The Pittsburgh Pirates have been trying.
For 17 years, they've been trying to get back to the playoffs, the World Series, and even to respectable status in the sports world.
They've been trying, and they've been failing.
Whether or not it was a huge mistake for Bob Nutting to make his now infamous "dynasty" comment a few weeks ago is not as important as this question:
Could he be right?
Before you stop reading, comment on my insanity, and move on, understand that I am not predicting the Pirates to even win 82 games this season let alone start a string of World Series victories that just might trigger the apocalypse.
I do see this team, however, winning 70-75 games this season.
I know the arguments against that. The payroll is projecting in the mid-$30s, incredibly low for a major league franchise in the same world as the Yankees, who are spending around $200 million.
That's why they aren't going to win the World Series.
But, for what they have on the roster, that's a reasonable sum. There is no bad contract hanging over them the way the Jason Kendall stinker did for so long. There's no Matt Morris on the roster just taking up space.
Every one of the players comprising that $35 million payroll has a purpose, now and in the future.
Neal Huntington has said the rebuilding is over and that the franchise is moving forward now to the next phase.
It's time for development.
Bob Nutting gets a ton of bad press for the cheap roster. He made the possibly unfortunate comment once on a press conference that money would be available when the team was ready to win.
Fans have been screaming that if the dynasty is about to start, let's see the money.
It's being spent. I promise you that. It's just not being spent where the fans can see it.
The money, at least since 2007, has been spent on two major areas of concern: the amateur draft and the international scouting department.
For a team that will never spend the way the Yankees or their proteges do, those are essential pieces of team building.
In case you were too busy screaming your head off at Nutting's comments, the Pirates outspent the rest of the league in the draft the last two years (over $19 million has been doled out to sign two extremely large draft classes). So the money is being spent on winning.
Nutting also isn't the one responsible for the lack of money in the majors. Huntington pointed at himself when blame was to be assigned, saying that they were not going to be hamstrung by a big contract that wouldn't help the team in the long run.
For anyone who needs indoctrinated in the way to build a franchise, Huntington could show you the light.
The man is extremely patient and extremely resilient. He's stuck to his plan (longer than any previous GM in Pittsburgh I might add) in the face of more and more angry mobs of fans. He's retooled a franchise that was so pervasively bad in 2007 that he started with next to nothing.
I know. Jason Bay, Nate McLouth, Xavier Nady, Nyjer Morgan, Adam LaRoche, Jack Wilson, and Freddy Sanchez were not "nothing."
They also weren't going to win the World Series for the Pirates even if they played together for 10 more years.
Bay and Nady are in their prime years and are injury prone, so their prime years will be shorter than some. Wilson was past his prime and Sanchez was getting there. LaRoche would be great if the league only played from July to September. McLouth was the best player on an awful team, but he's only an average player for a good team. Morgan hurt, but the saying goes "no pain, no gain."
I know it's painful to watch. Will this year be better? The answer is probably that it will be a little bit better.
But the team is better.
Lastings Millege has a chance to be every bit as good as Bay and/or Nady was. His potential to be better is still very high as well.
Ronny Cedeno is no Jack Wilson, but his numbers are similar. He's a steady player and, in any case, a stepping stone to whoever the team finds as a permanent shortstop.
Andrew McCutchen is 10 times the player McLouth was, so that's a dead issue.
Garrett Jones could be the answer for power in the outfield, and if he isn't, Jose Tabata is waiting to try his hand at it.
Jeff Clement takes over at first (with Jones able to go there too if needed). If he puts it all together, he could actually do what LaRoche never did: hit in both halves of the season.
Akinori Iwamura isn't Freddy Sanchez, but his numbers are good and he's not going to embarrass anyone at second base. If Andy LaRoche moves there and continues his surging second half from 2009, he could even represent an upgrade.
The pitching situation was awful two years ago. The team had the worst ERA in a century (that's actually not an exaggeration).
Now, things are better. What they didn't make up for in roster turnover they created by hiring a coach to develop (remember that word?) the players who were already here in Joe Kerrigan.
Oh, and they did spend some money retooling a bullpen that made life unbearable last year.
They were patient with the players they believed could (eventually) win them a championship.
They only have four of those guys left: Ryan Doumit, Zach Duke, Paul Maholm, and Steve Pearce.
Two of those will probably be gone before they reach that promised land. Pearce has not lived up to his potential, which in the new regime actually gets you taken off the big league roster.
Doumit is injury prone and no longer the only prospective catcher of the future now that Tony Sanchez has been drafted. Doumit is probably the last player the Pirates will trade for in a "sell high" mode.
But wait, aren't the trades over?
The mass selling trades are over. But every team makes trades of good players, which Doumit can be, when they either have a surplus (as the Pirates soon will) or when the player's contract is running out (if it takes long enough, that too).
The team is no longer struggling to survive. That's the point.
They are now dealing from a position of strength. The only place in the organization where there is questionable position depth is in the middle of the infield.
Andy LaRoche and Pedro Alvarez could go a long way to changing that. And if they don't, there are a few guys (Brian Friday and Chase D'Arnaud) that the Pirates are excited about.
Do they still have needs? Everyone does.
They could use another blue chip slugger to go with Alvarez. Jones might be that guy and so could Clement, but that's their only big offensive need.
They could use a top of the rotation pitcher too and a few younger steady arms in the pen. But then again, they have those kinds of guys in the minors. Tim Alderson, whom everyone has forgotten about, could be that top end starter. There's a ton of good arms that could end up as effective relievers too someday.
Pirates fans are a patient bunch, but their patience is wearing out. I know that. Mine is too. I screamed about the trades last year until I stopped and looked at them objectively.
Suddenly, I realized that they made some perfect sense.
I know it hurts, but give it a couple more years. This team might just surprise us all finally. This isn't likely their year. But 2011 or 2012 could be. They play in a division where anything is possible.
And, for $35 million, they are actually a really talented bunch.
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