Paul Skenes did not wait long to set a tone inside the Pittsburgh clubhouse. Returning from a road trip, he found his locker relocated opposite Andrew McCutchen, a quiet sign from the organization that the 23-year-old pitcher’s voice now carries weight. It was not only a shift in furniture. Days later, Skenes took the microphone himself, labeling the Pirates’ 2024 campaign “a wasted year”.“This is a wasted year if we don’t learn what we need to do, and we don’t know why we didn’t go out there and do what we wanted to do.”

“I think — individually, as a team, and as an organization — we know the adjustments we need to make. Now we’ve just got to do them,” he added. The phrasing was deliberate, and so was the tone. With the Pirates sitting at 67-89, Skenes’ words cut beyond teammates. He pressed further, “There’s room to get better in this locker room. We just need to do it. I’m sure we’ll get some pieces and do all that.” That final remark, pointing at roster additions, echoed a criticism Skenes had voiced at the trade deadline, when ownership chose to shed salaries rather than buy reinforcements.

Pirates’ manager Don Kelly did not ignore Skenes’ comments. Instead, he acknowledged how Skenes’ rapid rise grants him credibility inside the room. “The thing that stands out to me with Paul is the way he leads himself first and the expectations he has for himself and how he works and goes about it every single day, which, along with his dominance on the field gives him that voice because of who he is every single day with his teammates and how he goes about it,” Kelly said.

“He leads by example, and he’s not afraid to have tough conversations, as well, with other people on what we need to do to continue to get better,” he noted further. The Pirates’ manager stated that although this is just Skenes’s first full season. But the fact that the pitcher is voicing his concerns about accountability is something that is really commendable. 

The payroll sits at $85.5 million, trades at the deadline offloaded Ke’Bryan Hayes and David Bednar, and the promised reallocation of money has not surfaced. Commissioner Rob Manfred himself has said small-market clubs such as Pittsburgh struggle to convince fans they have a fair chance to win.

It has been nine years since the Pirates last reached October, forty-six since their last World Series. The organization speaks of retooling toward 2026. The stands continue to fill. While the roster holds one of baseball’s rarest talents. Skenes chose to remind everyone by saying, “There’s urgency to it, and we need to understand that and act on it.”

Bob Nutting’s spending draws scrutiny as MLB questions Pirates’ future

Bob Nutting is reputed as one of baseball’s most thrifty proprietors. And he has now drawn attention beyond Pittsburgh. So much so that it has drawn some serious concerns from MLB about the state of competition within the sport. Commissioner Rob Manfred confronted the issue directly during an appearance on the Pat McAfee Show, stating, “It is undeniable. If you’re denying it, you’re not being honest that we have fans in markets who believe they don’t have a fair opportunity.”

Manfred emphasized that the system, rather than the team alone, fuels perceptions of inequity, adding, “Anything that undermines competition … sooner or later, we’re gonna have to come to grips with that issue 100%.” 

The Pittsburgh Pirates do not have a lack of support or talent. Yet, they have been unable to secure themselves a proper playoff run. One of the main reasons might be the departure of big names like David Bednar, Ke’Bryan Hayes, and Caleb Ferguson. Surprisingly, they were let go in exchange for prospects, with no high-profile acquisitions arriving in return. Now then, following these decisions, the General Manager Ben Cherington suggested that the funds saved from these moves would be reinvested. Unfortunately, that did not happen. 

Instead, reports from John Perrotto stated that Nutting “will likely give Cherington the same player payroll as this season or perhaps a bit lower.” Tim Benz from TribLIVE, too, chimed in with his take on the matter. He described the situation as kind of a tug-of-war. Benz further stressed the situation by describing the Pirates as “simultaneously positioned as both Oliver Twist and Ebenezer Scrooge at the same time,” caught between the promise of emerging talent and the reality of tightfisted ownership.