Joe Starkey: Pirates' Bob Nutting a champion for small markets? We'll see about that.

Joe Starkey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Jun 6, 2025

Published in Baseball

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PITTSBURGH — Bob Nutting, in a recent Q&A with the Post-Gazette's Jason Mackey, delivered some stunning news: He plans to be a small-market evangelist as baseball moves toward its next collective bargaining agreement. The current one expires after the 2026 season.

Can you picture it?

Me neither, considering Nutting quietly signed off on the last CBA and isn't exactly viewed as a revolutionary among MLB owners. But he was talking big here.

Like, astoundingly big.

Mackey asked Nutting, point blank, why he still owns the Pirates. Nutting said two reasons, both equal in weight: He wants to win, and he wants to help transform baseball's economic system to make it more fair.

The second part came as stunning news to me. But it was right there in black and white. Nutting spoke emphatically of wanting to bring the franchise back to its (ever so brief) winning ways of 2013-15 and then said this:

"Equally as important ... there's been a lot of discussion of the economic disparity in the game. We're never going to use that as an excuse. Never have. Never will. But I think I'm particularly well positioned right now to be able to help influence change in the economics of the game. Having been around for 20 years, having gone to owners' meetings for longer than that, having a very strong relationship with the commissioner's office, I believe that I'm uniquely well-positioned to have a louder voice for Pittsburgh as we're heading into the next (CBA). ... I don't think a new owner in Pittsburgh would have the same standing or ability to advocate for the kind of changes that we need."

Wow. So the mouse becomes a lion? The featherweight rises like Maximus in "Gladiator" and screams to his fellow small-market owners, "At my signal, unleash hell!"

We'll see about that — and I'm not sure the first sentence of Nutting's answer to Mackey's follow-up question inspires much confidence.

Mackey: "When you say change, do you mean a salary cap and floor and revamped revenue sharing?"

Nutting: "I'm not sure what it means."

"Grab the pitchforks, men! We're storming!"

I think what it must mean is a salary cap, right? At least one owner hasn't been afraid to go on the record and say so. That would be Baltimore's David Rubenstein, who recently put it this way: "I wish it would be the case that we would have a salary cap the way other sports do, and maybe eventually we will, but we don't have that now. I suspect we'll probably have something closer to what the NFL and the NBA have, but there's no guarantee of that."

Here's the catch, as outlined in a recent piece by Dayne Perry of cbssports.com: "A cap is necessarily going to come with a salary floor. Will chronically neglectful owners like Bob Nutting in Pittsburgh, Stuart Sternberg of the Rays, and Bruce Sherman in Miami — this is, of course, a very partial listing — sign on to a new economic system that forces them to invest in payroll at levels apparently anathema to them? That's quite uncertain."

Yes, quite.

Never forget that the lower-revenue teams benefit greatly from baseball welfare. Also do not forget that MLB, contrary to popular belief, perhaps, is flourishing these days with record revenues and record free-agent contracts. Television ratings are up (22% at ESPN, 10% with Fox), as is attendance. The worldwide audience is increasing, evidenced by skyrocketing viewership in Japan.

So I wonder, do commissioner Rob Manfred and the big-market owners really want to hear from the Nuttings of the world? And what, exactly, does Nutting have planned? What movement is he leading if it's not one for a salary cap? He said he doesn't want to make excuses, but he also made sure to deliver this opinion: "I think it's clear that the giant payroll disparity influences wins and losses."

Right, so spend more. I'm not going to say the system is fair. It's not. It's laughable. But the small-market teams seem to be doing pretty well, and too many other modest-payroll teams are winning to even hint at excuses.

Look at some of the bottom 15 payrolls: The Tigers, Guardians, Rays, Mariners, Brewers and Royals are all winning. The Tigers have the best record in baseball with a payroll just above $140 million.

I'm all for Nutting taking a stand and making lots of noise as we head toward a CBA. A radicalized Nutting would be a fun Nutting.

But I'm not making any bets.