NORTH PORT, Fla. _ The Pirates' free-agent acquisition of center fielder Jarrod Dyson last week pushed their projected 2020 payroll north of $51 million, according to Spotrac.com _ $51,148,500, to be exact.
Only the Marlins ($46.3 million) and Orioles ($45.5 million) are lower, while the Rays ($60 million) are projected to spend nearly $9 million more than the Pirates on players.
General manager Ben Cherington believes that eventually, once things are moving in the right direction, that will change.
If the Pirates can figure out a way to fix what president Travis Williams, Cherington and manager Derek Shelton were brought in to fix, and Pittsburgh wins more games, the GM said he believes owner Bob Nutting will spend more on major league players.
"I'm confident (payroll) will increase over time as we get deeper into our team build, there's opportunity and we get closer with those opportunities," Cherington said Sunday at CoolToday Park, the spring training home of the Atlanta Braves, for Grapefruit League Media Day. "I'm confident we'll have the means to build a winning team and add pieces. We're not putting any kind of date on when that could happen. We're going to try and get there as soon as we can. That's an every-day thing."
Surely a sizable chunk of the Pirates fan base will debate whether or not that's fair. And plenty out there probably wonder if that will actually happen, if the Pirates do win.
But it's interesting someone as accomplished as Cherington would agree to come to Pittsburgh if he didn't truly believe the Pirates would eventually spend more.
Cherington didn't help the Red Sox win a World Series by being stupid or naive. Not spending more on players would also run counter to what Cherington has talked about since the day he was hired, about wanting to have a player-centered culture.
Before we get there, though, we should first understand where Cherington is coming from here as it pertains to the Pirates' willingness to spend on all aspects of baseball operations, not just the major league payroll.
When Cherington met with Nutting and Williams about the job, the structure and viability of the Pirates' baseball operations department was obviously presented and discussed, the same as it would've been for any GM candidate. Cherington said he left those talks impressed.
"I did feel really confident that the total investment in baseball operations is not just enough but really competitive within the industry," Cherington said. "So as far as the investment we're going to need to make in information and technology and people, the budget structure is already there to do that."
The Pirates, at Cherington's behest, have already bolstered their informatics stuff and added what he has referred to as "bandwith." So far that presence has been noticeable in spring training, and it only figures to grow.
But there's no way Cherington would ever place this sort of stuff above the players. They're most important, Cherington said, and as this build happens _ he has said he doesn't consider it a rebuild _ that's a cost the Pirates almost sort of hope to incur.
"While I do believe that the total investment in baseball operations is really competitive, I also believe players deserve to be paid," Cherington said. "And we need to pay them. The payroll will need to increase in order to have the winning team we envision."
Right. But when? Establishing a timeline isn't something Cherington wants to do, but he insisted the Pirates have been taking a less-than-patient approach in other areas of baseball operations, stuff such as scouting and informatics and even bringing in a new coaching staff or modernizing the pitching program.
"I don't think we're being patient at all when it comes to every day trying to figure out how to get better, whether it's in our evaluation process or coaching process or how we communicate, etc.," Cherington said. "I don't think we're being patient at all with that. Every day we're working hard at it.
"What we're trying to be patient on is making decisions about human beings because the mistake rate is higher when you try to make decisions on human beings too quickly."
Yanking your payroll up from the bottom of the barrel would hardly qualify as a mistake, provided you make the right moves. It'll be incumbent on Cherington to ensure the right moves are made and Nutting to reciprocate assuming that happens.
