All Apologies

What else should the media be?

Sports writers are middle men.

Professional sports represent an evolving triangle of power.

The three points of this triangle are (A) the franchise, (B) the owner/front office, and (C) the fans.

Reporters stand in the middle of this dynamic like a centroid, trying to present balance between all three points.

And when there’s imbalance stemming from one of the points, it’s the job of the reporters to identify that imbalance and stand on the new center of balance.

Let’s dive deeper into this theory, using the Pittsburgh Pirates as an example.

Point A is the actual franchise.

The Pirates been in existence since 1887, in which time they have won five World Series titles, including two in the 1970s. The franchise exists to offer an entertaining outlet to their fans — most prominently the ones residing in Pittsburgh — from the stress of everyday life.

Point B is the owner and front office combo who manage the franchise.

The line between these first two points requires that the franchise is run in a way that maintains the Pirates existing in Pittsburgh. Bob Nutting, the owner of the Pirates, is a steward in a role that maintains a key point of balance in the triangle. His front office, including President Travis Williams and General Manager Ben Cherington, play important roles in that balance.

Point C is the fans.

It’s the collective power of the supporters who complete the triangle structure. The line between the fans and the franchise is what fuels the financial survival of the team. The line between the fans and ownership is what drives the trust in the franchise. Push the fans further away from the owner with a lack of trust, and you alter the line between the fans and the franchise, which then alters the midpoint of the triangle. And if the fans disappear, the triangle collapses.

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As a long-time reporter and writer following the Pirates, I can tell you that it is frustrating trying to maintain that middle point of balance with this team.

The franchise itself is a static entity. The Pirates exist in Pittsburgh, and while the reputation of the team is nothing like it was in the 1970s, it’s still the point of this evolving triangle which changes the least.

The owner can change. The Pirates themselves have had nine different ownership entities. Bob Nutting is the fourth majority owner since the last World Series championship in 1979. The previous are Kevin McClatchy (1996-2007), Pittsburgh Associates (1986-1996), and a group led by John Galbreath (1946-1986).

The fans are a fluctuating mass that is easiest to represent through attendance. The Pirates are averaging 19,258 fans per game in 2025. Outside of the COVID-19 impacted seasons in 2020-22, the only seasons in PNC Park history which have averaged lower attendance were 2018 and 2019. All three were under the stewardship of Nutting.

From a reporter standpoint, you’re mostly dealing as a middleman between fans and decision makers. Reporters wouldn’t have a job if it wasn’t for the fans connecting with the team. Outside of the triangle analogy, if enough fans stop following the team, the budget for coverage of the team is reduced, which impacts the reporters in a negative manner. The job of reporters is to explain the decisions made by the decision makers to the fans.

I’m not going to focus today on that economical impact. Instead, I want to focus on the struggle to strike a balance in the middle of the triangle dynamic of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

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There were many years of my career where I was labeled an apologist of the Pirates ownership and front office.

This wasn’t just the fans. There were radio hosts on 93.7 The Fan who went on the air and defamed me with the name “Tim Shilliams” in reaction to the balance I tried to strike with my coverage.

Part of the reason for this was because I gave the benefit of the doubt to the front office in the years leading up to the 2013-15 winning seasons. I felt and argued that the approach the Pirates were taking at that time — one of the first times in years they were actually focusing on spending and developing in the minors — was going to lead to a winner. I didn’t factor in the record-long losing streak at the time, and ultimately, I was correct for the optimism I shared.

Later, after the Pirates had won, I decided to briefly give them the benefit of the doubt that their moves would continue to produce a winner, opting to complain if the results of the 2016 season proved the fan angst to be correct.

A bigger part of the “apologist” label came from the support role that reporters still play in Pittsburgh today.

Reporters almost act as unofficial therapists for the fans.

It’s a mentally exhausting role. You’ve got millions of fans following a team with the purpose of finding a positive escape from life. When they can’t find that positive escape, the fans are left frustrated. They naturally vent those frustrations to the most accessible outlet. And in the triangle construct, the shortest and most accessible point to connect with is that middle point occupied by reporters.

When the Pirates make a trade that fans don’t like, and you’re a reporter who suddenly gets hammered with messages expressing frustration and negativity, it can wear on you.

Actual therapists have therapists they go to, in order to deal with the stress of being an outlet for people who use them as an outlet to unload problems in life. The media industry doesn’t pay enough for reporters to afford therapists, so reporters end up turning to social media to vent their frustrations that everyone else is venting their frustrations to them.

On Thursday, the Pirates traded David Bednar to the New York Yankees in a deal that has been evaluated by a lot of outlets as having an underwhelming return for the Pirates. Fans typically are underwhelmed by any return that sends an established player for hope in the future, and Pirates fans were instantly upset over this trade.

