A salary cap wouldn't save the Pirates from Ben Cherington's incompetence

One of the most persistent misconceptions in baseball's salary-cap debate is that a cap and floor are supposed to magically transform poorly run small-market teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates into contenders.

That's not how this works.

A cap/floor would merely give the Pirates a fairer financial starting point and force ownership to spend to a certain level. And, yes, it would limit how far baseball's financial behemoths could separate themselves from everyone else through payroll alone.

What it would not do is make Ben Cherington better at his job.

The Pirates would have more money to spend under a meaningful salary floor. But they would still need someone capable of spending it wisely. They would still need to draft well, develop players, win trades, identify undervalued talent, construct a coherent roster and know when to supplement a young core with established major leaguers.

Those are front-office skills, not payroll figures. And after nearly seven years, there is little evidence that Cherington has demonstrated enough of them.

Cherington took over baseball operations in November 2019. His first six seasons produced records of 19-41, 61-101, 62-100, 76-86, 76-86 and 71-91. The Pirates entered Tuesday at 58-62 in 2026. Add it all together, and Pittsburgh is 423-567 under Cherington, a .427 winning percentage, without a winning season or playoff appearance.

At some point, "small market" stops being an explanation for everything. Especially when the entire point of Cherington's rebuild was supposed to be creating a sustainable talent pipeline that would make Pittsburgh less dependent on free agency in the first place.

A rebuilding general manager's currency is opportunity, and Cherington has had a lot of it. High draft picks. Tradable veterans. Years of low expectations in which short-term results supposedly didn't matter. Ownership publicly preaching patience. A fan base conditioned to accept losing seasons because something better was allegedly being constructed behind them.

Seven years later, we're still waiting for the payoff. And that's what makes the salary-cap argument particularly interesting in Pittsburgh.

Yes, Bob Nutting deserves criticism. A salary floor would remove one of ownership's favorite escape hatches by requiring the Pirates to devote a meaningful amount of revenue to the major-league roster. Nobody should confuse criticism of Cherington with an endorsement of the Pirates' historically restrictive spending.

But payroll and competence are two separate issues, and we received a pretty useful demonstration of that distinction this year.

Pittsburgh entered the 2025-26 offseason promising significantly more payroll flexibility, with estimates that the club could add roughly $30 million to $40 million in salary. Cherington added Brandon Lowe, Ryan O'Hearn, Gregory Soto and eventually Marcell Ozuna, among others.

Ozuna alone cost $12 million. The Pirates released him in August after he hit .203 with eight home runs in 70 games. Forcing the Pirates to spend $12 million doesn't guarantee they won't spend $12 million on the wrong player. That's the salary-floor lesson in miniature.

Giving Cherington another $30 million doesn't guarantee a better baseball team if the person making the decisions assembles a mismatched roster, misjudges his own players, fails to create sufficient organizational depth or spends the summer repairing problems that should have been addressed in the winter.

The bullpen is another example. Pittsburgh entered 2026 believing it had enough. By the trade deadline, Cherington had to essentially rebuild the unit on the fly, acquiring Luke Weaver, Camilo Doval, Lake Bachar and Kirby Yates after watching the original construction implode.

Give him credit for recognizing the problem and addressing it. Then ask why it became such a massive problem in the first place.

A salary cap/floor system would benefit the Pirates (but not if Ben Cherington is still in charge)

This isn't an argument that every single Cherington transaction has failed. But the question is whether, after seven years, the totality of his work looks like that of a successful general manager. The standings have answered that rather emphatically.

That should also be remembered when people point toward the Dodgers or Yankees and assume a cap would destroy everything they've built. Would those organizations lose some of their financial advantages? Absolutely. That's part of the point.

But the Dodgers aren't good only because they spend money. They're good because they draft, scout and develop well enough to continually create talent, then use their financial resources to supplement it. A salary cap might limit how much they can spend, but it wouldn't erase the institutional knowledge that helped make them successful.

Conversely, a salary floor might increase Pittsburgh's payroll. It wouldn't magically make Henry Davis hit. It wouldn't redo the Josh Bell or David Bednar trades. It wouldn't turn failed development stories into successful ones. It wouldn't make a poorly constructed bullpen good in April instead of forcing an August reconstruction. It wouldn't erase a 423-567 record.

This season was supposed to be different. Pirates president Travis Williams declared the organization's goal was to make the playoffs in 2026 — "Period. Full stop." He later invited fans to hold the organization accountable for that standard.

So hold them accountable. Hold Nutting accountable for the financial limitations that have made building a winner unnecessarily difficult. And hold Cherington accountable for what he has done within them.

A salary cap and floor would unquestionably help address Major League Baseball's financial imbalance. The Pirates should want one. Their fans should want one. Giving every organization something closer to the same financial starting line would make the sport healthier.

A good organization would exploit that environment. A bad organization would have fewer excuses. And under a cap-and-floor system, Cherington would no longer have Pittsburgh’s financial disadvantages to hide behind — only his own record.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow