Andrew McCutchen

While Andrew McCutchen is a few weeks from free agency, it seems inevitable that he’ll re-sign with the Pirates. The franchise legend has made clear on multiple occasions that he intends to finish his career in Pittsburgh. The Bucs have reciprocated that interest.

Comments this week from both McCutchen and general manager Ben Cherington point toward the former MVP eventually returning for a 12th season. In June, the 37-year-old told Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette he planned to continue playing. McCutchen restated those intentions in a chat with the beat on Tuesday (link via Alex Stumpf of MLB.com). This morning, Cherington confirmed the Pirates hope to keep him around.

“He’s proving again this year that he can hit and hit at a level that helps us win games,” the GM told reporters (link via Noah Hiles of the Post-Gazette). “I would just repeat what I said before. We would love to find a way for Andrew to finish his career in a Pirates uniform. Glad he feels good, feels like he can still do that and still play. As I did last year, as we get to the end of the season, we’ll have a conversation with Andrew after the season’s over.”

This is indeed how things played out last fall. McCutchen had returned to Pittsburgh on a one-year deal over the 2022-23 offseason. In early October, Cherington said the sides would talk about a new contract over the winter. It took until December, but the parties eventually hammered out a $5MM deal for 2024.

As he did in 2023, Cutch has performed well offensively. He’s reached the 20-homer threshold for the first time in three seasons. He’s hitting .241/.338/.432 in 470 plate appearances. His strikeout and walk rates have each gone in the wrong direction, but he’s hitting for more power than he did last season.

By measure of wRC+, McCutchen has been 14 percentage points above league average offensively for a second straight year. That’s second on the team behind Bryan Reynolds among those with 300+ plate appearances. Reynolds, McCutchen, Oneil Cruz and Joey Bart (the latter of whom has 232 PAs) have been the only above-average hitters in the Pittsburgh lineup.

The five-time All-Star is almost exclusively a designated hitter. McCutchen has started two games in right field. His 102 other appearances have come as a DH. That limits the team’s flexibility. McCutchen is fifth in MLB in plate appearances as a designated hitter. The four players ahead of him — Shohei Ohtani, Marcell Ozuna, Kyle Schwarber and Brent Rooker — have each hit 30+ homers. McCutchen isn’t going to provide that level of production at this stage of his career, but he’s still one of the more potent bats in a Pittsburgh lineup that needs to be more effective. There’s a simple case for bringing him back even before considering McCutchen’s locker room presence and his iconic status within the organization.

It’d likely be another one-year deal. McCutchen has signed for $5MM in each of the last two offseasons. He’d be justified in seeking a modest pay bump this time around. When he signed after the 2022 season, he was coming off the only below-average offensive showing of his career. He’d bounced back last year, but the reunion was cut short by a partial tear of his left Achilles in September. He’s trending towards a healthy finish in 2024. That could push his salary up by a couple million dollars, though it’s fair to assume he’s more concerned with staying in Pittsburgh than he is about maximizing his earning power.

Outfielder/designated hitter Andrew McCutchen has seemingly been reinvigorated by a return to the Pirates in recent years and he doesn’t plan on stopping. “In my mind, this isn’t my last year,” McCutchen said to Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “As long as my body holds up and I’m not embarrassing myself out there, I wanna keep going.”

McCutchen, now 37, has spent most of his career as a Pirate. He was drafted by Pittsburgh back in 2005 and went on to rack up huge accolades from his 2009 major league debut through the end of the 2017 season. In that time, he hit 203 home runs and slashed .291/.379/.487 for a 137 wRC+. He also stole 171 bases while serving as the club’s regular center fielder. He was an All-Star five times in that stretch and was the National League MVP in 2013, the first of three straight years in which he guided the Bucs to the postseason.

The club then slipped from contention for a few years and traded the final season of McCutchen’s contract to the Giants and he would bounce to the Yankees, Phillies and Brewers for a few seasons. With Milwaukee in 2022, he hit just .237/.316/.384 for a wRC+ of 98 in his age-35 season.

He returned to Pittsburgh in 2023 via a one-year, $5MM deal. Given the downward trend of his performance, some expected his return to PNC Park to be little more than a feel-good story for a rebuilding club with little to cheer for in recent years.

