'Get out and get a new owner': Ken Rosenthal calls for Bob Nutting to sell the Pirates

Pittsburgh Pirates fans have been begging chairman Bob Nutting to sell the team, going so far as to buy billboards around town and shouting it in protest at PiratesFest in January.

Now, a prominent national baseball voice is calling for Nutting to sell the Pirates.

Ken Rosenthal, a senior writer for The Athletic and field reporter for Fox, said on the Foul Territory podcast that Nutting should sell the team if he isn’t going to increase spending on the major league product. The Pirates’ projected Opening Day payroll is $89,975,500, per Cot’s Contracts, which ranks them 26th out of 30 MLB teams. Only the Tampa Bay Rays ($82.9 million), Athletics ($78.2 million), Chicago White Sox ($74 million) and Miami Marlins ($68.9 million) have lower payrolls.

If Pirates ownership isn't going to try, then just get out and give the fans a new owner, says @Ken_Rosenthal. pic.twitter.com/1duK5cXUwE

— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) March 21, 2025

“OK, the Pirates lost a little bit of money. You wouldn’t want that to be happening,” Rosenthal told Foul Territory. “But a couple of things: What are they spending on, as far as renovations, as far as land around the ballpark, all these different things, and why aren’t they spending money to make money? Why aren’t they running a better business, in short?

“That is the rub with the Pirates. OK, we all understand — we do — that it’s a significant challenge for teams in lower-revenue markets to thrive in this environment. Teams do, however, and they compete to a much better extent than the Pirates do. When you don’t invest in the club, you can’t expect revenues to rise. And they have not invested in the on-field product. They can talk all they want about infrastructure and all that. Then the bottom line becomes, OK, if you’re losing money and you can’t make it work and you don’t want to take the necessary steps to invest in the product, then why not sell the team? And that, again, is the rub. If they’re not going to try — and, in many ways, they’re not trying from a major league standpoint — then just get out and get a new owner.”