In this case, one of the reporters they unloaded their frustration upon was Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. And Mackey responded to that frustration with frustration over the frustration. Follow along on a journey:

This first comment was a personal expression that Mackey liked one of the players the Pirates got from Bednar. Expressing any kind of positivity or hope in a situation where fans are upset about the trade in particular is going to lead to fans targeting you with their negativity on the trade. Mackey even showed balance by pointing out the valid reason for criticism of the deal, noting the failed acquisition history of the Pirates.

To be clear, I don’t think there is anything wrong with what Mackey said here, nor the balance he tried to strike. Clearly, others disagreed, taking issue with his personal opinion that he liked one of the players returned for Bednar.

The thing about being a reporter is that it’s not really like being a therapist. When you go to a therapist, you don’t yell at them and turn nasty about how a third party made you feel.

The dynamic that Mackey experienced is more of a town council member being yelled at by the members of the city to regulate their issues with the overall governmental order. When the Pirates make a trade, reporters like Mackey turn into Leslie Knope drawing the ire of Pawnee.

I’ll also add that Mackey displayed a challenge by all reporters to default to industry experts as sources of almost infallible knowledge. This tendency, while aligning with the objectivity a reporter needs to show, can make it difficult to then turn around and question those same experts.

The fans play an important role in adjusting the balance point of reporters, leading them to provide a view independent of industry experts, as Mackey then displayed in his next Tweet.

Mackey’s original reaction wasn’t factually accurate. Rafael Flores had an .874 and .826 OPS in Double-A, and has yet to post the same numbers in Triple-A like the original tweet implied. Reporters and humans, and humans make mistakes.

After enough fans pointed this out, in response to Mackey’s view that Flores was on the cusp of the Majors supported by the inaccurate numbers presented, he corrected those numbers to attempt to calm the fans.

In the end, Mackey provided a balance point on this trade, separate from his own opinion. The final tweet I’ll display addressed potential positives of the Bednar trade, while acknowledging reasons for skepticism and frustration from the fans. The following is why I respect Mackey as a reporter.

I have been exactly where Mackey was in that moment.

There are a lot of times when my past self didn’t handle it as well as he did, and where my response to the frustration expressed by fans was merely a response of frustration to the fans. For example:

If every version of Tim Williams were to meet one day in a Council of Kangs setting, the particular version of Tim Williams above would be made to understand why he was wrong.

Even if past me thought there was potential in the John Jaso signing on December 23, 2015, he was missing the overall point that fans were tired of being asked to put their hope in moves that didn’t instantly provide them with reassurance that the team they were following would offer a positive return on their emotional investment.

That was ten years ago. A lot can change in ten years. I find myself changing every other year.

But honestly, I don’t know if there have been many moves since that point which have given Pirates fans an instant reason to feel better that the team they follow has changed.

Every move made today still requires Pirates fans to rely upon hope that the owner and front office are making the right moves to justify the fans maintaining their place in the triangle.

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When I began my sports writing career nearly 20 years ago, my first job was updating and analyzing daily simulations across all professional sports. Part of that job was waking up every morning and reading the news across every city, in order to make the latest depth chart updates to the simulation database.

I already had experience following Pittsburgh sports.

I was born in central Pennsylvania, and spent the first 12 years of my life in the Altoona area. I consider myself from Virginia, because that’s largely where I grew up. But I went to my fair share of Pittsburgh sporting events during those early years.

My father is from the Pittsburgh area, so I know first-hand that much of the communication when Pittsburgh families get together is centered around professional sports. The Pirates and other Pittsburgh sports teams serve an important cultural role in the way people communicate with each other.

During my early role in sports writing, something stood out to me about Pittsburgh, reaffirming what I already knew. The fans of Pittsburgh sports are among the most passionate in the country. That’s displayed by the fact that there are still fans who hold an emotional connection to the Pirates, despite decades of ineptitude. There’s a reason I started Pirates Prospects in 2009. I recognized a hungry market for sports news, which wasn’t being served any information on the minor league system — likely due to the fact that the Pirates hadn’t put much of a focus on drafting and development to that point.

One other thing stood out in my first job in sports writing — particularly one person. Every morning, I knew that I could rely upon Dejan Kovacevic to be one of the best reporters in the country at providing accuracy on the subject he covered.

It’s no secret that I’ve had differences with some of Kovacevic’s opinions over the years, nor is it secret that I’ve had issues with moves he has made to compete with my long-held position in this reporting industry focused on prospect coverage. But I respect the job he does, and I can compartmentalize my mind to not allow any differences of opinion or personal conflicts alter that professional respect.

