Dave Roberts' comments after Dodgers' NLCS win should scare Pirates' Bob Nutting the most

It was pure theater at Chavez Ravine. Confetti in the air, cameras rolling, and Dave Roberts playing the heel to perfection.

“Before this season started, they said the Dodgers are ruining baseball,” he told the crowd after the sweep. “Let’s get four more wins and really ruin baseball!”

For Pittsburgh Pirates fans watching from home, that line wasn’t just a victory-lap zinger, it was a flare shot directly over PNC Park, and every other frugal franchise; you know who you are. The Dodgers, who rode out a choppy regular season to finish with 93 wins, four behind the 97-win Brewers, have embraced the role of the sport’s spend-happy supervillain. They don’t hide the bill. They hold it up and dare you (yes, you, Bob Nutting) to match it.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts’ “ruin baseball” jab should rattle Pirates owner Bob Nutting

But here’s the uncomfortable mirror Roberts accidentally held up: the “ruining baseball” discourse isn’t about the teams willing to invest; it’s about the ones that refuse to. If you’re a small-market owner who’s underfunded your roster while banking your revenues, that line should feel like it’s pointed straight at you. No, Roberts wasn’t speaking to Bob Nutting. Yet he might as well have been. Because the gulf his Dodgers highlighted on that stage is the exact gulf the Pirates keep choosing to live in.

Look at where Pittsburgh sits in the sport’s economic ecosystem. By the club’s own behavior, the Pirates continue to act like payroll is a luxury item, not the price of entry. The payroll/revenue split is ranked 27th in MLB. 

That says the quiet part out loud: only 31.6 percent of revenue is being reinvested into players. That isn’t prudence; it’s underinvestment dressed up as discipline. And while development, scouting, and patience absolutely matter, postseason baseball keeps proving a stubborn reality. Talent density wins series, and talent density costs money.

Roberts’ quip landed because it flipped the narrative. The Dodgers aren’t “ruining baseball”; they’re exposing it. They’re showing what happens when a team pairs smart infrastructure with financial aggression: you outlast the noise, you weather the injuries and slumps, and you give yourself multiple shots at a parade. 

If that makes life harder on the clubs that hover at the soft cap of their own self-imposed budgets, good. That pressure is supposed to make owners uncomfortable. It’s supposed to force a choice between being a landlord of baseball and a steward of a contender.

So let’s say it plainly: Nutting should take Roberts’ words personally, even if they weren’t crafted with him in mind, because he’s one of the few people on earth who can actually change the ending. The Pirates don’t need to mirror Los Angeles dollar for dollar to be competitive; they need to stop treating the middle tier of the market like a splurge and start treating it like a plan. Bridge the gap between what the fans are asked to believe and what the balance sheet is willing to back. Invest more than 31.6 percent. 

Turn the prospect pipeline into a platform, not a shield. When the owner chooses investment, the baseball operations group gets to play a different game entirely, the kind that doesn’t flinch when October lights hit.

And that’s the real rub of Roberts’ “ruin baseball” line: it isn’t a taunt, it’s a blueprint. If the Pirates want into that conversation, it won’t be through clever press conferences or a tidal wave of “next year” promises. It’ll be because Bob Nutting decided that the distance between PNC Park and an NLCS podium is measured in dollars allocated to wins, not slogans. Take it personally. Then do something about it.