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Pirates president: 'It's offensive' to say we don't care about winning

Charles LeClaire / USA TODAY Sports

The Pittsburgh Pirates have been the target of intense criticism from fans this winter amid rumors that franchise face Andrew McCutchen is on the trading block, but team president Frank Coonelly doesn't want to hear that kind of talk anymore.

While speaking to fans at the team's annual "PirateFest" event on Saturday, Coonelly was asked if the team cares more about making money than they do winning, eliciting a rather harsh rebuke from the executive.

"I'm so tired of that narrative," he responded, according to Stephen J. Nesbitt of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "The narrative that we don't care about winning is just flat wrong. It's offensive, too."

The so-called narrative of the Pirates' thin-spending ways began to rear its head again earlier this summer. Though the 2016 club had the highest payroll in team history (a little over $99 million) coming off a third straight playoff appearance, eyebrows were raised at the trade deadline when Francisco Liriano - the team's highest-paid player - and his entire salary were sent to Toronto along with two highly regarded prospects for arbitration-eligible pitcher Drew Hutchison. The Pirates then slumped down the stretch to their first losing season in four years.

Once the offseason rolled around and the McCutchen trade rumors heated up - the Pirates reportedly believed they had a deal to send him to Washington - the team's front office took even more heat from the fans. McCutchen is still a Pirate for at least two more years, though, and he appeared at PirateFest on Saturday, where he said he's glad to still be in Pittsburgh.

Related: McCutchen not optimistic he'll end career with Pirates

While Coonelly didn't mention the McCutchen rumors specifically, he scoffed at the notion that moving toward a rebuild and possibly dealing the face of the franchise means the team is only focused on the bank books.

"As (manager Clint Hurdle and Neal Huntington) can explain to you, as my wife sitting out there can explain to you, there's nobody more competitive than the three men up on stage," Coonelly said. "And there is nothing more that anyone can do for you - not for us - than to win a World Series championship here in Pittsburgh.

"That's why I get up every single morning - to do that. It's not about profiting. It's about putting together a winning team, allocating resources to the major-league team to win a championship here in Pittsburgh."

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