Perrotto: Baseball People Want to Help but Pirates Need to Ask
It’s the time of the year when attention turns from baseball to football.
That is a good thing for the Pittsburgh Pirates. They can finish another lost season in anonymity while most sports fans in the region obsess over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Fan anger about the Pirates is morphing into apathy.
However, not everyone has stopped caring about the Pirates. The diehard fans still follow the team daily.
And two groups keep close tabs on the Pirates. One is former Pirates players. The other is people who work in Major League Baseball with roots in Western Pennsylvania.
Very few days pass without me receiving a text, direct message, email, or phone call from someone in those two groups.
Regardless of the medium, the sentiment is always the same: What is going on with the Pirates?
They don’t understand how the Pirates can be dreadful year after year. They want to know why the franchise is in basically the same state nearly six years after Ben Cherington’s hiring as general manager. They ask if owner Bob Nutting cares about putting a competitive team on the field.
The volume of communication has picked up since the MLB trade deadline passed on Thursday. These people want to know if the Pirates even have a plan.
Again, these individuals understand the game, the city, and the region.
The common theme is that they want the Pirates to become a winning organization. Most importantly, they want to help the Pirates reach that level.
However, there is one problem. The Pirates don’t want to reciprocate these people’s interest.
Instead, Nutting, Cherington, and the rest of the Pirates’ brain trust prefer to be insular. They don’t want outside help. That’s sad.
The Pirates never had a winning season during Kevin McClatchy’s tenure as owner. However, McClatchy did a marvelous job of reconnecting the franchise with its storied past.
The legendary Willie Stargell returned in an advisory role, and many other former players were invited to spring training to serve as guest instructors. Even Dave Parker, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame posthumously last Sunday, showed up in Bradenton even though no team and player ever had a more acrimonious breakup than the Cobra and the Pirates.
The Pirates continued to welcome former players to spring training during Neal Huntington’s 12-year tenure as GM. It gave the current players a chance to learn about the team’s history – the Pirates didn’t ALWAYS lose – and pick up some baseball wisdom.
However, those guest instructors have gradually disappeared since Cherington replaced Huntington. In their place is a legion of mostly younger people in polo shirts and khakis.
As I’ve written before, I’m not against analytics. I think analytics has its place in the game, especially when it comes to evaluating players.
However, I also think players can learn something from others who have played in the major leagues.
There are also my executives, coaches, scouts, and player development personnel – from both Western Pennsylvania and beyond – who want to help turn the Pirates around. I won’t betray confidential conversations, but some of the people interested would surprise you.
However, no one can help the Pirates unless asked.