Tim Benz: Hey, new Pirates, it's not your fault

I feel like I’m channeling Robin Williams from “Good Will Hunting” on this one. But with Pittsburgh Pirates players reporting to spring training this week, I think it needs to be said.

Hey, Adam Frazier. It’s not your fault.

There are going to be times this year when you think it is. There are going to be times this year when the fans and those of us in the media make you feel like it is.

But it isn’t. It’s not your fault.

It’s not your fault that the Pirates traded you in 2021 when you when you were hitting .324 and making a manageable $4 million at 29 years old. Now they brought you back at 33 after hitting .202 to sometimes play a position you’ve only started 52 times in your career.

That’s not your fault. It’s their fault.

It’s not your fault, Tommy Pham. The Pirates could’ve signed you two years ago when you went to the Mets and put up an .820 OPS for just $6 million in 2023. But they decided to sign you now because your price came down to $4.1 million coming off a minus-0.2 WAR season.

That’s what they do. We know that. We’ll forget that. We’ll get mad that they made you their biggest offseason free agent signing this winter. But it’s not your fault for taking the offer.

Be patient with us. We’ll remember. Eventually.

In the meantime, “We Are PHAM-lee?” Huh?! That’s catchy, right? They can maybe even sell a few T-shirts if you get off to a hot start in April before you are traded to a contender in the summer.

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Now, Spencer Horwitz. Hey, it’s really not your fault. All you did was get traded here. We should feel sorry for you.

Of course, we won’t. We’ll take it out on you because you’re being angled — subtly — by the team as a reason why we should actually be excited and have hope for the future.

Therefore, if that doesn’t happen right away because you are injured and you don’t deliver, we are going to hold you personally responsible when (logically) we should be tempering our expectations for someone who still hasn’t played a full season in Major League Baseball yet.

Look, I’m not telling you to preemptively forgive us. I’m just warning you it’s going to happen. We’ll feel bad about it later.

It won’t make sense. You’ll have a bad month or two. We’ll scapegoat you because you are the new guy who isn’t living up to the hype we (and the team) created in the first place.

Then you’ll get hot. They’ll put you on the mound to mop up a 10-run loss like Rowdy Tellez. We’ll turn you into a cult hero. We’ll call it even. They’ll figure out a way to screw you on your contract, and we’ll treat you like we loved you the whole time just to make all of us feel better about the entire dysfunctional situation that exists.

Welcome to ‘tahn, Spence.

Guys, it’s not you. It’s us.

We should know better. We should know who to blame. We shouldn’t project our frustrations onto the role players who are on the backside — or early stages — of their careers. We should be pointing at the general manager who acquired you and the spin doctors in the front office who are trying to shine you up as some sort of evidence that the club is trying to compete.

We should blame the owner who is allowing his team to go to Spring Training currently at about $15 million less in terms of total allocation ($69 million) than last year’s 29th-ranked season-ending payroll ($84 million).

Oh. Don’t misunderstand. We’ll do that. We’ll do that for the next few weeks until opening day. We’ll do it at the trade deadline. We’ll do it next offseason. We’ll even do it throughout the day after losses.

But in the stadium, during games, someone has to get booed. Someone has to hear it. You can’t boo a luxury suite. You can’t boo a spreadsheet. You boo a guy who strikes out, who makes an error, or gives up a homer.

That’s where you guys come in.

It’s not your fault. Unfortunately, though, it is your reality.

How do you like them apples?