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With the trade deadline rapidly approaching and the Pirates clinging to a share of the lead in the NL Central, more and more names are being mentioned with the Pirates in the same breath. Perhaps my hopes for a quiet deadline for the Buccos was just wishful thinking, because the rumors just keep coming. [...] With the trade deadline approaching in approximately one week, plenty of rumors have already been being tossed around and nearly all fans have their own opinion on what the GM’s throughout baseball should do to help their teams. Normally this is the time the Pirates start to unload veteran players with an unecessarily high price tag for a handful [...] Ah, how great it feels to have meaningful baseball back in the Burgh… I have returned from my 6 month hiatus and am back to talk some Pirates baseball. For all you diehard fans out there that have been wondering ‘Where did Catch and Spanky go? The Pirates finally have some success and nobody has [...] The PBC continued their pursuit of the most “meh” players on the wrong side of thirty that they could find this winter, signing former Blue Jay first baseman Lyle Overbay to a one year contract today worth $5 million. Overbay has generally been a pretty consistent 2 win type player over his career; he [...] When the Pirates chose to non-tender Zach Duke and eventually ship him off to the Arizona Diamondbacks for a minor league PTBNL it was pretty obvious that the club was in the market for a starting pitcher and, after striking out with their primary target Jorge de le Rosa, they finally got one in [...] Clint Hurdle’s introductory presser as the new Pirate manager went a little bit long yesterday but I cannot think of one person who held that against him and the man left no doubt that he certainly can command a room (he even got the curmudgeon Ron Cook on board!). To speak to Hurdle is [...] A tough end to an otherwise really good week. Of the 9 games last week Pittsburgh in general was 6-3. The Pens dropped one of their 3 games last week but rallied behind Fleury to put together great wins on Friday and Saturday. Pitt basketball were nothing but excellent starting off the basketball season [...] John Russell was never on the cover of SI! The Pirates have hired Clint Hurdle as their new manager this morning, signing him to a multi-year deal in spite of heavy interest in Hurdle’s services from the New York Mets. Hurdle joins the Pirates from the Texas Rangers where he had spent one [...] The Post-Gazette brought good tidings to my doorstep this morning as in big, bold and crisp lettering Dejan Kovacevic reported that the Pirates were not going to retain manager John Russell’s services after today’s game (second verification courtesy of Pirates Report). My complaint with Russell has never been his record, as when you are [...] With Indianapolis’ season coming to a close the Pirates have called up eight more players to join John Bowker and Joe Martinez on their limited time with the big club. Included in this list are catcher Jason Jaramillo, bullpen hodgepodge Steven Jackson, Brian Bass and Justin Thomas, former first rounder Brad Lincoln, outfielders Brandon [...] In this edition of Pirates Position Breakdown I’m going to finish off the infield positions by discussing what may be the organization’s weakest position, shortstop. Ronny Cedeno may not be having the best season but he did make us laugh. Since Jay Bell in the early 90s the Pirates have looked at shortstop [...] We don’t do Pirate game recaps here as a general rule. There was a time early in the blog’s history when we did what we thought was our daily duty and broke down last night’s action but quite frankly there are more than a few sites (Bucs Dugout, WHYGAVS, PLC, et al) that are [...] On Monday Pittsburgh Pirate financial documents from 2007 & 2008 were leaked to the press on Deadspin and have caused quite a stir around the intertubes. No company wants to see all of their laundry hung out for anyone to peruse, especially if that someone is a billionaire with a losing baseball team, but said billionaire is still raking in the money. Now I’m no accounting wiz and a lot of the documents are just showing what they have paid for broadcasting or how much they have received in MLB licensing revenue so it isn’t all the most interesting reading in the world. There are some items on page 4 however that grab your attention. About two thirds down the page under the heading Financing Activities the very first item is Distribution to Partners which in 2008 equaled just over $20.4 million dollars. Owner Bob Nutting and Team President Frank Coonelly held a small press conference Monday to “explain” in particular the $20 million distributed to the partners. Here is how it basically breaks down:
In 2003 the Pirates and plurality owner Kevin McClatchy were in some serious financial trouble that the Nuttings helped to dig them out of with the note they loaned to the club. It seems as though the organization is in ok shape now, as Coonelly put it the debt is “manageable”, but according to the Post-Gazette it is believed to be somewhere around $100 million. Regardless of the amount, it seems the club is in reasonably good shape with a debt/value percentage of 35% compared to the Yankees at 89% (mainly because of their brand new stadium). So, basically that $9.6 million was all good, they bailed out the organization in a time of need and then not only didn’t take the cash when the note matured but invested it back into the Pirates so taking only the $9.6 million to cover those taxes is completely fair and understandable. In fact, it is pretty likely that this was the plan of the Nutting family all along in order to take plurality control of the franchise away from McClatchy and that that plan definitely falls under the heading of “shrewd business moves”. It was even good for the franchise in general since McClatchy & Co were running the finances straight into the ground. Continue reading Pirates’ Owners Can Pay Taxes but The Team is Still Losing….  There are sometimes little things that come up which we skip over at BB&G, but that doesn’t mean they don’t matter. There were a few notable occurrences this past week, so here they are: Three Pittsburgh athletes, Penguins Max Talbot, Mike Rupp and former Pirate Sean Casey, traveled to Haiti and spent some time [...] I thought it might be a bit tedious if I kept breaking down individual positions one at a time, so in this edition of Pirates Position Breakdown, I looked at both 2nd base and 3rd base together. Let’s dive in by taking an in depth look at 3rd base… Pedro Alvarez [...] |
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