The hand-delivered invitations went to the unlucky. The Pittsburgh Pirates recently sent letters to their best minor leaguers warning them that from Sept. 14-17, their Instructional League training in Bradenton, Fla., would consist of "intense Navy SEALs drills."

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Players had come to rue these activities. A number of team officials feared them. And the rest of baseball just laughed.

It's not just the Pirates' second consecutive collapse that has made them an industry joke. The methods by which they rear their minor leaguers are perhaps even worse, a combination of hubris and recklessness that has led to injuries and widespread resentment, according to four sources who outlined the problems to Yahoo! Sports.

"I knew this stuff was going on," said one source familiar with the Pirates' program, who, like the others, requested anonymity for fear of reprisal. "I didn't like it. Nobody did. They don't know what they're doing."

They are general manager Neal Huntington and assistant GM Kyle Stark, who have implemented a training program unlike any other in the industry. From getting blasted with water after 5 a.m. wakeup calls to hand-to-hand combat in which, according to two sources, top prospect Jameson Taillon once suffered a knee injury, the Pirates' insistence on using militaristic exercise has spooked enough players that a number openly complained to minor league staff members this year about the instructional league plans.

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Pirates brass' mindset is perhaps best represented in a June email sent by Stark and first reported Friday morning by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. In it, Stark outlines his keys to developing major league players, highlighted by this line: "Dream and be creative like a Hippie. Have the discipline and perseverance of a Boy Scout. Be crazy and take risks like the Hells Angels."

The email went viral around baseball, traded between front-office executives, scouts and other personnel, each of whom was as bemused as the other. Stark continued by saying "the biggest impact we can have in the second half is developing more Hells Angels" and listed the qualities of the biker gang he most appreciated: "swagger," "reckless abandon" and "bound by brotherhood."

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