The Pirates expect to “explore multiyear deals” with certain of the team’s early-career MLB players, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network (via Twitter). The likelihood of agreement isn’t clear.
Recent reporting indicated that teams around the league are pursuing quite a few deals of this kind. It’s not surprising to see the Bucs participating in that effort. Early-career extensions have long been a key part of the team’s strategy. And while the team is in flux from a competitive standpoint, all teams are interested in scenarios that increase the value of their existing control rights over players.
Heyman lists several potential candidates, though it’s not clear which have actually been targeted by the Pittsburgh organization. Outfielder Bryan Reynolds, middle infielder Kevin Newman, and starter Joe Musgrove are all tabbed as possibilities — just the trio you’d likely have thought of.
Reynolds hasn’t even cracked a full year of service, but is coming off of an extremely impressive 2019 debut that might’ve earned him a Rookie of the Year award in some seasons. Newman is still two full seasons away from arbitration. He also put up a strong effort last year, slashing .308/.353/.446 in his first full season in the bigs.
It’s a bit of a different situation for Musgrove, who is already into arbitration eligibility at 27 years of age. He’s slated to earn $2.8MM for the coming season, so he has already locked in significant earnings. Musgrove has been a solid rotation piece since coming over before the 2018 season, compiling 285 2/3 total innings of 4.28 ERA ball.
Good, they need to jump on the trend of extending their pre-arb players.
Tabata, Cutch, Polanco, Marte…The pirates have been doing that for years.
True, but they haven’t really shown interest in doing it with Bell, Taillon when he came up, or any of their other pitchers until now.
They locked up everyone worthy for the last decade. It’s a good thing they havnt shown interest in doing so with Bell and Taillon. Yeah let’s lock up a DH and a pitcher with arm troubles. And what other pitchers? They haven’t developed any worth while ones. Cole who was a Boras client, good luck locking him up. Gonna pay 200 to 300 million for a 4 something era guy?
Glasnow & Meadows…wait nevermind
Cole needs to send a Thank you note to Pittsburgh for trading him. That probably earned him at least $150 million more dollars.
I said the exact same thing in a Reddit thread yesterday. Cole gets traded and gets to be with a pitching coach who knows what he’s doing for the last two seasons easily earned him $100+ million instead of treading water in Pittsburgh for another two years.
As much as the Astros deserve to be jeered, their analytical department has been top notch. My only pause with Cole getting $324 was that there’s is a risk that a different coach/department/information may not get the same results out of him.
They might be interested in Bell but considering his agent is Boras, most likely Bell is being counseled in looking towards FA and not extending. Rarely do Boras clients sign extensions
Thanks Scott for telling me not to sign an extension. I never did become good on defense. Now I get to hit free agency as a 30 yea old DH.
Sorry about that Josh. Umm listen I am kinda swamped with work right now, so my associate here is going to help you out with your free agency. Good luck
Yeah Cole made out like a bandit. I feel bad for Pirates fans. They had a nice lil run for a few years. Baseball isn’t as good with a third of the league being terrible. Just not enough smart baseball people and owners keeping too much of a profit.
Lol when I think of Pirates, I think of the early extensions.
Polanco, Tabata .. huge mistakes
Oh yeah, huge mistakes, Tabata cost them so much money for a chance at locking up a star. And Polanco even worse. Paying 4 to 8 million for a outfielder who hits 20 hrs. No wonder they suck dishing out so much money that just crushed their franchise. Thank God Martes 6 to 10 million and McCutchen’s 8 to 12 million are off the books or they would be even worse. Thanks for bringing those terrible extensions up. Hopefully Cherington reads your post and thinks twice about doing any deals.
The sarcasm is strong with you Lovin… lovin it! :p
Sounds like the heat is on for Pirates to spend that Revenue sharing $$$. No more free rides Nutting. Is the 900 million of increased team value from your original purchase not enough??? I realize it is a business but, come on man!!
Bob Nutting: “Are you willing to sign at the League Minimum with every year structured as a Club Option? No? Hey, Pirate fans, we tried!”
This gave me a good laugh.
Check your birth certificate franco, it might say year born…..moron
100% correct JFBC
Pirates ownership is a disgrace. Fans need to boycott and stop going to games and demand better
The Brewers drew 2.9m fans last year in a smaller market. The Pirates drew 1.4m I’d say Pirate fans are not going. Although I’d like to see that number go lower than 1m.
Fans dont really care. Pirates tickets are cheap and that’s great because Penguins and Steelers tickets are outrageous.