But as mentioned, the reunion has coincided with a nice bounceback for the veteran. That’s not to say that he’s back to MVP levels but he was able to slash .256/.378/.397 last year, good enough for a 115 wRC+. He and the Bucs then doubled down, reuniting on another one-year, $5MM deal. To emphasize that McCutchen is committed to continuing his playing career, Mackey relays that he actually lobbied for a multi-year deal this offseason. However, the Bucs had a bit of hesitation since the 2023 season ended with McCutchen on the injured list due to a partial tear of his left Achilles tendon.

That injury seems to be long forgotten, as McCutchen has been back in good form here in 2024. He already has ten home runs, just two shy of last year’s total, and is hitting .241/.338/.401 for a wRC+ of 112.

With the results still coming, it’s perfectly understandable that he wants to keep things rolling. Mackey suggests there’s at least some hesitation on the club’s part, as they may prefer to have the designated hitter slot open in order to rotate other players through. McCutchen has played 20 innings in right field this year but has otherwise been in the DH slot. Though Mackey also reminds readers that owner Bob Nutting has said McCutchen can stay a Pirate as long as he wants.

There may come a time when the goals of the franchise clash with those of McCutchen as an individual. He said multiple times in 2023 that he didn’t intend on playing for another club for the rest of his career. The Bucs are gradually creeping out of its long rebuild, as they hovered around the Wild Card race last year and are doing so again this year. But for now, he’s a key part of the reason why they are competing, as his 112 wRC+ is second on the team among qualified hitters, trailing only Bryan Reynolds.

Talks between the Pirates and Andrew McCutchen on a potential reunion have begun to accelerate, reports Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. A deal between the two sides could be completed by early next week.

A reunion between McCutchen and the Pirates has been seen as something of a formality for several months now. McCutchen returned to his original organization last year, signing a one-year deal worth $5MM to serve as the team’s designated hitter and a part-time outfielder. He told Mackey at the time of his signing that he hoped to finish his career back in Pittsburgh, which felt like home. Cutch reiterated his desire to play in Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh only back in May, and after his season ended in early September with a partial tear of his Achilles, Pirates GM Ben Cherington said they hoped for a new deal and planned to talk with McCutchen this winter.

The now-37-year-old McCutchen is a franchise icon with the Pirates, who selected him with the 11th overall pick back in 2005 and watched him develop from one of the game’s top prospects, to a Rookie of the Year candidate, to a five-time All-Star and eventual National League MVP (2013). McCutchen signed a $51.5MM extension with the Bucs in 2012 but was traded after the team picked up an option for the seventh and final season of the deal — a swap that brought current cornerstone Bryan Reynolds to Pittsburgh.

After stops with the Giants, Yankees, Phillies and Brewers, McCutchen returned home last year and spoke often about his love of Pittsburgh and his desire to finish out his career there. It wasn’t all pure nostalgia, however, as the four-time Silver Slugger proved he still had life in his bat as well. McCutchen tallied 473 plate appearances and posted a .256/.378/.397 batting line, swatting a dozen homers, collecting 19 doubles and walking at a massive 15.9% clip.

The timing of McCutchen’s injury was particularly unfortunate, as it came on the cusp of a milestone. McCutchen sits at 299 career home runs — just one shy of becoming just the 160th player in MLB history to reach 300 home runs. The Pirates open the 2024 season on the road, so it’s possible that his milestone round-tripper could come away from the home fans, but regardless of where that historic long ball takes place, the fans at PNC Park will give McCutchen a hero’s welcome whenever he first takes the field again next season.

Assuming McCutchen resumes his role as a primary designated hitter, he’ll slot into a lineup with Reynolds and Jack Suwinski locked into outfield spots, Ke’Bryan Hayes and Oneil Cruz on the left side of the infield, Henry Davis behind the plate and recently signed Rowdy Tellez at first base. The Pirates currently have a projected payroll of just $58MM, and re-signing McCutchen at or close to the same terms as last year would push that to $63MM. It’s not clear quite how high the team’s payroll will go, but Cherington said at this month’s Winter Meetings that the payroll will increase over last year’s $73MM mark.