The city of Pittsburgh is known as the “City of Champions,” but one team has been slacking and that is the Pirates. The Pittsburgh Pirates went through a 20 year playoff drought but recently have been doing better but haven’t made it past the wildcard round since 2013.

Most of this failure is because of the owner Mr. Nutting. He doesn’t invest enough into the team and the organization is stuck with mediocre players and not making the postseason. Many Pirates fans, including myself, have been skeptical about Nutting’s decision in trading Neil Walker and everyone was concerned when he traded Andrew McCutchen. There has been a huge outcry for him to sell the team who will actually build a World Series caliber team but he is refusing to get rid of the Pirates. There has been a petition made to get him out of Pittsburgh as the owner because many fans want another World Series brought back to the Steel City.

This issue would not be problem if the MLB had a set salary cap and not drastically different payrolls for each team. The Pittsburgh Pirates have a payroll $63 million and that sits 3rd to last in total MLB spending. At the top of the list is the Boston Red Sox with $167 million. With that much spending money, the Red Sox can buy elite players and are always competitor in the race for the World Series. Other teams like this are the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Two scenarios can happen that can better baseball in the city of Pittsburgh. The first is that Nutting sells the team to an owner who actually cares about the team and wants to see them succeed. The other is that Major League Baseball changes the rules around and limits the amount of spending per team with a spending cap. If these do not happen then I do not believe that the Pittsburgh Pirates will ever return to the World Series.