Play better, manage better, coach better, teach better and, maybe above all, from the ownership standpoint, understand that there's even more money to be made by making the very most of that spectacular ballpark.
Thought I'd lump all those into one. Just for fun.
Remember fun?
DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS
Behind the batting cage, LECOM Park, Bradenton, Fla.
• Spoke with Reynolds for a while, among many, many conversations. If he's unsettled by the published trade speculation, it sure isn't showing. He's as Johnny Cash as ever.
• Derek Shelton's first session here, union rep Chris Stratton's first remarks on the lockout and two free-agent signings are all on tap from Alex Stumpf.
• Have to admire Shelton painting this camp as one that's "gonna be leading baseball in opportunities," but I was taught long ago by a wise man -- goes by the name of Bob Walk -- to never take that stuff seriously. Every single person of authority here knows every single person who'll be boarding the charter to St. Louis. Competition's laid out to attempt to raise performance.
That said, I'm a buyer on this addendum from the manager: "I'd say third base and center field are pretty much secure."
• Someone just had to be my first one-on-one interview in a locker room in two years, and that wound up being JT Brubaker shortly after 8 a.m.:
• I learned more in one morning of full access here than I did over the past two years of covering this team. Anyone who ever suggests it's all the same, I'll challenge to a Doug Mientkiewicz mound charge.
• Thing No. 1 that I heard that surprised me: Payroll's going to keep going up this year. I know that's not saying much, seeing as it's projected to be no higher than $60 million, but thought I'd share. And yeah, I'm already counting the two free-agent signings this morning of first baseman Daniel Vogelbach and reliever Heath Hembree. This would be beyond them.
• Thing No. 2: Sure doesn't sound like Cruz and Contreras will come north to start the season. Unless one counts Indianapolis as north.
• Thing No. 3, this from Vogelbach, referring to being with the Brewers last season: "Facing these guys, even though our teams were where they were in the standings, was always tough. And we knew that. We talked about how hard we'd have to play. Every game, they kept coming. ... I'm looking forward to being a part of this. I am. That's my kind of baseball."
• Vogelbach and Yoshi Tsutsugo give the Pirates not one but two designated hitters in the year that's introduced to the National League. Which would be wonderful if they didn't need one to play first base. This'll be ... interesting.
But hey, everyone wants pop at the corners. There'll be balls clearing walls from these two, and it's not like that's a lineup strength.
• The Mitch Keller hype feels real. As far as I'm taking this for now.
• Name to watch: Michael Burrows. He's a 22-year-old pitching prospect. Holy smokes, is he getting rave reviews. As far as I'm taking this one, too.
• There's no such thing as a good day in Florida, but there's no such thing as a bad experience at a ball field. At no extra cost, I offer 20 seconds of Reynolds and a freshly shorn Ben Gamel playing long-toss this morning:
• I'll be here most of the week. Thanks for reading, as always.
