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Pittsburgh Pirates fans' frustration with team owner Bob Nutting and his unwillingness to spend on team payroll came to a boil over the weekend.
As a chorus of "sell the team" chants rained down, Pirates CEO Travis Williams addressed fans' frustration over Nutting's ownership Saturday during a Q&A session at the Pirates' annual offseason PiratesFest fan event (which Nutting did not attend).
"To answer your immediate question that you said earlier, Bob is not going to sell the team," Williams said (via ESPN). "He cares about Pittsburgh, he cares about winning, he cares about us putting a winning product on the field, and we're working towards that every day."
The Pirates have finished with a winning record in just four of the 18 seasons that Nutting has owned the team, with their last winning season coming in 2018. They went 76-86 in 2024 en route to their fourth last-place finish in the past six seasons. They haven't reached the postseason since 2015 and have just three postseason appearances since 1992.
All of this is to say that the fans' frustrations with Nutting's ownership are not unfounded. But their chants are, unfortunately, falling on deaf ears.
Pirates executive crushes fans' Bob Nutting hopes after 'Sell the Team!' chants
Pirates fans' frustrations toward team ownership are not necessarily new, but they have taken on a new life since the arrival of 2024 National League Rookie of the Year and 2025 Cy Young Award frontrunner Paul Skenes. Knowing that they currently have Skenes on their roster making pennies compared to his actual value and that Nutting will never shell out the kind of money it would take to sign him to a long-term extension, Pirates fans want to maximize what little time they have with a generational talent on the mound.
There's also the small matter that the Pirates were 55-52 at the trade deadline in 2024 before going 21-34 over the final two months of the season in a free fall to the bottom of the NL Central standings. Again.
The Pirates have ranked in the bottom five of Opening Day payroll in each season since 2018, and the on-field results have suffered in kind. If Nutting truly cares about winning, he needs to put his money where his mouth is and spend on upgrades that could push this team closer to postseason contention.
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