I’m fine with them being terrible and fun to laugh at
They sign these 3 to extensions every other player will be league minimum.
Still wishing for a trade for Bell between the Padres and Bucs.
Hosmer
Patino
Campusano
Morejon
Baez
For
Bell
Padres pay nearly all of Hosmers contract.
Moving Hosmer opens a spot for Bell.
Padres are not trading Patiño. Hosmer also has a no trade clause (I think).
Morejon and /or Baez might be moved in the right deal. Both have pitched well this spring.
Morejon is hitting 98 in spring training and he cost the Padres $22 million to sign. He won’t be traded.
Either will Patino.
Padres might give up Campusano to get rid of Hosmer, but not for Bell. It’s not up to the Padres because Hosmer has a full no trade clause. They are stuck with him.
1. The $22m they paid Morejon is a sunk cost.
2. Hosmer can waive his NTC.
but why would he waive it to go to the Pirates?
@Joe Kerr to get off the Padres.
But why would you leave San Diego for Pittsburgh?
I’d say Bell for Guzman, Trevino, and Cole Winn. The Pirates would get Guzman and Trevino, two young and controllable players for 1b and catcher plus a really promising pitching prospect who’s in low A – high A. Trevino is a really great defensive catcher who last September showed a big flash of power. Guzman, a terrific defensive 1b, has been working with Nelson Cruz over the offseason on his Mental state and hitting. Winn is way away from contributing, but he looks like he could be rising quick as he was drafted out of high school in 18′.
All for Bell who is a nice switch hitting 1b who would balance out that lefty heavy lineup a little bit. I feel like this trade would finally quit people calling for Jon Daniels’ head.
Padres could offer a far more enticing offer than that.
You’re only giving up 1 prospect. Guzman is not even really a major league caliber 1B. And Trevino is a backup C type. That leaves the Pirates Cole Winn who was about 4-5 years off and had some control issues in rookie ball. That’s quite a big risk to give up your top trade piece for that.
All there bad players for our good player. Sounds good to me. Lol.
Preller should be fired on the spot if that happens.
All due respect, that is a ridiculous overpay. I would think the Bucs immediately accept this but it has been stated: Patiño and Campusano are “untouchable”.
why the hell would sd pay that price?
Fans might want Bell but no teams do. If a team was willing to give up anything of value Bell would have been traded already. Pirates will wait and see if has good first half and or a teams DH or 1b goes down and is in need. JDM didn’t opt out because the market for his services was not there. Bell is a terrible defender. He is a DH unless he proves he can put up monster numbers on a steady bases that make it worth while to have him at 1st. He had a hall of fame May and was good for one other month. Pirates will hope he does good and sell high. Until then he isn’t going anywhere this season unless that happens.
Pirates haven’t traded Bell yet because hes controlled and cheap and likely their best player.
Has nothing to do with other teams not being interested.
Won’t get traded til next offseason at earliest
By the way, that trade would be about fair if the Pirates take all of Hosmer’s contract.
I agree 100% with goat boy. Pirates ownership is not only willing but loves to take on huge contracts. They do it all the time. Let’s get this trade done.
We already told this guy in another thread that this would be a ridiculous overpay that Padres would never do.
Idk why he’s still obsessed
I guess he’s just bullish on Bell? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m all for locking up good ballplayers but there’s really no reason to worry about extending Reynolds yet. He has one year of service time and doesn’t have the huge power numbers (or significant untapped potential to quickly accrue) in homers and rbi’s that are two primary factors that get players paid in their arbitration years. Newman and Musgrove make much more sense and it’s not at all surprising that Bell isn’t mentioned at all.
Reynolds doesn’t even have 1 year of service time. The pirates still own him for the next 6 years. Although, he is projected to be a super 2 player
If he is super 2 eligible like you say. That tells me GM NH didn’t expect him to be that good. Otherwise he would have been kept down working on his lead from third until Super 2 passed.
….it says the exact opposite
What it says is they manipulated his service clock long enough to gain a 7th season of MLB control, then called him up. But felt they couldn’t wait until June to add him
What a hot take
Wouldn’t the areas that you are concerned about drive the value of his deal down? If they wait for him to “prove” himself, he will be closer to FA and may test the water and his value will increase. Some teams are giving these contracts to minor league players.
I think he is saying he doesn’t show the potential to be a 30 plus hr guy and those are the guys who make big money in arb and free agency.
