What if Ben Charrington was retained solely because what's coming up will be the final year before Major League Baseball gets shut down for a while.

What if?

Good morning to you good.

Wednesday morning.

I'm Dan Kovachvich of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports.

This is Daily Shot of Pirates.

It comes your way bright and early every weekday.

If you're into football and hockey, I also offer daily shots of the two teams in town that are both interested

and invested in winning.

Okay, so there's a common, maybe almost too common theory that Bob Nutting can't fire

Charrington because it would cost him money because Charrington has two additional years on his contract.

Now, I've spent quite a significant amount of time attempting to debunk that because when Nutting fired Frank Coonley, Neil Huntington, Kyle Stark,

and Clint Hurdle in one fell swoop, that bill cost him $17.2 million, as I exclusively reported

at the time. That's a big chunk of change.

On top of that, COVID came the next year, and yeah, wasn't great.

Financially speaking, and the pirates, like every other team in professional sports,

lost a lot of money around that time.

Nonetheless, there was a precedent.

Notting saw stuff that he didn't like, didn't agree with, didn't endorse,

fired them all, paid up, $17.2 million.

He had done something similar, I should add, going back to 2010 when he fired Dave Littlefield.

Money was eaten.

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