Will any Pirate top Kendall’s contract?
Hello, friends. Welcome to another episode of “Will the Pirates Ever.” The complete set is available for $19.99 (matching this year’s payroll) and includes …
• Will the Pirates Ever Win the World Series Again? (Hasn’t happened since 1979.)
• Will the Pirates Ever Win a Playoff Series Again? (Not since ’79.)
• Will the Pirates Ever Win a Division Title Again? (None since 1992.)
• Will the Pirates Ever Have Another Hall of Famer? (Gene Collier guest hosts.)
• Will the Pirates Ever Open Their Books?
• Will the Pirates Ever Play Meaningful Games in September Again? (Written and performed by Neal Huntington.)
• And of course the wildly popular “Will the Pirates Ever Finish Ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals Again?” (Hasn’t happened since 1999.)
Today, even as the similarly small-market (smallermarket, actually) Milwaukee Brewers are poised to sign Christian Yelich to a $215 million deal, we are pleased to preview “Will the Pirates Ever Top the Jason Kendall Contract?”
I won’t give away the whole thing, but I can tell you it opens with the signature phrase from another popular show, ESPN’s 30 for
30: “What if I told you that Jason Kendall’s six-year, $60 million contract, signed Nov. 18, 2000, would remain the largest contract in Pirates history nearly 20 years later?”
Think about that. Take yourself back to 2000, if your lifespan allows. “Gladiator” won the Oscar for Best Picture. Newspapers were flourishing. The world had unfortunately not been obliterated by Y2K. Ivan Hlinka coached the Penguins, and no Major League Baseball team had yet posted a $100 million payroll.
PNC Park was about to open, too, and that was precisely why the Pirates lavished a singles-hitting catcher with a $60 million contract. They had no choice, as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Bob Smizik wrote at the time.
“For many reasons, chief among them that they’ve had eight consecutive losing seasons, the Pirates had to make known their intention that they’re serious about winning,” Smizik wrote. “If they hadn’t signed Kendall, they would have been looked upon as impostors by their fans — and possibly by their players.”
They would be looked upon that way soon enough, anyway, but at least the Kendall deal bought them a few months.
If it weren’t so pathetic, it would almost be admirable that 20 years later the Pirates haven’t come close to matching that $60 million figure. The two biggest reasons: Andrew McCutchen settled for a six-year, $51.5 million deal in March of 2012, instead of betting on himself; and Bob Nutting parts with each dollar as if it’s super-glued to his hand.
McCutchen, who could have become a free agent in 2015, cost himself tens of millions. The Pirates won that bet because McCutchen became a superstar locked into one of the team-friendliest deals of all time.
I asked then-team president Frank Coonelly, maybe five years ago, if he believed the Pirates would ever sign a player to a $100 million contract. He answered affirmatively, without hesitation, but his regime never topped the McCutchen deal — not that there were tons of in-house candidates.
Come to think of it, which in-house candidate has been worthy of such a deal since 2000? Maybe Gerrit Cole, who was underperforming in his later years here? Jason Bay, whose $66 million deal with the Mets became one of the worst free agent signings in history?
The Pirates surely could have hit that figure, or least beaten Kendall’s, by signing somebody in free agency, but to this day their largest free-agent signing is a mere $39 million over three years for Francisco Liriano.
But I digress.
The show ultimately poses this question: Who will top Kendall’s contract, and when?
Josh Bell would be the obvious answer. If he has another big year, the Pirates should absolutely make him a robust offer. The money’s there. Major League Baseball just had a 17th consecutive year of record revenue ($10.7 billion), and new national television deals are about to kick in, stocking revenue streams for everyone.
Of course, nobody actually believes the Pirates will retain Bell. And if not him, who? The Pirates say they will spend when the time is right, which brings us to an episode currently in the works:
Will The Time Ever Be Right?