If the Milwaukee Brewers can compete as a small-market team, why can’t the Pittsburgh Pirates?

 … owner, management personnel

Major League Baseball does not have a true revenue-sharing program as the National Football League does, meaning that small market teams will always be challenged to compete with the wealthy.

However, the Milwaukee Brewers are demonstrating that with some important components, small market teams can compete with the likes of the Chicago Cubs, those that have deep pockets.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are using that time-worn excuse that they have to unload their big salaries if they want to win, and continue to slide under .500, heading for another poor season. Why the difference?

Owner and G.M. make the difference

To understand why the Brewers are leading the NL-Central at the present time, you have to look at how they have come this far. Last year, they pushed the Cubs to the brink as they won 86 games despite having the smallest payroll in MLB. That change did not occur by accident.

The managing owner and G.M. are former New Yorkers, Ivy-League educated guys. Owner Mark Attanasio hired a 30-year-old wunderking as his general manager two years ago. David Stearns, who started as an assistant general manager with the Houston Astros when they were a 100-game loser, was part of the resurgence there. That caught the eye of Attanasio, who promptly hired Stearns.

The new G.M. immediately cleaned house, though he kept Manager Craig Counsell. He dumped most of Counsell’s coaches and relegated most of the management in place at the time to the hinterlands. He replaced 20 of the 40 players on the roster, and the result was a season in which the Brewers finished one game out of the playoffs. This year their quest is to beat the Cubs, who have the fifth highest payroll in MLB ($151.3 million). They have a half-game lead right now.

Payrolls

The Brewers spent some money in the offseason, which has elevated them five spots. They are now 25th out of 30, with a payroll of $79.056 million, about three million+ bucks higher than the Pirates ($75.5).

The Brewers are currently 43-30, so they are halfway to their win total of last season with eight more games left before hitting mid-season. They have not made the playoffs since 2014, but now are heading in the right direction.

The Pirates, meanwhile, appear to be headed for another losing season, which would be their third consecutive sub-.500 season. The management cleaned house last year, sending off their first-round draft pick, Gerrit Cole, to Houston, where he is 8-1 and could win a World Series. Great break for Cole, since he is now the leading candidate for the Cy Young Award. Also cleared out Andrew McCutcheon because of his big contract. Forget about people loving him. Only thing for their owner is the bottom line, which has been a problem since he took over years ago.

Goes beyond owner

What the Pirates need is a thorough housecleaning. This means through their entire system. That is essentially what Stearns did when he took over. He saw what had to be done in Houston, and look at the results.

That is essentially what he did in Milwaukee, though he saw something in the manager that he liked. So, not just the owner should be replaced, but also the manager and coaches and farm system personnel.

Take Gerrit Cole, for instance. He was supposed to be a great pitcher, like he is now, but other than one good season, he underperformed. Now, with the Astros’ staff working with him on everything from changes in delivery to pitches, he is now humming with a 100-mile-an-hour fastball — after being injured and not be brought back to form by the Pirates.

Same with Austin Meadows, who was another number one pick. He battled through injuries to hamstring that could have been prevented with some proper weight training. He is doing well now because he hired his own weight trainer in the offseason who had him go in a different direction from what the Pirates were doing.

Attendance, television issues

At the present time, the Pirates are averaging 17,156 fans in their seats. That is 27th out of 30 teams, while Milwaukee is tenth in the league with almost twice as many fans, 34,333. In 2017, the Brewers were 10th in attendance with 2.558 million fans, while the Pirates fell again, going below two million, 1.91. That was an average of 23,696, and they on track to fall further this year if the team does not improve in the second half of the season. The Bucs fell 15 percent from 2016.

In addition, the local TV ratings for the Pirates plummeted last year, falling 27 percent. That was before the team unloaded Cole and McCutcheon. Forbes.com reported that the Pirates had a 6.91 Nielsen rating in 2016, but went down to 5.02 in 2017. That is ominous.

Using trades and free market

The Brewers spent some money upgrading their outfield in the offseason, and it is paying dividends. Sterns acquired Christian Yelich from Miami in a trade and then signed free agent Lorenzo Cain. As the State Journal noted, “In Yelich, Milwaukee is getting a .290 career hitter who batted .282 with 18 home runs and 81 RBIs in 156 games last season. He led all MLB center fielders with a .997 fielding percentage and committed just one error all season, his first full campaign in center,” the paper wrote in January.

Sterns indicated why he did that. “I think we view him as one of the bright young players in baseball right now, both offensively and defensively,” Stearns said in an interview. “(He’s) a player who can contribute to a championship-caliber team ... we think he’s proven that over his young career, we expect him to do so (in Milwaukee).”

The Brewers have some vision for the future, but as for the Pirates, well …

Replace Huntington, Coonelly, Hurdle

Here is a basic problem with teams that trade away their top players. Everyone else realizes that they really do not want to win. That was the case with the Pirates when infielders David Freese and Josh Harrison and Sean Rodriquez questioned the franchise’s lack of accountability and sense of urgency to win championships, according to the Tribune-Review’s Kevin Gorman. When players publicly question the management, the whole franchise is in trouble. Huntingdon told Gorman that the team understood the criticism but had the same goals, which are undermined by an owner who cares little about winning — or at least does not want to pay to win. “We want to win. We have the exact same goals as they do, which is to win a World Series," Huntington said. "There's no two ways about it. That's why we're here. We made the moves we made to put this team in position to win a World Series." Really? This team is poised to win a World Series, now in fourth place in the NL-Central, under .500? That is why Huntington, who did a good job assembling a team that won 98 games a few years ago, though did not make the playoffs — has to go. He cannot have credibility with statements like that. Coonelly is in the same boat, trying to throw out a life-preserver for a sinking ship.

As for Hurdle, he had his chance when he had the players, had great talent, yet could not win even one NL playoff game in three strong seasons. Now, they need a change. I like Hurdle personally, but he does some very weird things. A new face and approach throughout the organization, as the Brewers have done, would help.

Conclusion

I admit that since I now live in the Midwest, now presently in Wisconsin, and other times in Minnesota, I cannot see any Pirates games. That limits my analysis of the personnel other than with the numbers and stories that I read.

However, I still consider myself a Pirates fan and would love to see them improve. However, they will need to make the kind of changes that the Brewers have in order to sustain that.


We shall see.