WHY MESS WITH A LOSING FORMULA?

The Pirates waited just 24 hours after a 91-loss season that was compiled despite having MLB's best pitcher and throwing 19 shutouts to announce that management wouldn't change: Ben Cherington is still the GM, Don Kelly is still the manager.

Why mess with a losing formula?

Noah Hiles of the Post-Gazette wrote an excellent season wrap-up where anonymous players were quoted thusly:

"People think we’re underachieving. Look around here. We’re playing to our potential. This is what $90 million gets you."

"Some of the teams we play aren’t even trying to win. They’re rebuilding but still have a higher payroll than us. What do you think that tells us?"

"We laugh at all of this [expletive] behind closed doors. It’s just a bad organization."

Hillbilly crook Bob Nutting spewed his usual horse manure on Monday: "We owe it to our fans, to the city and to the legacy of this team to get it right."

But Hiles reports that payroll will likely decrease because attendance dropped this season: From 1,720,361 to 1,525,025.

Cutting an $84.4 million payroll that ranked fourth from bottom in MLB doesn't strike me as what needs to be done to "get it right."

(Was the payroll $90 million, like an anonymous player said? Was it $84.4 million, as Spotrac said? Who cares? Either figure is too low.)

Nothing will change with the Pirates as long as Nutting is the owner.

MLB doesn't care. MLB won't insist that the Pirates "get it right."

MLB's ratings are up on all its media platforms: 29 percent on TBS, 21 percent on ESPN, 10 percent on FOX, etc.

Attendance was 71.4 million, increasing for the third straight year.

MLB got 17.8 billion views on social media.

MLB doesn't care if the Pirates get fixed.

Why would MLB think anything is broken?

The Pirates are enhancement talent. You need enhancement talent to put over the stars