Still worth locking him up. Pay for his arb years and year after with a team option for another year or something. Newman shows even less power and doesn’t have the track record of Reynolds. But hey lock anyone up for the right price. Rather over pay a few million if a guy ends up being a bust with the chance of saving tens of millions of he can become a star.
Bryan Reynolds deserves a multi year deal around 75 – 100 million, for maybe 6 or 7 years. I really like him, he is quite underrated. I just hope this is the first step of the Pirates “build” because I think think they already have a decent lineup, but their holes are big holes… like at catcher. I few more pieces and they are flirting with a WC.
I feel like this was cut/paste from a Jose Tabata post.
Yeah that’d be a gigantic deal. Eloy Jimenez just got himself 43 guaranteed and 75MM total over 8 seasons. That’s a little too rich for Reynolds.
I’d expect something closer to what we saw with Jimenez.
They can get him 60 million. What will he make in arb? 5, then what 10 to 15, then arb 3 20? If he keeps things up at best. 6 or 7 years like 2 million, 3 million, 4 million, 5 million, 8 million, 10 million, 12 to 15 million and a team option for 15 to 20 million. Or he can not sign a team friendly deal, he can play for 5 or 6 more seasons. Hope he doesn’t get hurt. Hope he stays the same as he is now to make similar money that was offered to him in team friendly extension, or start hitting more home runs out of nowhere and hit free agency at age 30 or 31 and see how much money a 30 something corner outfielder can get.
I’m going to explore sleeping with Bella Hadid. Both explorations will meet with the same level of success.
No young player wants to extend with a team that refuses to spend money to win.
Nevermind the fact that McCutchen, Marte, and Polanco all did exactly this.
Can’t forget the best of all Tabata
Every young player that signed extensions with the Rays begs to differ.
Your logic doesn’t follow. Players sign extensions with cheap and/or sucky teams all the time.
Because for the player it’s about security. These guys have maybe a few million bucks in the bank. These extensions increase their net worth by a multiple of 10+
Ke’bryan Hayes, O’Neal Cruz, Mitch Keller, Blake Cederlind
these guys are in the minors still!
Hayes and Keller are looking like Busts so far. Cederlind is probably a reliever. Cruz looks promising but you can see what they look like in the majors and sign them for not much more. It’s either sign team friendly deal or play for peanuts for 3 years. Be under paid for 3 more. Hope and pray you are good for 5 seasons and don’t get injured. You better not have gone to college or you won’t get to free agency until you are 30.
Hayes looks like a bust? How is that exactly?
Can’t hit enough. I been saying for years he isn’t going to happen. Keep hearing the power will come as he gets older. Nothing yet. Maybe it is still coming, I just don’t see it. He will be a major leaguer. Excellent defender, might even hit enough to stick around and have nice solid career. Just don’t see him being a guy to worry about locking up.
Musgrove really just isn’t that good he’s been around enough to shows he’s average at best
He can improve and there is still value in locking up a #3 #4 starter.
who the hell are they going to extend besides maybe reynolds!
Could always use that some of that money and say…. sign a starting pitcher…. just a thought. Anything has to be better than Rookie Davis.
I wouldn’t extend Kevin Newman. You have him for 5 more years and he’s nearly 27 right now. Seems
premature to make that move. The guy isn’t hitting free agency until he’s 31 years old as it is. Unless you get an absolute bargain that seems unnecessarily risky.
Agree. Plus, SS is our deepest position in the minors.
Extend Moran while your at it too
Josh, Adam, Kevin, Bryan, Joe, Jameson Should be high on the list. some more likely than others.
Is there evidence as to whether Joe Musgrove knew or did not know about the Astros’ scheme?
He knew enough to keep his mouth shut. A young pitcher trying to start a career doesn’t need to concern himself with what veteran hitters are doing.
Astros were probably stupid like the Patroits were. Patriots could of and looks like they did anyways kept cheating for years. Mangeni or whoever would of kept his mouth shut except they tried to do the cheat against their former coach who knows about their scheme. Just stupid. There is guy code, and don’t be a tattletail or eat but it does have limits. You don’t cheat against someone who knows you cheat and expect them to be silent about it.
I think it would be naive to think anything other than of course he knew. He’s been very vague, kind of deflecting, not really wanting to answer that question in the interviews/snippets that I’ve heard. I wonder VERY much about new bench coach Don Kelly in that regard. The local talking heads were quick to dismiss it as they a very strong bromance with him. He had to know, right?
As a lifelong Pirates’ fan, seeing the words “Musgrove” and “extension” that close together made me involuntarily shudder…