Joe Starkey: Bob Nutting’s greatest shame — if he’s capable of shame — should be watching the Milwaukee Brewers

Joe Starkey / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Pirates and the Milwaukee Brewers each had a significant clinching Wednesday night.

One was steeped in champagne, the other in shame.

The Brewers, who play in a market smaller than Pittsburgh, clinched the NL Central Division title, their third in four years and fourth in seven. They were the first team in the National League to clinch a postseason berth.

The Pirates clinched another non-winning season. Their bullpen imploded yet again in producing the season’s 81st loss. This soon will become a losing season, the Pirates’ sixth in a row and 21st in 25 since 2000. They have not won a division title since 1992 and haven’t won a playoff series since 1979.

The Brewers, who play in a market smaller than Pittsburgh, are a beacon of baseball brilliance.

The Pirates are a punch line.

As always, this comes back to one man on the Pirates side: Bob “Thanks For” Nutting. Despite his enormous wealth and the welfare payments he receives from big-market teams, Nutting remains allergic to a $100 million payroll. He doesn’t even come close.

The Brewers, who play in a market smaller than Pittsburgh, push well past $100 million every year.

Nutting has tried to build an international pipeline, notably financing a much-ballyhooed Latin-American Academy. It has produced next-to-nothing. The Pirates have made no impact on the international scene.

The Brewers, who play in a market smaller than Pittsburgh, made one of the best international signings in recent baseball history, signing outfielder Jackson Chourio out of Venezuela in the winter of 2021 for a mere $1.9 million. And because the Brewers are confident in their evaluations and usually make good ones, they proceeded to sign Chourio to an $82 million deal before he ever played a major league game.

Now look: Chourio, a 20-year-old rookie, has a higher OPS (.802) than any Pirates regular.

Nutting routinely makes terrible decisions, exemplified most horrifically when (with the advice of Travis Williams) he chose Ben Cherington as general manager over then-Brewers assistant GM Matt Arnold in 2019.

Six years after he inherited a 69-win team, Cherington will win something like 76 games again. His farm system is somehow getting worse. He has failed on so many fronts, it would take an hour to quantify it.

Arnold stayed in Milwaukee, received a promotion, and has parlayed a ton of shrewd moves into a team that dominates the NL Central.

The Brewers, who play in a smaller market than Pittsburgh, and the Pirates were supposed to have similar records this season, both with fewer than 80 wins.

Nobody thought the Brewers could survive massive offseason losses that included manager Craig Counsell defecting to the Cubs, ace Corbin Burnes getting traded right before spring training, and star closer Devin Williams missing months with an injury. But under the guidance of a baseball lifer and first-time manager, 65-year-old Pat Murphy, the Brewers persevered through even more injuries (Christian Yelich, Wade Miley) and kept winning.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote of the Brewers’ amazing season Wednesday, citing a deep and effective bullpen (must be nice) and adding this: “Veterans Willy Adames (shortstop) and William Contreras (catcher) have had dominant seasons leading a surprisingly potent offense that's performed better than previous seasons with much the same major names, thanks in large part to Murphy's aggressive style of play that utilizes bunting and base stealing. And then of course there's the tremendous development exhibited by budding superstar Jackson Chourio.”

Arnold, of course, made seismic impact with deals to acquire Adames and Contreras in recent years.

The Pirates traded for Bryan De La Cruz.

No move better exemplified the Brewers-Pirates dynamic than what both teams did at first base last winter. The Pirates went the cheap route — big surprise! — signing Rowdy Tellez for $3.2 million. Milwaukee later signed free agent Rhys Hoskins to a two-year, $34 million deal with an opt out after this season.

Tellez has 13 home runs and 55 RBIs. Hoskins has 25 home runs and 74 RBIs. More significantly, Hoskins helped the Brewers to a hot start while Tellez was having maybe the worst season of any position player in the league not named Ke’Bryan Hayes.

By May 11, Hoskins had nine home runs and an .818 OPS. Tellez was batting .186 with one home run.

But back to Nutting. If this man is capable of feeling shame, nothing should shame him more than watching the Brewers — who play in a market smaller than Pittsburgh — embarrass his franchise every single season.

Look at Nutting’s tenure compared to that of Brewers owner Mark Attanasio, whose first full season was 2005. Nutting’s first season as principal owner was 2007, so let’s start the comparison then, over 18 seasons:

Attanasio: 12 winning seasons, seven playoff appearances, five division titles, 1,467 wins, .523 winning pct.

Nutting: Four winning seasons, three playoff appearances, zero division titles, 1,278 wins, .456 winning pct.

The Pirates might not even reach last season’s pedestrian win total of 76. The Brewers are getting ready for the playoffs again. I suppose this would all be somewhat more palatable or excusable if the Brewers played in a Los Angeles-like market, but that is far from the case.

Did I mention that Milwaukee plays in a smaller market than Pittsburgh?