Following the trade deadline, Kovacevic did not write a column, and stated his intention to reduce his coverage of the Pittsburgh Pirates. As one of the media members maintaining a balance point in the coverage of the Pirates, he has the role of identifying where the imbalance resides. In his reaction to the trade deadline, Kovacevic identified the owner and front office as the imbalance point.

This is an instance where I agree with Kovacevic. Fans are rightfully upset about the state of the franchise, and the role of media is not to default determine that fans have no right to plant themselves on their point in the triangle and demand change from the owner and front office.

The role of media is to determine which point is causing the imbalance, and use their position to influence the triangle from within back to a more healthy point of stability.

My opinion is that Pittsburgh media right now should be acknowledging the power of the fans, expressed through their frustration. The media should be using their powerful platforms to speak to the power the owner and front office have.

The owner and front office possess the power of action, while the fans hold the power of reaction.

I can tell you that it’s more comfortable telling the reactionary power to adjust than it is to use your power as a media member trying to adjust those with actionary power. One of those powers maintain a position of control, while the other is constantly in a state of chaos.

In the case of the reactionary power held by Pirates fans, there is an inordinate amount of chaos in which to react.

There was a time in my younger days where I found it easier to tell the reactionary power of the fans to adjust, rather than speaking to the actionary power of the front office about how they were wrong.

By early 2017, my position had changed.

Every year, Bob Nutting conducts an interview with credentialed members of the media during Spring Training. In 2017, I used my access in that interview to question Nutting in person about the spending methods the Pirates were implementing, and how those methods did not lead to winning in Major League Baseball.

The response was typical corporate speak, explaining that they believed their approach was right. I pushed back with examples to show that the recent World Series winners at the time were teams who decided to take the risk of spending money toward the on-field product when they had a window of opportunity. The collective puckering of anuses among the rest of the credentialed media in the room as I firmly held my position of balance in the center of the triangle was nearly audible.

Years later, the Pirates are still not spending to win.

If there’s any framework of a window to compete, it would exist with Paul Skenes.

One of the best young pitchers in the game, Skenes is likely to command a record-setting arbitration salary following the 2026 season. He will quickly reach a point where he becomes too expensive for the historically cheap Pirates to afford, even if they decide to spend more. Right now, he’s extremely affordable.

This is the time when the Pirates need to be pushing their chips toward the middle of the playing field, surrounding a league-minimum Skenes with the talent to win while he’s in Pittsburgh.

The fans know this. Skenes brought a renewed excitement to the fan base in 2024, which coincided with an increase in attendance over the 2023 season. The totals were short of the 2+ million fans the Pirates drew in 2012-16, but the 2024 season reversed a trend of declining attendance that began in 2016. Again, that doesn’t count the increase in 2023 over the post-COVID years.

What the Pirates did in response was lower their payroll heading into 2015. They didn’t add players who could help win with Skenes. And the result has been a decline in attendance this season, even with Skenes putting up historic numbers.

The Pirates had an opportunity to build upon the first real moment of excitement for their fan base, and they not only fumbled the ball, but kicked it back to their own goal line. No ground was recovered with the moves they made at the recent deadline.

If the Pirates are not going to spend to build an entertaining product on the field when they have one of the best young players in the game, then why would anyone have any hope for the future?

Konnor Griffin is rated by some outlets as the best prospect in baseball. Even if he lives up to that hype and potential, the Pirates are currently showing their fans with Skenes that they won’t spend to surround Griffin with the talent it would take to allow a team to win. And the reality is that by the time Griffin arrives, Skenes will be so expensive that he will either force the Pirates into unprecedented spending, or will be traded to shed his salary, while the Pirates ownership and front office tells the fans to put all of their hope in Griffin and the potential for value in the lower cost players they surround him with.

As the ownership continues this practice of focusing only on their own bottom line, the fans get pushed away. Eventually, the triangle will fall apart.

Nutting could just reconstruct the triangle elsewhere if that happens, moving the franchise to a different city and recruiting a different fan base to support his desire to maintain ownership of an MLB franchise in his family for generations.

Alternatively, Nutting could take on financial risk to reward remaining Pirates fans with a chance at a good product. This involves Nutting taking on the risk that his spending doesn’t work, he would be pushed out of the triangle with a forced sale, replaced with a different owner who maintains the construct in Pittsburgh.

Part of the reason reporters don’t push the owner to spend is the idea that it’s not their money being spent. It’s the idea that Bob Nutting has rights as an owner of a valuable asset to maintain his ownership of that asset above all else. Even if Nutting takes on enough debt to force a sale of the team, he would still have enough gains in franchise value to ensure that no one in his family for generations would ever need to be concerned with money.

So, what right does Nutting actually have as the owner of a franchise valued at over a billion dollars?

Is it the right to maintain his position as a billionaire, long-term, by controlling the asset known as the Pittsburgh Baseball Club?

