Pirates take yet another PR hit for mishandling David Bednar trade 

On one hand, this is not entirely unheard of. Sometimes trade news breaks early due to a leak within somebody's front office, and on trade deadline day, teams can have their hands full trying to make deals before they run out of time. Sometimes things slip through the cracks. 

But it still seems like poor form for the Pirates not to have their ducks in a row when it comes to informing their player about a trade.

Especially, in this case, a player like Bednar.

Not only has he been one of the few bright spots on the Pirates over the past five years, but he is also from the Pittsburgh area and fully embraced being a Pirate.

He loved it.

He loved playing there. 

He wanted to play there and seemed open to staying. 

That is not an easy thing to find, given where the franchise has been and how consistently bad it has been over the past four decades.

Outside of a tough 2024 season and some early struggles this season, he was also a wildly popular player among the fans. The Pirates also knew that to the point where owner Bob Nutting reportedly blocked a potential Bednar trade a couple of years ago.

A player with that sort of standing within the organization should not have to find out about being traded through social media. They should certainly not have to have their agent track down official sources to confirm it. 

For most teams, and if this sort of situation were taking place in a vacuum, it may not be that big of a deal. It would probably be just a minor slip-up and footnote to the trade deadline. 

But the Pirates are not a normal team, and this situation is not happening in a vacuum. 

The Pirates have spent the entire season creating self-inflicted PR nightmares all over the place, from the Roberto Clemente tribute that was taken door for a hard seltzer ad, to the handling of Bucco Bricks outside of PNC Park, to "Sell the team" chants consistently breaking out, to the simple fact the organization has been an absolute mess on the field and one of the worst teams in baseball. 

Now they can add allowing a popular, fan favorite to find out about his trade through social media to the list.

Even worse for Pirates fans, they seemed to get the worst value for their All-Star closer than other teams (specifically the A's and Minnesota Twins) received for their All-Star closers. This is a franchise that just simply can not do anything right.