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With all the interest the Pirates are showing in second and third tier free agents (the most recent being Clay Hensley), many fans are starting to ask the same question: why not go for broke and sign somebody we know will be a good player?
The answer to that question is multi-faceted.
The player that’s come up the most this offseason in connection to the Pirates is Rick Ankiel. For illustrative purposes, let’s say that the Pirates passed on Ankiel and instead signed a top-tier outfielder. The best outfielder on the free agent market right now is probably Matt Holliday, so let’s use him as an example.
Firstly, the Pirates would have to convince Holliday that Pittsburgh is the best place for him. When you’ve lost for 17 straight seasons, this is no easy task.
Contrary to popular belief, money is not the only factor in determining where free agents sign. The Nationals outbid everyone for Mark Teixeira. How did that work out for them?
If you’ll recall, last season the Pirates were after some second-tier free agents as well. The biggest name then was Rocco Baldelli. Baldelli is a productive but oft-injured outfielder who has a rare mitochondrial disorder. Once doctors correctly diagnosed it, they cleared him to play baseball again, but he hadn’t played for a half season or more since 2006. He was a buy-low candidate in every sense of the word.
By all accounts, Baldelli received a great offer from the Pirates. Much better, in fact, than the deal he eventually signed with the Red Sox. Not only were the Pirates offering him more money and a more long-term contract than Boston, they were offering him a chance to start. Still, he eventually signed a cheap one-year deal with the Red Sox for a bench role.
Baldelli is the perfect case study for what I’m talking about here. He turned down the best offer on the table for a chance to play for a winner. The fact is, until the Pirates can start winning games, free agents aren’t going to want to come to Pittsburgh. If Rocco Baldelli wouldn’t, why would Matt Holliday?
Holliday is a much sought-after free agent. You can bet he’ll be receiving bids from the Cardinals, Mets, Yankees, Red Sox, and probably a few other teams. Not only can they offer more money that the Pirates, they can offer him a chance to play for a competitive team and be in the national spotlight. Until the Pirates start winning games, they just can’t offer that.
Secondly, the Pirates are simply not one free agent away from competing. Even if by some miracle the Pirates signed Holliday, they would still have big holes at shortstop and in the bullpen. The starting pitching is adequate, but nothing more – certainly not good enough to win a playoff series.
A big free agent alone could win the Pirates a few more games. We’ll say four, which is on the high end. So what? Is being a 66-96 team that much better than being a 62-99 team like last year?
Third, money is a factor. Fans can scream and cry all they want about the Pirates being cheap. There’s truth to that – Bob Nutting certainly has more money than he’s willing to spend on baseball.
However, Bob Nutting is not made of money. As much as we hate it as fans, baseball is a business. The owners are business people, and their goal is to make a profit. True, some owners like George Steinbrenner operate at a loss for a season or two, but it’s always with the expectation that the increase in interest in the team will more than make up for the loss in the long run.
However, economically a big name free agent that won’t put the Pirates over the top makes zero sense right now.
Lastly, Holliday and many other top free agents are older than the Pirates need them to be. Ideally, the Pirates should be looking for long-term contracts from young players. That’s how small market teams stay competitive.
Most free agents, however, are 30 years old or older. Their skills have either already begun to decline or would decline by the time the Pirates could build a team around them. What good is two great seasons from Matt Holliday if by the time other players have great seasons, he’s an average player on the decline of his career?
So, what are the Pirates to do? Baseball’s free agent market is a free market, and the Pirates have several strikes against them that prevent them from competing there. This post is getting unreasonably long, so I’ll answer that question in a separate post tomorrow.
Nice post, Nate.
One thing I will say is that the Yankees only show a loss on paper. Since they own the YES network, that is revenue that they receive but don’t have to report to MLB and put into the revenue sharing pot.
The Forbes estimate for the Red Sox in the year they paid $55M to Dice-K just to talk showed the Red Sox losing something like $25M that year. Very highly unlikely.
Yeah, the YES Network really helps the Yankees out. Even if they did operate at a loss, though, I have serious doubts Steinbrenner operates at a loss without expecting a big return later. You don’t get to own a baseball team and pay out multiple hundreds of millions of dollars every year for 36 years unless you’re making money somewhere.