Mark Madden: Pirates ownership will always choose profit over winning, even amid Paul Skenes' window

The Pittsburgh Pirates have Paul Skenes, just 22, the NL Rookie of the Year and already MLB’s best pitcher.

Yet it seems like a time of no hope.

To date, the Pirates’ big offseason move is trading a solid starting pitcher in Luis Ortiz for Spencer Horwitz, a meh first baseman who hit a meager 12 home runs last year. Against lefties, Horwitz has a career batting average of .195 and no homers.

The Pirates diluted their main strength without fixing a weakness.

Worse yet, it’s being reported the Pirates want to trade starting pitcher Mitch Keller by way of cutting payroll.

The Pirates had MLB’s second-lowest payroll last season at $84 million.

Slashing that further would be to maximize profit, not cut losses. The Pirates are a cash cow. (But the Pirates took a hit when their local television deal blew up. They’re now investors in SportsNet Pittsburgh, not just recipients of local TV money. That might be the impetus behind cutting payroll.)

The Oakland/Sacramento/Las Vegas A’s are gypsies. They had MLB’s lowest payroll last season at $62.1 million. But the A’s are adding salary. Witness signing pitcher Luis Severino to a three-year deal worth $67 million, the most expensive contract in franchise history.

Keller is set to make $15.4 million next season. That’s chump change in baseball’s big picture.

Keller faded as last season progressed, losing seven of his last eight decisions.

But Keller is established, solid at the third spot in a rotation and part of the Pirates’ biggest (only) strength.

Pitching is what’s toughest for small-market, low-budget teams to get. It must be drafted and developed. It will very rarely be traded for or signed via free agency.

The Pirates currently have a rotation of Skenes, Jared Jones, Keller, Bailey Falter and, at some point, hotshot prospect Bubba Chandler. That’s a playoff-caliber rotation. (Ortiz would have been an ideal fill-in till Chandler arrives.)

The greed of owner Bob Nutting will be further revealed at an even more disgusting level if Keller gets traded.

Yet it goes unchecked, and there’s nothing anyone can do.

No matter how many protest billboards get erected by publicity-seeking nitwits, Nutting won’t sell.

Dorks can march on PNC Park with torches and pitchforks. Nutting won’t sell.

When Keller gets traded, it won’t be long before the stooge media tells us the Pirates still have a solid rotation, here’s who can take Keller’s spot, a wild card is within reach, and Skenes, Skenes, Skenes.

It’s a con that never ceases to get more amazing.

What can be done?

Not much. But here are some suggestions:

• Don’t go to games.

• Don’t watch games on TV.

• Don’t buy merchandise.

• The local media shouldn’t cover the Pirates, or at least shouldn’t send personnel on the road. The Pirates aren’t being run to compete. Any media dedicated to them is just doing free PR. If the Pirates don’t spend, why should the media?

• The clubhouse should speak out. (But it won’t. Skenes is just counting the days till he leaves. Andrew McCutchen needs a new contract. He’s the old-timey, feel-good face of the con.)

None of this would change anything.

But we might be approaching low tide for Nutting’s avarice.

The Skenes window is the Pirates’ biggest chance to win since they got wild cards in 2013, ’14 and ’15. But instead of making significant adds, they’re ditching salary.

Nutting isn’t even trying to fool you, not anymore. He’s flipping you off.

That Skenes window won’t stay open long.

If Keller is too expensive at $15.4 million, wait till Skenes hits arbitration in 2027. Skenes will get traded long before he hits free agency.

On Twitter, Mike DeFabo of The Athletic floated the zany idea that the Pirates should sell Skenes for cash now, then use the proceeds to finance the construction of a better team.

Not sure if MLB would sanction such a deal. But Skenes would fetch a transfer fee that’s well into the hundreds of millions. It helps that he’s dirt-cheap the next two seasons.

But if Nutting did sell Skenes, he’d just pocket the money.

Here’s how this goes from here:

The Pirates trade Keller, there’s momentary outrage, it cools, the usual suspects invent false optimism and the marks keep going to games because they’re stupid.

Same as it ever was.