Horrible Pirates free agency stat unfortunately catches fire over Super Bowl weekend

After capturing the 2024 World Series title, the Los Angeles Dodgers took no time to rest on their laurels this offseason. Rather, the defending champions displayed an unparalleled sense of urgency in their quest to improve their roster by spending more than $450 million in free agency.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have done... the opposite of that. Literally, their total team payroll is actually about $4 million less than it was last year, when it was already one of the smallest in the league. And, needless to say, the Pirates' roster could have used a whole lot more improvement than the Dodgers'.

The narrative that the Dodgers are ruining baseball with their excessive spending emerged as a hot topic of late, with critics alleging that it was deep-pocketed teams like Los Angeles that were widening the gap between baseball's haves and have-nots. Perhaps, however, the argument can be made that it's teams like the Pirates and their refusal to spend that are just as much at fault for the perceived lack of parity in baseball – if not more so.

Horrible Pirates free agency stat unfortunately catches fire over Super Bowl weekend

Unfortunately, amid all the discourse about team spending, a piece of trivia with which seasoned Pirates fans have become painfully familiar caught national attention over the weekend whenB/R Walk-Off posted a sad but true statement on X: The Pirates haven't given a multi-year contract to a free agent since Dec. 27, 2016. Again, sad but true.

Indeed, the last time Pittsburgh signed a free agent to a multi-year deal was Ivan Nova's three-year, $26 million deal in 2016. The Pirates handed out the largest free agent contract in franchise history just a year earlier, when they signed Francisco Liriano to a three-year, $39 million deal.

In today's game, those figures are inexcusable. So is the fact that the Pirates have had a total of four winning seasons – we're talking simply finishing the season with a record above .500 – since 1993. So, too, is the fact that Pittsburgh's ownership and front office seem to be perfectly content with perennial mediocrity.

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