Anonymous Pirates player says what every fan is thinking about Bob Nutting's payroll

Now that the regular season is over, there's no use in sugarcoating it – the Pittsburgh Pirates never stood a chance in 2025.

They knew it, too. The Pirates finished with a 71-91 record – with five more losses than they had in each of the previous two years – to absolutely no one's surprise.

Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette went straight to the source, asking players, coaches, team employees and other league sources to give their takes on why things went south for the Pirates so quickly this season – or, more accurately, why they were already headed that way before the season even began.

“People think we’re underachieving,” one player told Hiles back in May. “Look around here. We’re playing to our potential. This is what $90 million gets you.”

Actually, $90 million is rounding up (generously). By the end of the regular season, Pittsburgh's payroll allocations totaled just over $84.4 million – good for 27th out of the 30 Major League teams.

“Some of the teams we play aren’t even trying to win. They’re rebuilding but still have a higher payroll than us,” the same player noted later on. “What do you think that tells us?”

Frankly, it tells us that the way Nutting is running this organization is criminal, especially given his receipt of MLB revenue-sharing money. It's insulting – not only to the players themselves, but to the fans and to the rest of the teams in the league that take winning (or at least trying to win) seriously.

Bob Nutting continues to profit off Pirates' mediocrity with no accountability

The 2025 season was hardly an anomaly for Pittsburgh. The Pirates consistently rank near the bottom of MLB in payroll under Nutting, often fielding rosters that cost less than half of those of mid-market teams. He has shown little willingness to reinvest revenue-sharing money or profits into building a consistently competitive club. This fuels the perception that he values profit margins above winning.

The Pirates had rare contention years (2013–2015) with Andrew McCutchen, Gerrit Cole and others in their prime. But instead of aggressively supplementing those cores, Nutting allowed them to wither. He refused to spend to push the team over the top, resulting in a brief peak and another swift decline.

The Pirates are perpetually selling off talent for prospects rather than building toward sustained contention. Fans have grown numb to the “next wave” rhetoric because it never comes to fruition under Nutting's stewardship.

Nutting is one of MLB’s worst owners not just because his teams lose, but because he has engineered a system where losing doesn’t hurt him financially. He embodies the stereotype of the profit-first, ambition-light owner who prevents a storied franchise from fulfilling its potential.