Last week I saw calls—more like demands—for the Pittsburgh Pirates to get their payroll back to $100 million next season.
While the sentiment is nice—they haven’t been in that vicinity since 2017—taking a quick look at a baseline for 2023 tells me it just isn’t realistic to expect something like that just yet. And that really doesn’t even have anything to do with the history of the club’s spending.
As I’ve been noting week-by-week, the Pirates are going to end the season with a payroll right around $60 million; however, that’s really not a valid starting point.