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There are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize the Pittsburgh Pirates for how they spend money.
Their history has earned that scrutiny. Bob Nutting has earned it. Years of operating near the bottom of Major League Baseball payrolls have ensured that any report suggesting the Pirates are pinching pennies will immediately sound plausible.
But “plausible because Pirates” is not the same thing as reporting. And that distinction is becoming increasingly important when it comes to Bob Nightengale's latest speculation surrounding Oneil Cruz.
Nightengale first reported over the weekend that the Pirates “plan to be aggressive at the deadline,” but with one fairly significant caveat: “only if they can acquire pieces without increasing payroll.” Then, during an appearance Monday on Foul Territory, he took things another step.
“They do have outfield depth. Can they trade Oneil Cruz to get some bullpen help?” Nightengale said. “They need bullpen help as much as any contender out there. They can use another starter too. So I think they’re going to listen to offers on Oneil Cruz to see if they get the other pieces.”
That's not exactly the language of someone delivering firm intelligence from inside the organization. It's spitballing at best, and it feels particularly lazy when the entire hypothetical appears to be built on another Nightengale report that reporters who actually cover the Pirates every day are now disputing.
Dejan Kovacevic was about as unequivocal as possible Tuesday, reporting that Ben Cherington and the Pirates are “absolutely, unequivocally” not under a restriction requiring them to make deadline trades without raising payroll. Jason Mackey similarly said Monday that he expects the Pirates to be aggressive at the deadline and doesn't believe they need to shed payroll before adding players. Jeff Hathhorn also pushed back on Nightengale's report, saying the Pirates are willing to take on salary.
That's now multiple Pittsburgh-based reporters contradicting the central premise from which this Cruz speculation seems to have grown. So... what exactly are we doing here?
Bob Nightengale's Oneil Cruz trade take feels like lazy, outdated Pirates analysis
If Nightengale has specific information that the Pirates are actively entertaining offers for Cruz, that's news. Report it. If he has a source telling him Nutting has instituted a hard payroll ceiling at the deadline, that's also news. Report that.
But publicly, what we're getting instead is essentially: The Pirates don't want to spend more money, they have some outfielders now, and they need pitchers, so maybe they'll trade Oneil Cruz.
That's not particularly insightful. It's Mad Libs using the same Pirates narrative national writers have been able to recycle for the better part of three decades. Worse, it ignores practically everything Pittsburgh has done over the past year.
This is a team that reportedly offered Kyle Schwarber four years and $123 million in free agency last winter. After Schwarber returned to Philadelphia, Nightengale himself reported that the Pirates were “hanging around” the Pete Alonso market.
They signed Ryan O'Hearn for two years and $29 million. They added Marcell Ozuna. They took on Brandon Lowe's $11.5 million salary in a trade. They signed Gregory Soto for $7.75 million. Then, in April, they handed Konnor Griffin a nine-year extension reportedly worth $140 million, the largest contract in franchise history.
FanGraphs currently estimates Pittsburgh's 2026 payroll at approximately $106 million, up from an estimated $87 million final payroll last season.
Nobody should suddenly confuse Nutting with Steve Cohen. The Pirates haven't transformed into a financial powerhouse, and they absolutely should be criticized if they refuse to spend what's necessary to improve a legitimate playoff contender at this deadline.
But the idea that this organization is operating exactly as it always has — and therefore must be looking to subtract an important player simply because it needs to add elsewhere — requires ignoring a pretty substantial amount of recent evidence.
Cruz himself makes the payroll explanation even more nonsensical. He's making only $3.3 million this season and remains under arbitration control beyond 2026. It's not as if trading him would unload some burdensome veteran contract.
Yes, Esmerlyn Valdez has been tremendous. Yes, the Pirates suddenly have intriguing outfield depth. But that doesn't make Cruz expendable. Valdez's emergence should give Pittsburgh more offensive firepower when Cruz returns, not become an excuse to trade Cruz before Valdez has even completed his first full month in the major leagues.
This team spent years telling fans to wait for the young talent to arrive. Now some of that talent has arrived, the Pirates are actually competing for a postseason spot, and somehow we're already supposed to believe they're considering breaking pieces off the major league roster to patch the bullpen? That's rebuilding logic being lazily applied to a team that isn't rebuilding anymore.
Could Cruz eventually be traded? Of course. Virtually anybody can be traded for the right return, and there is a perfectly reasonable baseball conversation to be had about Cruz's long-term fit, consistency and future arbitration costs. But that's an entirely different discussion from pretending there is evidence Pittsburgh is suddenly motivated to move him because it can't afford to add a reliever.
Nightengale may ultimately turn out to be right. Trade-deadline information changes quickly, and perhaps there is intelligence behind his comments that hasn't been publicly explained. But based on what he actually said, this sounds like someone looking at the name on the front of the jersey, defaulting to the oldest stereotype available and working backward from there.
It's misleading, and it's outdated. For once, the Pirates' actual behavior deserves a little more attention than the lazy national narrative.
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This article was originally published on rumbunter.com as Oneil Cruz trade chatter exposes national media's outdated Pirates view.
