WEBVTT - Deep dive into Pirates finances 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:04.440 The skies opened here above Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The angels played 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:08.200 their harps, the choirs began singing, and Paul Schemes was 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:10.960 bequeathed to our city. 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:15.440 All right, here we go. 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:18.000 We've got Dayan kovid Chevitch joining us for the first 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.720 time on the show. Hopefully I nailed the pronunciation, but 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:22.799 he'll tell me in a moment, he writes for DK 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:25.680 Pittsburgh Sports and Dan, great to have you on the show. 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.000 First of all, we're very excited to dive into this article. 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.080 You did an insane amount of homework on the finances 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:33.239 of the Pirates. So how are you and do you 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:35.440 feel like you're capable of running this team now? 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.280 I appreciate that. A couple of things to say. First, 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:43.320 hello to a couple of former buccos over there. You 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:45.920 don't think we don't remember who it is that we 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:49.159 cover over the years. And the other is I couldn't 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:51.920 agree more strongly about Opening Day in Cincinnati. I actually 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:54.520 tell the writers on my staff the only time you 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:57.440 ever capitalize Opening Day, the O and the D is 0:00:57.480 --> 0:00:59.440 when you're in Cincinnati, because it's the only place where 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:02.360 it's an actual holiday. It's an amazing scene going up 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:05.399 through downtown Cincinnati into Fountain Square and all that stuff. 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:07.800 Just beautiful. What it is that they do, kids get 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:11.640 the day off school, that there's nothing like it. You 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:14.039 guys are going to absolutely love it. I know I'm 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:16.160 preaching the choir, especially with Todd there on that one 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.399 since he left through it in many years. There's just 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:24.000 nothing like it. Am I ready to run the team? No? 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.800 I can tell you that we went into this process 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.920 five months ago looking to try to figure out basically, 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:35.040 you know, everybody's been accusing Bob Nutting and the ownership 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:39.880 for years, myself included of you know, profiteering, of taking 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:42.680 money and just you know, running off to the hills 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:44.839 with it or in his case where his ski lifts 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:49.320 are to the east of Pittsburgh. And so, you know, 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:51.640 we go into it. We're digging, We're finding these numbers, 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:54.440 and as of about a month ago, we start looking 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:56.760 at him and going, wait a second, what's going on here? 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:01.000 This doesn't add up at all, Like not that we 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:05.000 were not finding major profit margins, we weren't finding any. 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:08.840 And so finally, the way these things go is you 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:10.840 go to the team. Last, you go to whoever it 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:14.640 is that you're investigating last and we go to the 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:19.079 pirates and like, you're losing money, aren't you? Well do 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:23.600 dot Okay, so you're like, well, wait a second, no, 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:27.120 you're losing money. We've heard that you've taken not one, 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:31.320 not two, but three loans through MLB's m MO ability 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:33.120 has as a kind of a credit union. You guys 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:35.560 probably are aware of it. That came out of the 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.160 COVID period and there's still some teams in it. The 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:41.400 Braves just lost forty four million at least, you know, 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:45.560 that's what they put on the paper, so the like 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:52.120 are you in this? Are you do? And because I 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:57.120 don't think they wanted, they were actually more embarrassed, if 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.919 that's the right word for it, by having any law 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.440 at all. Then they were, you know, when people were 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:05.720 telling them that they were making a fifty sixty million 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.000 dollar profit. So that was what we put out to 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:12.000 everybody yesterday and to the fan base. I got to 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:18.920 tell you, I'm surprised the reaction has been mostly oh really, gee, 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:21.000 maybe we got to think about this all over again. 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:26.639 So it's it's a it's been a strange forty eight 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:30.680 hours in that regard. There's obviously some people that aren't 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:32.560 going to believe it, because it's hard, especially in the 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:35.640 current social climate, for anybody to ever admit that they're 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:40.280 wrong about anything. But that's kind of what's happened here, 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.600 and you know, how does it happen. There's a lot 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:46.040 of specifics to that. There's a lot of intricate stuff, 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:49.720 but i'll tell you what. The story's been out for 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:53.200 forty eight hours and there is nobody. There's nobody down 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:55.400 here at one fifteen Federal Street on the North Shore 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:58.160 that's that's denying it or rejecting it. And they can't 0:03:58.160 --> 0:03:59.720 because they already confirmed it for us. 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:03.800 You said the Braves lost mine? Did you mean the 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:05.880 race just before we get on to the rest of 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:08.760 the pirates, Because the Braves are a publicly traded company, 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:10.920 and I thought it should. 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.440 Got it forty mil profit for twenty twenty five. 