PITTSBURGH — Near the end of last season, and the season before that, outfielder Jason Bay said the Pittsburgh Pirates needed major changes before they could win.

With spring training starting in three weeks, Bay said Friday he still doesn't think these Pirates are ready to be a contender after making only a few cosmetic offseason adjustments.

No major league team of recent vintage lost as many games as the Pirates (67-94) did last season and returned the following season nearly intact but, barring any major spring training moves, these Pirates will.

"I said I think it's pretty obvious that this group of guys is not going to get it done," Bay said. "Some people think if we get to .500, that would be great and that would be a nice pat on the back. As a player, that's not very comforting — ultimately your goal is to get to the playoffs and win a championship. If you look at the team right now, I don't know if we're set up to be a championship team.

The lack of moves is a major disappointment to Bay and some other Pirates players who don't want to play a role in what would be a major league record-tying 16th consecutive losing season.

"I'm not saying we're terrible, but it's going to take a lot of things going right to do some things," Bay said.

The Pirates have signed only one free agent, utility infielder Chris Gomez for $1 million. On paper, they look weaker than last season's team after losing relievers Salomon Torres and Shawn Chacon and bench players Josh Phelps and Matt Kata without replacing them.

"What are you going to do? You've still got to go out there, but there's not a lot of expectations for us, even if that works to our advantage," Bay said. "I think we also understand it's going to take a lot of guys staying healthy, and not just being good but being great, to try to get us over a little bit of a hump."

Right-hander Matt Morris, who has pitched on a number of winning teams, also saw the Pirates' deficiencies after being traded to them late last season.

"It's just going to take a lot for this team, over this six months, to be able to compete every day," Morris said.

The Pirates ownership plans to keep the payroll at last year's level of about $51 million or slightly more, or far less than any other NL Central team is spending.

General manager Neal Huntington, hired only 10 days before last season ended, has a better understanding of how unhappy some fans are with the smallish payroll and the nonstop losing. Several fans cornered him at a recent Pirates caravan stop in Weirton, W.Va., and asked — using a few choice words — why he wasn't doing anything.

"It would have been easy to sign a free agent and make a splash, to get a positive newspaper headline, but we're not going to spend $50,000 for a used car that's worth $20,000," Huntington said. "We're also not going to make a trade just for the sake of making a trade."