The Offseason Cycle Transitions to Spring Training

2-15-2025 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

The offseason of baseball is in and of itself, a predetermined cycle, not unlike the actual season.

I mean, in this market, it’s traditionally started in like August.

Either way, I can script out much of it before it happens and to a degree, they apply to all fanbases really.

1. Season Ends – the demands for firings or cuttings of players who did literally anything that prevented a championship. That’s my inclusive to all market season end. Here, we absolutely have the addition of fire the owner too.
2. Realization Sets In – the team tells you quickly which changes, if any they intend to make, at least to the staff. Argue amongst yourselves. Cope, whatever you do.
3. Increase Demands – well NOW is the time to go “all in”! Because we have this player/Because the division is…/Because We Deserve!!! and on and on. Even Yankees fans did this stuff, but here we have a tendency to demand more than we know possible, that’s certainly not the conversation every fan base is having.
4. Get Mad Changes Haven’t Begun – This tends to happen before free agency really starts. This is just revving the engine and jumping at the gate. It’s also fairly new, and something I actively participate in. Some of us who have a podcast or a website, or whatever, content creators, we’re trying to invent topics when the baseball world is in hibernation.
5. Jealousy – With few exceptions, the jealousy of the haves and have nots or will and won’t crowd I suppose has their place. This offseason the spending has been noticed on both the high and low end. The disparity grows no matter who you blame….so we blame each other of course. lol
6. Realization – You’ve probably expected too much of your team… You know that, but you’re going to blame them because you were right, and they just won’t do it. You see your wish list dwindle and begin to compromise what is and isn’t acceptable as a signing. You know what I mean, if you’re starving and the only hot meal for hours is Burger King it tastes better.
7. Panic – You had a list of needs that any idiot would address exactly in the fashion you suggested. They have not either done it your way, nor have they addressed the entire list. Spring Training is about to start!
8. Spring Has Sprung – Extreme optimism from everyone who wears cleats. Cautious evasiveness from everyone who wears a suit or Polo shirt. Some fan bases are debating which star player will be on the bench, others are praying the team knows that guy they signed isn’t a starter. There are still sights and sounds, and rah rah, underestimate us at your peril speeches from 24 year olds who have no idea what they have in front of them.
9. News Dump – A flurry of interviews, breakdowns, new players, returning from injury players and speculation on their injuries from people who got C’s in science back in the day. It’s rapid fire and it really sends us into a tailspin.

You aren’t alone is the point, to a degree most fan bases do all this stuff.

Now all of that, all that investment and worry and pain and anguish and examination, man, that’s all for us. The weirdos. We are fans who don’t shut off baseball for the other sports. The fans who really think about this all year long.

Like, listen, there are enough of you that it’s worth having a year round show and writing all year, that’s why we do it, but we’re like 25% of the fans out there. There are plenty who skip almost all this stuff and will be back invested in the actual season.

They root for their team, they maybe put out some kind of end of the season comment and walk away. Maybe pop up and say something about a “bigger” move that makes the network news. But largely, they’ll just be back some time during Spring and then they’ll join the chorus of the they didn’t do enough, never do enough, won’t do enough conversations 25 fanbases will be having.

The framework is there, and unconsciously, we follow it. This offseason has been more frustrating than most for the Pirates fan base. And it’s been hard to watch, or honestly muster up the energy to participate in it.

The Pirates actively chose to intentionally stink at baseball for years in order to get high draft picks, and lots of pool money in the hopes they could acquire generational talent in the only way this franchise can actually afford.

They’ve got some promising kids, and one absolute lock, sure fire generational talent baseball player.

You’re going to hate hearing this, and I’m in no way saying they will win a World Series, or make the playoffs this year, or succeed in any way other than this one way.

They have succeeded in that one aspect of their “plan”. Paul Skenes is the dream. He’s the Bobby Witt, the Ronald Acuna, the star.

The fan base know their history and while this generational kid inspired hope, he also starts the clock on how long you as a fan expect him to be here.

The urgency you have, was not met. Not in the way you hoped. Now we wait to see if they do anything else, or if they were right about what they had and pray we underestimated them.

This offseason saw fan protests, and billboard campaigns calling for Bob to sell the team. I always understood why, I guess I just thought it was really more of a 2020 argument. I mean, we’ve been telling you on this site from our inception that this was a team that’s not going to spend for some time. Payroll will increase incrementally, based on extensions and arbitration awards. This is not a team that is going to sign big money free agents. Until they panic.

See, for the Pirates, they’ll reach the panic stage we fans have every season when they get to what they accept as Paul Skenes’ last season or two here in Pittsburgh, should they not extend him of course. By just the natural incline they’ll get better, even if it’s little by little, and they’ll be more expensive, little by little too. I think 125-130 by 2028, again, if they go as cheap as possible and don’t dump anyone. Well right around then, we’ll see if they panic and spend.

To me that’s the best bet to EVER see Nutting actually spend uncomfortably. And I’m not going crazy here, but 150? Maybe one bigger-ish free agent?

I still expect this team to improve in 2025, I’m not sure why there has been such a seemingly universal thought that they’ve somehow regressed. I just can’t feel that way and feel the way I do about this pitching staff. That aspect of this club could be special, legitimately. And the offense is largely young, with upside.

I don’t know what I think that’ll all add up to yet. Hell, I still think they’re going to make another deal. But I think we’ll see progress this year.

Maybe not enough. Maybe just to move us a year closer to the owner panicking.

But I have to just mentally put this offseason behind me. It was caustic to watch play out.

If this thing was ever going to work, they had to have generational talent, and they had to build the most expensive part of the team, pitching, internally. I think they’ve done well to do this, and they padded the odds by bringing in a stud pitcher whisperer in Brent Strom to keep the program moving and sure up some areas that needed tightening. He’s grabbing the baton from Dewey Robinson who has been here from almost the beginning working through out the system developing this pipeline of arms we now see coming.

This is NOT how we felt last year about this organization on the mound. And it’s a game changer, one that makes just about any outcome possible, with the exception of the owner buying a whole lot of who scores the runs.

Make no mistake though, you don’t build the pitching, you don’t win without spending. Build the pitching, and there’s a path.

Now we see if the other side of the ball has a coming out party like pitching talent has.

In other words, I’m not going to frustrate myself out of enjoying what I legitimately think has some legs yet. Even while I think it could be done better.

Can we fast forward to first pitch? Because I’m not even going to touch how all of our expectations could change on a dime depending on how the 2027 CBA shakes out. Maybe they come out of it with some kind of franchise tag? LOL, hey a guy can dream right.

Play ball!