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.320 Forty Oh all right, then I have that backward in 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:18.680 my head here. The other thing about the Braves. You're right, 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.279 you're right, Eric, the publicly traded company. But what happens 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:23.640 with the Braves is they also have you guys have 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.400 been there. That whole battery park or whatever, everything that's 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:29.680 around the stadium is all part of their books and 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:32.040 part of everything else, so it gets kind of confusing 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:34.760 with that stuff. But yeah, I saw I saw a 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.120 set of brackets in a set of a minus. 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:38.520 Yeah. 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:41.000 No, anyway, so let's let's get back to the pirates. 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:46.160 Does this make them look inept? Does this make them 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:49.520 look like they can't run a team like because they 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:54.040 lost a few million dollars? Or are they because it'll 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:56.400 kind of get to my next question after after you 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:57.440 answer this one. 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:00.840 Well, it does. I think this is just me now 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:05.280 in this sense that here's how I see this. The 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:10.600 Skies opened here above Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The angels played their harps, 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.960 the choirs began singing, and Paul Skeens was bequeathed to 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:15.559 our city. 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:16.720 All right. 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:20.360 I don't think they did anything right to get skiings. 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:23.640 I think thirty out of thirty general managers draft schemes, 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:29.880 and you can't make money, Like you can't build up 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:34.320 your season ticket base, you can't get your ballpark even 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.960 to sell out when Skimes is pitching. Look over the 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:45.640 individual numbers for their attendance figures in twenty twenty four. Sorry, 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.640 we heard from people who were coming to Pittsburgh from 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.720 other cities from sometimes from Canada, just to see him pitch. 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:57.760 This should be treated here in our city like a 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.640 rock concert when he pitches. Now, I know it's not 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.760 the same because you can't set the date automatically and everything, 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.159 you know, because you don't know exactly when it's going 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:08.520 to be his turn. But people were buying two three 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:13.040 games and you can't sell this out. There's such distrust 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:16.640 between you and the public that you can't build up revenues. 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:18.560 And Eric, that was the main point that we were 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:20.360 making in this and that I made near the end 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:24.200 of the piece, which is you have to build that up. 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:26.560 You have to build up that positivity between you and 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.520 your community, something Clint Hurdle used to refer to as 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.359 rebonding with the city that the pirates need to do. 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:37.240 There's no trust. There's no trust here the way there 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:39.839 is with the Steelers and the Penguins. There's no trust 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:44.360 here between the public and the pirates, and yet they 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:47.400 have schemes. They have to figure this out. They have 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:50.159 to start being honest with people. It can't be me 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:52.560 going in and banging down their door to find out 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:53.160 what's going on. 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:58.279 Ft fam Arena Club is the modern way to collect 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.480 cards or buy or sell, or or even grade. And 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:04.000 we're highlighting slab packs because this is the new way 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:06.520 to rip open a pack and get a really good card. 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.240 Aj But also if you're not into the card, like 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:11.520 I know you pulled a Bob Gibson card recently, you 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:13.800 can get an offer of ninety percent of the estimated 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:16.840 value and just accept it on the spot and give 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:19.120 it right back and maybe try again with another slab pack. 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:22.040 I ain't getting rid of my Bob Gibson autographed card. 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.400 Bob Gibson ain't card signing cards anytime soon, so I'm 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:27.560 keeping this one. It gets graded for you. There's no mess. 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:29.320 The only thing I wish they had bubblegum. Can they 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:32.480 virtually send me some bubble gumps cut? Other than that, 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.400 it's awesome. You can buy sell cards, they grate them 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:37.840 instantly for you, and physically you can also get the 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:39.960 cards if you want them. So I'm all for this. 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:41.560 This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.160 Yeah, those cards are in your showroom in the app, 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.000 and then of course you can get the card physically 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:47.640 sent to you. So right now you can get twenty 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.680 percent off your first slab pack or card purchase by 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:53.960 going to Arena club dot com slash foul. That's Arena 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:56.480 club dot com slash foul code foul for twenty percent 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:57.360 off your first purchase. 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:00.920 Well, it's funny all this is coming out, like you 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.720 think just the regular fans like, oh, that every team's 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.120 got to be making money, Like what you know, they're 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.360 making profit this team, even the worst teams are making profit. Now, 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:11.880 my question to you is they're so in the red 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.080 like Bob Nutting, Like, why wouldn't he try and sell 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:17.119 the team if they're not making any money? 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:17.440 You know? 