Pirates insider torches front office's failure to build around Paul Skenes, Jared Jones

The Pittsburgh Pirates have gathered a strong core group of young players, especially with Paul Skenes and Jared Jones. Yet they finished at the very bottom of the National League Central last season and are unlikely to gain much ground this year either, as they remain among the teams with the five lowest payrolls among all 30 major league teams.

MLB insider Dejan Kovacevic delivered a scathing attack on the Pittsburgh Pirates ownership and front office for failing to make any notable additions to their roster during this offseason. He feels their refusal to build a team around two of the best young players in Paul Skenes and Jared Jones sets a new low for the franchise that has reached the playoffs just three times in the last three decades.

Dejan Kovacevic is a senior columnist for the Hear magazine based in Pittsburgh. He is also the host of the Daily Shots podcast for DK Pittsburgh Sports. Kovacevic lashed out at the Bucs front office during the show on Sunday. [0 - 6:47]

"That can't happen, even under this ownership, even under this management team where the bar is set so low that it can't even be seen," he said. "When you have Paul Skenes, when you have Jared Jones, when you have at least a handful of good players, most of whom were inherited, embarrassingly enough, from the previous administration.

"But just on the Skenes front alone, there's no way this should be taking place," he added. "There's no way this team should be going into this spring training with not a damn thing being done this last offseason, aside from a very small trade to acquire a platoon first baseman and then signing [Tommy] Pham for one year and $4 million. That can't be real."

The Pirates ended last season with a 76-86 record, the sixth lowest win total among all the major league teams.

Dejan Kovacevic urges Pirates fans to protest against team ownership

Pirates fans recently protested against team owner Bob Nutting (Image Source: IMAGN)

A section of the Pittsburgh Pirates fans had openly demonstrated a protest against team owner Bob Nutting to sell the team at the PiratesFest last month. Dejan Kovacevic, the team is unlikely to improve unless there is more pressure from the fans, and he urged unparticipating supporters of the team to join the movement.

"If you're okay with this, or if you somehow convince yourself that being quiet about it is equivalent to boycotting, you're not having any impact in changing this. None whatsoever," Kovacevic said. "If that's all you do, you're not affecting any change at any level of that organization.

"You're not changing the manager, you're not changing the general manager, and you're sure as heck not getting Bob Nutting to sell the team," he added. "You're doing nothing."

The Bucs last reached the playoffs in 2015 and have finished in last place in their division in four of the previous six seasons.