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The Pittsburgh Pirates are intentionally losing games.

Why Would a Team’s Ownership Intentionally Lose?
This is something I’ve struggled to make people understand for a couple years now. Many people, including high-profile writers like Rob Neyer and Joe Sheehan, have stated on the record that they couldn’t possibly believe a baseball team would have anything to gain by intentionally losing, and that the worst thing they could say about Pirates ownership, and a few others like them, is they don’t care about winning. That leaves the door open for the possibility that they could accidentally hire a smart executive and field a winning team, but they’re really not trying to.

Which is wrong. The Pirates, there is plenty of reason to believe, studied the economics in detail ten years ago and concluded that the best way to reap consistent income from the team is to make sure it continues to lose big, year after year. Why? Because more important than team quality is team quality relative to fan/media expectations. Because if the team accidentally won 85 games one year, it would result in the fans and media–Pittsburgh has a very solid core of knowledgeable baseball fans–expecting more winning, and if it didn’t happen the following year, if ownership didn’t spend some real money, disenfranchisement would ensue, revenues the year after would fall and media pressure to improve would become intense.

How Can You Lose and Make Consistent Profits?
The Pirates have figured out that, with the current revenue-sharing structure in baseball and their gorgeous, taxpayer-financed new stadium, there’s a certain amount of money they’re guaranteed to make every year, as long as they keep payroll at a certain fixed level, and make sure the team continues to lose. Lose every year without exception, and everyone expects you to lose; but win just once–see the 2003 Royals–and you lightning-rod negative publicity to yourself when you go back to losing. The Pirates, in the interest of protecting their regular profits, systematically prevent that from happening.

Actually, the revenue sharing was just icing on the cake for them; their system was profitable before the present system came along, and now it’s doubly so. They were always able to turn a substantial profit losing 95 a year just from the TV revenue and revenue from the new park (which they were always banking on getting, even while setting up the always-lose system.) It was a very smart setup from the beginning, from the standpoint of maximizing profits. It probably IS the best way to make the most money owning the Pirates.

What about fan interest? In the long run, fans will only pay to watch a winning team, right? Well… the thing is, the Pirates are already at rock bottom as far as fan interest goes; after 15 years of losing, it can’t really get any lower. There are a certain number of people that will always pay to come to the park, not so much for the baseball but just to get mildly-to-moderately drunk and enjoy the summer night weather and hang out with thousands of other people; and there are a certain number of people that, no matter what they say in their complaints, are going to continue following the team, buying merchandise, and watching on TV.

Why Do You Have To Make Sure the Team Never Wins?
Why is it bad to randomly win 85 games one year? Because that will draw a lot of local and some national attention. Stories will be written about the emerging young Pirates. The result is that pressure will very quickly and very intensely build for ownership to spend serious money on improving the team, and if they refuse to do so, the media will crucify the franchise. You see, the Pirates have sunk so low by continuously losing that it’s no longer possible to sink any lower. However, if they suddenly won, then immediately went right back to being unbelievably cheap and losing, they would end up dealing with a firestorm of negative PR. Somehow the Pirates manage to have the reputation inside the sport of mind-blowing cheapness, which they need to do to make their profit model work, yet for the most part they manage to keep it out of the media. If it gets into the media, which it would if they had a winning season, then their cheapness gets exposed and pressure becomes nigh-unbearable to spend money.

This is bad for ownership for two reasons: First, it threatens profits; and secondly, less importantly but nevertheless importantly, nobody wants to read scathing articles about himself in the newspaper every morning. These guys are 100% in it for the money, but they do want to stay out of public sight as much as possible while they loot and pillage the city of Pittsburgh (and also, indirectly, the cities of New York and Boston).

How Do You Build a Losing Team Without Looking Like It?
So the Pirates have developed a very cunning system to ensure the team is always terrible, year after year, yet always provides just enough hope for near-term improvement to keep ESPN from noticing how wretched they are. There are a couple things the Pirates do to ensure this, primarily:

1. They systematically stock their farm system with advanced, low-ceiling types (this is why they draft college pitchers in the first round year after year after year, among other things.) The Pirates’ farm system is very interesting. Nearly all of their minor league teams, most notably in Indianapolis, Altoona and Hickory, finish near the top of their leagues almost every year. Why? Because they’re usually the oldest teams in their leagues, stocked with guys who are a little too good for their level but have no MLB upside at all. This creates the illusion that help in Pittsburgh is on the way, while ensuring the major league team never improves.

2. They make sure there is one (exactly one) legit star player on the team. It was Jason Kendall for a few years, and when he faded they got Brian Giles, and right when he started to decline they flipped him for Jason Bay. When Bay declines (which he already may be beginning to), they’ll make sure to find someone else. This, once again, helps keep pressure off management by giving media/fans a glimmer of hope. “If we can just build a team around Kendall/Giles/Bay!” When they run into the risk of coming up with another star, they get rid of him (see: Ramirez, Aramis).

3. The Pirates are notoriously the cheapest team in baseball, maybe in sports, when it comes to refusing to pay any more than absolutely necessary for medical staff and equipment. This helps keep players, particularly pitchers, hurt. I suspect this is why the Pirates have stocked up so heavily on pitchers: Because they know pitchers get hurt more often, and will get hurt even more often when there’s inadequate medical staff supporting them.

4. The Pirates usually make sure to have one bad contract around (first Kendall, then Jack Wilson, now Matt Morris), and if that isn’t quite enough, they sign some old ex-famous person or another for a few million bucks to keep payroll just high enough to not look too overtly cheap, but not high enough to siphon off profits. They did it with Kenny Lofton and Reggie Sanders, then Jeromy Burnitz, Roberto Hernandez. etc. Again, this serves the dual purpose of throwing the media/fans someone they’ve heard of and keeping payroll high enough to avoid taking heat.

5. Someone once wrote that “the best way to avoid being boring is to be positively wretched.” The Pirates want very much to be boring; that’s why they try to keep their win totals in the high 60s year after year. They DON’T want to pull a 2003 Tigers, because that would have the same effect as winning 85: To draw media scrutiny.

What If Everyone Found Out?

I expect that eventually, it’s going to come out, somehow, that Pirates ownership really has been trying to lose all along. When that happens, I wonder… wouldn’t the fans, perhaps represented by the city of Pittsburgh, have some grounds for a gigantic lawsuit against the owners, seeing that they paid for the stadium AND pay to go there to watch games, all directly into the owners’ pockets, and there’s an implied agreement that the owners will at least try to field a winning team? Just a thought…