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:19.680 That's actually, you know what's funny, Todd. That's actually been 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:23.240 the most common question that we've gotten after this, which 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:25.240 has surprised me a little bit because I didn't necessarily 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.800 see the link. I could get technical and I could 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:31.560 say something like, listen, when you buy a team, I'm sorry. 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.320 When a team is bought, one of the things that 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.360 happens invariably is that whoever buys it buys up all 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:39.680 your debt, so you don't really sweat it much. You know, 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:44.719 the Celtics sold yesterday for was it six point one billion? Yeah, 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:47.880 I guarantee you guarantee you the Celtics aren't walking away 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:51.240 with any debt, meaning the people who sold the team. Okay, 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.200 So on one hand, you don't sweat it much. On 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:57.199 the other hand, I'm going to share something here here 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:00.920 with you guys. It's more about Bob Bob nutting than 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:06.040 it is about the Pirates themselves. He wants to see 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:11.640 baseball move toward a salary cap system, okay. He wants 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:15.800 to see a system that's similar to what the Steelers 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.320 and the Penguins enjoy in their leagues in the NFL 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:21.600 and the NHL, which are both tight cap systems and 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.360 full revenue sharing. And by the way, people hear the 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:26.520 word salary cap and they get it wrong all the time. 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.800 A salary cap system has a ceiling as a floor. 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.480 It's automatic, you never have to say it. It also 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:37.040 comes with a greatly expanded revenue sharing so that everybody 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.360 can afford to be in that range whatever it is, 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:41.880 it's usually around twenty or thirty million, is pretty tight. 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.080 He wants that, he sees the future, especially if that 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:49.400 happens as being really bright. So Todd, He's got no 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:51.720 interest in getting out of that now when it might 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.800 just get good. You know what, I'm saying, Also, the 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.160 debt that we're talking about here, by every accounting that 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:01.480 we had in and what they came back with is 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:04.000 not something that's super serious. Is not where you go, 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:05.480 Oh no, I got to get rid of this, you 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:06.120 know what I'm saying. 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.400 Yeah, I definitely follow what you're saying, and I'm gonna 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.760 come from a player's point of view. You buy a 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:18.360 sports team to win championships. You buy a sports team 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:22.880 to sell your stinking newspapers, which he's run other newspaper 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:27.360 companies into the ground. So if he's profitably losing money 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:30.400 for this team, it's pretty much on point from where 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:34.320 he's been. And yet somehow Bob Nutting continues to grow 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.280 out of these companies that he quote unquote I read 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.240 an article runs into the ground or gets rid of. 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:43.880 But he knows the profitable side of this. So to me, 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.480 you buy a sports team, how are you like You're 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:52.360 not buying it solely for a monetary gain, You're buying 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:55.480 it for the victories in the city. And then all 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:57.280 of a sudden, all of Pittsburgh wants to go to 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.280 Seven Springs on vacation. Because that's the pirates connection, which 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.040 you had mentioned before. About his ski slope. 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:05.920 Yeah, I can tell you've been up there. 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:07.559 Yes, yes, And. 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:12.480 He's very generous to his players to be able to 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:14.360 go there for a weekend on the All Star break. 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:16.920 And anyway, that's a whole nother story of excitement. 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:19.160 That's actually a good one. You need to tell it 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:21.600 on the show someday. I'm aware of that one when 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:25.400 you're talking about what it is that he's looking at 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:27.800 from that standpoint. The number one criticism that I've had 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:29.760 of him, and you guys should know that, I did 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:34.079 an article last a column really last October, that called 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:37.360 for him to sell the team, just publicly. Just get 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.800 out of here, go away. Okay. The Pirates, the Pittsburgh 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:44.560 Baseball club, the franchise of Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargel, and 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:48.520 Hanness Wagner, would be better off without you as the owner. 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:50.960 This is one hundred and forty forty years now. We 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:54.040 were talking about the Reds and their tradition. Pirates aren't 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:57.280 far from that, Okay, one hundred and forty fourth opener 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.920 next Thursday in Miami for the Pirates. This is a 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:05.160 civic institution around here. This isn't some expansion club. And 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.880 to have a steward who does do exactly what you 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:12.800 just said there, Eric, He prioritizes something other than winning. 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:22.280 He prioritizes excessive caution. He is risk averse to the extreme. 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:24.880 And when you're linking it to his other businesses that 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:27.839 you just did, that's the commonality. It's not that they 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:32.240 lose money, it's not that they profiteer or anything like that. 