Or, is his right the ability to ensure his family a healthy financial future? There is no possible way that Nutting can be stripped of this right, even if he sells due to a period of unprofitability.

Following a controversy earlier this season, in which the Pirates angered long-time fans by removing commemorative bricks that held memories and a special connection by those fans to the franchise, Nutting issued an apology. In that apology, he began by accurately describing his role as a stewardship of the franchise.

Bob Nutting is not a fixed point on this triangle. He’s just the person who is currently tasked with maintaining the structure from a single point. His stewardship has led to increasing destabilization of this structure by pushing fans away from the franchise.

It’s not the role of media to tell the fans that Nutting is a fixed point on the triangle, and that the only options of the fans is to maintain their own support or leave the triangle.

It’s the role of media to evaluate the stewardship of Nutting, determining whether he’s making the right moves to maintain structural stability.

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I want to conclude today’s writing with an apologist approach.

In my mind, Bob Nutting is not a villain.

Travis Williams is not a villain.

Ben Cherington is not a villain.

None of the members of the Pittsburgh media are villains, even the lowly podcast pawns.

The angry fans aren’t even villains.

None of the above entities have total control, and thus it’s important to identify the chain of power.

The fans don’t have control over the team they support.

Media doesn’t have control over the decision makers, even if they have power to hold them accountable on behalf of the fans.

Cherington, in his role as General Manager, does not have the power to compete on an equal playing field with other General Managers.

In yesterday’s article, I touched on the fact that the Pirates are in a situation where they can’t financially compete in Major League Baseball — not only when it comes to spending on the field, but when it comes to spending on decision makers and technology to power those decisions.

Nutting himself isn’t even in a position to provide the financial support that would even the playing field for the Pirates. Even if he funded the Pirates for a single year to the point of personal bankruptcy, the Pirates would still be among the bottom-half of spenders in the game.

Major League Baseball has an economic structure which has made teams in markets like Pittsburgh gradually irrelevant, which is a big factor in the fans being pushed away.

There are small market owners who take on more risks than Nutting. There are small market GMs who have produced better results with similar financial restrictions as Cherington.

Even if a new owner took over the Pirates, and hired a better General Manager, the economics of the league would still have Pittsburgh at a disadvantage.

Major League Baseball is a power structure that would be difficult for any media to hold accountable.

Because of this power at the league level, there’s a level of hopelessness surrounding any owner of the Pirates, which trickles down to a level of hopelessness surrounding any General Manager of the team, which trickles all the way down to a sense of hopelessness from the fans.

My hope is that Major League Baseball changes for the better of the entire league during the 2026 Collective Bargaining Agreement, and that national reporters use their platforms to provide accountability toward the power structure of the league.

That power structure is controlled by the wealthiest teams in markets like New York and Los Angeles, who would need to give up a large portion of their revenue to ensure stability for the teams in markets like Pittsburgh.

The power structure is controlled by the highest paid players like Bryce Harper, who would need to take a salary cut in order to ensure that the majority of players in the league gets paid a marginally larger league minimum salary for the same sacrifice they put their bodies through.

The change would require that MLB doesn’t award dollars primarily on the basis of performance by the players, but more by the sacrifice every player makes when they put their bodies on the line in order to provide this source of entertainment to the fans.

A change would require that MLB doesn’t allow larger economic markets to use their market size as an inherent right to maintain a perpetual advantage in a game that is meant to represent competitiveness across a level playing field.

When you’re asking billionaires to give up money, it rarely goes well.

If it’s difficult to push Bob Nutting to spend more money on the quality of his product, then it’s going to be difficult for Steve Cohen to give up money for the quality of the overall league product.

Baseball players themselves are historically paid based on their worth, as determined by performance value. This dates back to the early days of free agency ushered in by Curt Flood and Catfish Hunter.

It would be difficult to convince someone like Harper that his performance is adequately financially valued while asking him to take a reduction in the salary that typically coincides with that value.

Major League Baseball has a difficult road ahead. The best way for things to improve for the Pittsburgh Pirates would be an overall restructuring of the league economics to allow for a baseball team in Pittsburgh to have the same competitive opportunities as the football and hockey teams in Pittsburgh.

The reality of the league economics provides some level of an excuse for Bob Nutting’s performance. And Nutting’s performance provides some level of excuse for Ben Cherington’s performance. Even the performance of Cherington provides some level of excuse for the poor performance of the players on the field.

It’s up to the media to determine the level of accountability for all involved, and to use their power to maintain balance.

Because the media is going to hear from the fans when they aren’t entertained by the product which is designed to offer entertainment in exchange for their hard-earned dollars.

And angry fans do not tolerate excuses.

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Until the next time I go live…

-Tim Williams