On Sports: Pirates payroll is NL’s smallest; Penguins push for .500 as Kraken surpass it with familiar faces

Now that the MLB season has opened we know where the Pittsburgh Pirates rank in regards to payroll. (Spoiler: not high).

The Penguins resort to striving to achieve true mediocrity, while the neophyte Seattle Kraken blow past them — with the help of some old friends. But at least people are still watching the Penguins.

All part of Wednesday’s “On Sports.”

At least it’s not last overall

The Associated Press compiled its annual study of Major League Baseball player salaries and team payrolls. It shouldn’t exactly come as breaking news to anyone in Pittsburgh that the Pirates ranked near the bottom of the list.

The Pirates’ $71,652,500 expenditure was the lowest in the National League and trailed only the Baltimore Orioles and Oakland Athletics across all of baseball. There are no NL teams within $12 million of the Pirates, just one that has spent as little as $20 million more, and two that are within close to $30 million more.

In ascending order, the bottom of the list of NL payrolls begins with the Pirates ($71.7 million), followed by the Cincinnati Reds ($84.2 million), Miami Marlins ($91.98 million) and Washington Nationals ($101.5 million).

It should come as no surprise that the Pirates have no player among the top 50 highest-paid (according to USA TODAY/Cot’s Baseball Contracts). There are, however, four former Pirates who are on the list: Gerrit Cole, Starling Marte, Charlie Morton and Joe Musgrove.

Overall, player pay is up 11% from last season, the largest one-year jump in 22 years. The New York Mets set a record by deploying $355.4 million to player salaries this season. The disparity is so great that you could add the Pirates’ payroll to the second-highest compensated team (the New York Yankees’ $275.2 million), and you still wouldn’t have as much salary as the Mets.

Korean connection

Well, what do you know? The Pirates (3-2), at the moment, have a better record than the Mets (3-3) — albeit at this comically early juncture of the season. The Pirates go for a sweep of the Boston Red Sox ($190.6 million payroll) with a 1:35 p.m. first-pitch game at Fenway on Wednesday.

Tuesday’s 4-1 victory in Boston was in large part attributable to Ji Hwan Bae, who had his first career home run and had the catch of the night across baseball.

This catch by Ji Hwan Bae left Devers SPEECHLESS! pic.twitter.com/CujRe9wn4P

— MLB (@MLB) April 5, 2023

A neat nugget about Bae and designated hitter Ji Man Choi each being in the Pirates’ lineup: When that happened for Sunday’s game in Cincinnati, it was the first time in MLB history a team’s lineup featured two Korean-born players.

Non-winning season?

Arguably no sport stat factoid gets repeated more around Pittsburgh than the Steelers’ run of 19 consecutive non-losing seasons. But the Penguins have a run of their own that’s very similar. And just like the Steelers’ most recent season, it’s in danger as the season hits its stretch run.

While their record in the standings (38-30-10) might not look it, the Penguins have lost more games (40) than they have won (38) this season. With four games to play, the Penguins would need to win out to avoid a season in which it lost as least as many games as it won for the first time since 2005-06.

That season — Sidney Crosby’s first in the NHL — is one of only four since 1989-90 in which the Penguins did not lose fewer games than they won. That also happened in 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04.

The closest the Penguins have come to such a dubious distinction otherwise was the only full season Mike Johnston coached them: 2014-15, when they won 43 and lost 39 (albeit 12 in overtime or shootout).

As NHL.com correspondent Wes Crosby points out, the Penguins have already assured themselves of having the fewest points in a season since 2005-06.

More sports

• Draft prep 101: Offensive tackles the Steelers can't pass up
• Pitt's Phil Jurkovec ascends to top of QB depth chart — but no guarantees
• Pitt forward Nate Santos enters transfer portal

Would look good here

Perhaps the Penguins would have a better record if their lineup included, say, Jared McCann as its third-line center and Brandon Tanev also in their bottom six. Or even, maybe, Daniel Sprong as a fourth-line jolt, and the likes of Justin Schultz and Jamie Oleksiak as bottom-pair defensemen?

All of the above listed players previously played for the Penguins, and each is playing a prominent role for the Seattle Kraken, which have a better record than the Penguins and are sitting pretty for a playoff spot after improving to 43-26-8 with a 5-2 win against the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday. With 94 points, Seattle in its second season leads the wild-card race in the Western Conference and is seven points clear of third-place Calgary with five games to play.

Barring a complete collapse, the Kraken will make the playoffs. The team is already assured of having the most points of any NHL team in its second season after expansion in history.

McCann and Tanev were taken in the expansion draft 21 months ago. While McCann was not taken directly off the Penguins’ roster, he was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs four days before the expansion draft in a transaction maneuvered by both teams in anticipation that the Kraken would take him.

McCann is making $5 million per year, the same as current underwhelming Penguins’ bottom-six center Mikael Granlund.

Still a draw

The Penguins have problems, and they are many. But one that is not is that they remain to be one of the NHL’s highest-profile teams. Six of their past 10 games have been on national television, including Saturday’s home game against the Boston Bruins on ABC.

According to ESPN, the 1.14 million viewers who tuned in represented the most for an NHL game on ABC this season.