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:36.240 It's that he's just afraid of his own shadow. And 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:38.880 when you have I'm going to say this again, you sign, 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.320 which they did to their credit. Brian Reynolds got a 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:48.360 big contract. Okay, Mitch Keller got a big contract. Brian Hayes, 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:50.679 if he can ever keep that back healthy at third base, 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.720 he also got a big contract. These guys were all retained. 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.480 These are young pieces that you want to see teams 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:01.200 like the Pirates retaining. They did that right. Okay, here 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.720 comes Skeens and you know what he does. He messes 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.520 up the whole vibe. He just does schemes, puts them 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:13.160 in a position where they go, oh, geez, this is different. 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.040 What do we do with this one? Well, I'm not 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:18.199 even talking about signing him. They own his rights for 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:19.040 six years, you know that. 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:19.440 Or five. 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:23.680 Actually, with the way the arbitration thing goes now, it's 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:28.160 that he forces them to think differently. Every year that 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:32.160 Schemes is here is a year that you should be 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:39.080 pursuing everything. Okay, because you have him here at this 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.760 crazy bargain rate. Think about what he's going to make 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:45.640 on the open market, right, and you should be putting 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.880 everything that you have into this. He won't. He will 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.360 spend what he seas in front of him. He won't 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:52.239 spend further. 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.160 Right, And that's the thing to win in this game. 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:57.320 You need to invest in your product that has not 0:13:57.400 --> 0:13:59.559 been done for such a long time. And as I 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:01.560 always like to say, it's a smack in the face 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.120 to your fans. They're not expecting you to do this 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:06.840 every single year. But when you tank for a long 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:10.040 period of time and you don't reinvest at that time, 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:12.480 you are going to pay the price financially. That's the 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:14.760 thing that I always find so stupid. You think you're 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:16.680 just going to wake up and the money's going to 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:18.720 come through. I know you put it in your article 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:21.200 how the Phillies are making so much more money at 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:23.920 their ballpark than the Pirates. Is their ballpark triple the 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:27.480 size of Pittsburgh. Will Pittsburgh not support the team like that? 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.360 I know it's a different market size, but my point 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.320 is if the Pirates had a powerhouse, would they not 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:37.840 be making much more money from the gate concessions? Jersey 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:39.760 sales go down the line. The other thing I just 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:41.920 wanted to point out is, and I loved your homework, 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:44.560 I read every morsel of it, right, I do know 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.160 there are also little bonuses that come through every once 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:49.760 in a while, like the sale of BAM, which got 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.440 each owner about fifty million dollars. Was that reinvested into 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:54.360 the team at the time. No, they could have put 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:56.240 that in the bank and freaking had an extra ten 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:58.600 million dollars a year to spend if they had their 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:02.360 losses Here The risk averse part is what's holding this 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:05.720 team back. They haven't rebuilt, you know, an instant like 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.600 Orioles type of playoff contender either in a division that's 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:12.680 not great. So my point is, again, how come they 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:15.320 feel like they can operate like this and just wake 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.400 up and it's all going to be better? Are they 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:20.160 waiting for a CBA to change? Because I read your 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:22.680 story and for me, I didn't feel any differently at 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:25.480 the end, I felt like, cool, this validates everything for me. 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:27.600 If you came out and said, oh, they're losing fifty 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:29.480 million bucks, I would have been like, whoa, whoa. I 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:31.280 got to go back and call my sources and do 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:34.120 my homework again. I'm like, they're basically breaking even from 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:35.880 the stuff that we know. 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:40.760 The one thing that I think both Todd and Eric 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.240 I'm confident can speak to. And Todd wasn't here for 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.920 very long, but he played at PNC Park. He played 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.520 at P and C Park as an opponent as well. 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:54.320 And when you see what the Pirates did in twenty 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.680 thirteen to twenty fifteen in their playoff years. So if 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.320 you remember the unbelievable game that we still call the 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:04.200 blackout because Andrew McCutcheon wanted everybody to wear black against 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:10.000 the Reds, You'll be hard pressed to mention any baseball 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:13.520 scene anywhere in North America over the last twenty years 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:17.880 that would top that event. Okay, it was a generational thing. 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:21.080 You had children bringing their grandfathers who'd never seen the 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:25.760 Pirates win. Okay, I'm gonna say this again. This is 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:29.200 one hundred and forty four years the Pirates course through 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:30.360 this city's veins. 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:32.680 Okay, there's no. 