When I venture to the grocery store to purchase a loaf of bread, I use the old people’s method to test the bread for freshness. I pick up a loaf and give it a gentle squeeze. If the loaf is hard and stiff, I assume that in a few days, I will have a loaf of mold-covered bread in my breadbox. That method has and continues to work for me.
However, when evaluating athletes, they can be squeezed, poked, and prodded ‘til the cows come home, and most likely “the squeeze method” cannot be relied upon to help a GM determine whether a veteran performer still has “the right stuff.”
Both Omar Khan and Ben Cherington have a common denominator that binds them and that is a few of their personnel choices and the spin regarding the Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania demographic. It continues to be the following: Pittsburgh is a small market and cannot feasibly compete with larger markets regarding signing and maintaining marquee names to perform for their franchises.
At the time that this column was written, the Pittsburgh Pirates were 5-0, a feat that was last accomplished in 1983. Forty-one years ago was not exactly last week, so there may be more to the beginning of the Pirates 2024 season than meets the eye. First and foremost, the Pirates began the 2023 season with a 20-9 record. They finished September and October 2023 with a 15-13 record. From May to August 2023, they finished below .500. On April 9, 2023, Pirates shortstop Oneil Cruz fractured his left fibula and missed the remainder of the 2023 season. It is not a coincidence that the Pirates experienced a slow and steady decline after Cruz was injured and the Buccos were never able to get back on track after the Cruz injury. Why? Well, the answer is simple, lack of depth. Simply put, the Pirates had no one waiting in the wings to bring the “spice” and energy of Oneil Cruz to the clubhouse and dugout daily. On many occasions, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Pittsburgh Steelers have fielded quality starting position players. However, there were times when their weaknesses became glaring when they were forced to rely on the abilities of second- and third-tier players. Pittsburgh Steelers Omar Khan, Ben Cherington’s colleague over at the Pittsburgh Steelers, has a few common denominators that link them together regarding making personnel decisions. First, both men are great evaluators of talent. However, there has been more than one occasion that they may have been handcuffed and shackled, fiscally.
Let’s move on to the Steelers GM Omar Khan. The Steelers finished the 2023 season with a 10-7 record and made the playoffs. Let’s hit rewind just for a moment. Remember the 2022 season? According to the athletic.com: “That is when T.J. Watt tore his left pectoral muscle four quarters into the 2022 season, costing him overtime of the opener and seven games after that, which might have been the difference in the Steelers making or missing the playoffs.” Now back to 2023, Minkah Fitzpatrick missed seven games in 2023. The Steelers could have probably won four additional games with Minkah in the lineup. Their final regular season record could have been 14-3 if Fitzpatrick had competed in all 17 regular season games, but no one even came close to holding down the fort in the absence of the Steelers’ megastar safety.
Folks are often misled when it comes to acquiring players that will give franchises at the bottom of the food chain the first crack at players entering the NFL and MLB draft. The lower a club finishes, the higher they get to choose in the draft. Yeah, that may be true…but how many of those “small market” teams will be able to afford many of those players when they enter free agency? The ability to sign or not sign “marquee” performers has nothing to do with market size. It has all to do with a forgotten man, former MLB great Curt Flood. Before Curt Flood sued Bowie Kuhn, the then-Commissioner of MLB. Before that suit was finally resolved, baseball players, and athletes in general, had no rights to independently sell their services to the highest bidder. In that court case, Flood stated that: “Petitioner, a professional baseball player ‘traded’ to another club without his previous knowledge or consent, brought this antitrust suit after being refused the right to make his contract with another major league team, which is not permitted under the reserve system.”
How do you think the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Pittsburgh Steelers of the ‘70s were able to retain the services of many of their star players? The answer is this. When the movement of a player is controlled, the fair market value of the market and the player is controlled. Throughout the 1970s free agency was in its embryonic stages and the indentured servitude attitude and culture of professional baseball and football, although formally outlawed, continued to exist. Underground negotiations continued between owners in secretive locations in smoke-filled rooms and underbelly and undisclosed locations of the business world of professional sports. At that point, free agency wasn’t fully independent enough to allow athletes to set and maintain their market value.
So, ladies and gentlemen, when you read or hear about an athlete not signing with a certain franchise and jumping ship, maybe he or she didn’t do it willingly. Maybe, just maybe, they didn’t abandon the ship willingly but were forced to walk the plank.