BRADENTON, Fla. -- After calling this spring training the beginning of a "new era of Pirates baseball," Clint Hurdle acknowledged he must establish a positive climate in the clubhouse after Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole were traded last month.
In one of his first moves of the spring, Hurdle told his players to ignore the prognosticators who have written off the team for 2018. And they seem to have embraced that strategy.
However, one major-league veteran told me this week at Pirate City that this group also wants to send a message to the men who decided to trade McCutchen and Cole.
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