Rowdy Tellez compares Pirates to former team in critical manner

Well, as it turns out, losing more games than you win and missing the playoffs every year might have negative repercussions after all. Who knew?!

Appearing on a recent episode of Foul Territory, former Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Rowdy Tellez got real about his time in Pittsburgh – which came to an untimely end with just three games remaining in the regular season – and talked about how different it was from his time with the Milwaukee Brewers.

"You have these guys [in Milwaukee] that have been in the long run in the playoffs, and I think that's what the biggest separation is," Tellez said. "They have guys in Milwaukee that have been down that September stretch, and I think that what Pittsburgh doesn't have is a lot of guys that had been down that stretch, and it's tough, especially when you're making the playoffs, or trying to make the playoffs, every single game is exhausting."

The Brewers have made it at least as far as the Wild Card round of the playoffs in six of the last seven seasons. They've finished at the top of the National League Central Division in three of the last four. The Pirates, meanwhile, last appeared in the postseason in 2015 and haven't even sniffed the playoffs since. Their nine-year playoff drought is second only to the Los Angeles Angels, who have gone 10 years without a postseason appearance.

Tellez brings up a good point; it's awfully hard to make the playoffs – or even try to – when your team is full of guys who don't know any better because they have never done it before.

Rowdy Tellez comparing Pirates to division rival Brewers shows how far behind they are

Tellez was complimentary of the talent and skill on the Pirates' roster but noted that what they lacked was experience playing for a winning team.

"When you look at Pittsburgh's pitching staff, it's arguably the top 10 pitching staff [or] top five," Tellez said. "You have some aces in there. You got some good bats. You have [Oneil Cruz] who's an unbelievable player. [Bryan Reynolds], he can swing it. They have a good team. I think it's just the experience down the stretch [and they] got a little tired. I think especially when we had that 10-game skid, we didn't have a ton of guys that had been in those shoes before to help out."

Therein lies the all-too-familiar problem for the Pirates. They do have some good pieces on their roster, but they're wasting those pieces by refusing to spend the funds necessary to surround them with reinforcements and build a team that actually knows how to win games. Each year that ownership chooses not to invest in team payroll, the club's timeline gets set back even further.

And if even having a generational talent like pitching phenom Paul Skenes isn't enough to convince this team to spend and try to win, then perhaps nothing ever will.

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