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:36.160 Amount of losing even forty years of this now that 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:41.360 stops that. Neil Huntington, to the former GM once said 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:43.320 to me, he said, this just feels the whole thing 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:47.440 feels like this big sleeping giant here. And so there's 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.080 no doubt that in one of the smallest ballparks in 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:56.520 America that you will see absolute maximizing. But they haven't 0:16:56.560 --> 0:17:00.160 made that happen. Bob Nutting hasn't made that happen. But 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:04.080 there's a disconnect, a divide in trust, and there's there's 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.800 people that just openly brag about how long they've been 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.760 boycotting the pirates. That's a common thing here. Oh yeah, 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.560 well I'm in my seventh year. Oh yeah, i've been. 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:17.239 I haven't been there since you know, Brian Giles hit 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:20.240 that home run against Billy Wagner twenty five years ago. 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:24.000 And it's like that, that's how these conversations go. That 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:27.520 has to change, and the only person who's empowered to 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:29.960 do that is Nutting. But I'll ask you guys back, 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:33.160 and I actually don't have this answer. So this isn't rhetorical. 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.160 How does he do that? Because one of the things 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:39.800 about him is that he's under capitalized. Do you guys 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:43.080 talk about what he owns and you talk about newspapers. 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:47.600 This isn't exactly the rising stock in the business world. Okay, 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.320 where does he get that money from? Does he go 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:53.520 and take more loans? Does he say, you know, heck 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:55.239 with it, We're just going to go into you know, 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:59.760 all kinds of crazy debt. Or does he do what 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:03.800 his actual approaches, and that is he opens up a 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:07.200 restaurant and he says, hey, my food kind of sucks 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:11.639 right now, but if you come and eat here, oh man, 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.840 we're gonna get the best chef. Okay, you guys just 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:16.959 have to come and eat here and eat our crappy 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:17.800 food more often. 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:21.119 No, that, well, that's not gonna happen. 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:23.320 And I'll tell you the only way that Bob Nutting 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:26.880 brings a championship with his with his mindset, it would 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.440 have to be a complete, life changing, life altering mindset. 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:33.119 The only way he brings a championship to Pittsburgh or 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:38.200 a consistent winning team selling s E L LL sell. 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:42.800 It has to be winning. And there's it goes even 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:45.040 beyond that. It can go into baseball stuff too, which 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.080 is you have to have a sense of accountability. You 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:50.080 have a management team here right now that has done 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.879 some really awful things, okay with a major league roster 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.640 with the drafts. Other than the guys that have been 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.679 you know, the ones coming through the clouds, you're not 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:03.040 you're not seeing the results that you need to see. 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:05.960 They fired their Latin American scouting director after seven years 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:09.199 of absolutely nothing from that part of the world. This 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:11.040 is stuff that people never talk about, but this is 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:13.840 stuff that you know, you guys mentioned some of the 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:17.879 better teams that that that get results, that don't have 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:20.360 as much revenues. Where do they get in that talent from. 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.720 Look at what happened in Cleveland. Cleveland's no different than Pittsburgh. 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.840 I think we can agree on that. In a market, Yeah, stadium, 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:28.560 whole thing right there. 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:31.520 Now, that's we asked him about it about a month ago. 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:33.879 We're like, what I saw it? 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:34.480 Terrific. 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:37.600 It was a terrific show. Yeah, Neil, Neil let it 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:39.960 all out, which is not very Neil like I saw it. 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.320 And for you know, when you look at Cleveland and 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:45.679 you look at the guys they're bringing up one after another, 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:48.240 you know, Latin American guy you know here comes a 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:51.280 Dominican here comes to Venezuelan. You look at the Pirates lineup. 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:53.680 You know how many guys they've had come out out 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:55.600 of the Latin America. They've made an impact in the 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:57.760 last ten years. I'll give you a hint. He's still 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:03.600 playing and he's really good. Start Martine, Well, where's from? 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.760 Cruise came from the Dodger system. Oh right, I'm talking 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:11.840 about guys they got. They traded out Tony Watson to 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:15.639 LA for him. Uh, Starling came. I actually met him 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:17.120 as an eighteen year old down there. I went down 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:19.160 there to do a story because wow, look at this kid. 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:21.960 You can tell right away you know the whole athletic 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.640 build and everything. Right, that's it. In ten years, I'd 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:29.560 say again the franchise of Clemente. You can't walk around 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:31.960 anywhere in Latin America without seeing Pirates hats. 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:36.359 You guys know that, am I right? Damn? 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:38.879 I can't, like we can keep you on for three 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:41.400 hours here because there's so much being in the organization 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:44.560 and also being part of players union that I saw. 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:46.880 You're talking about, not not building. 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:49.879 Up the d R like they put of that bad money, 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:54.679