From the article:

"Nowhere is that clearer than with the unlikeliest of winter spenders: the Pittsburgh Pirates. The largest free agent contract the Pirates have ever handed out was more than a decade ago: three years and $39 million to Francisco Liriano. They are consistently a bottom-five payroll team. And yet the Pirates were primed to spend more than twice that on Josh Naylor before he re-upped with Seattle for five years and $92.5 million in the first signing of the winter on Sunday night — and they're considering other possibilities to supplement Paul Skenes and a rotation that was among the five best in MLB in the second half."

Makes me think the Pirates offered something like 4 years and $80 million for Naylor.

31 comments

  1. Bob Nutting has never spent big in free agency and the multi year deals that happened with Liriano and Martin are so far gone that I’m not even sure they happened at this point. It’s like the torture of how cheap our owner has been with such incredible pitching the past couple seasons has erased the fun of the BUCN McCutchen Zoltan era.

    For shame Bob Nutting, for shame………stop nutting with your Billions all day and spend 50 million more this year and lead us to a division title. For fucks sake someone hug me man.

  3. Isn’t Naylor a 1B? Doesn’t make sense to offer a 1b the largest FA offer in team history when they already have a solid option there. I call BS on the rumor

  5. Wait, we were looking to sign Josh Naylor for 80 mil???

    I’ll believe it when I see it.

    (but if i ever see it im gonna BUCCIN BELIEVE IT)

  7. Another year of “they almost had him” before signing some 35 year old for $5M

    Until they actually do it this is nothing more than PR

  8. The only way Nutting is going to increase the payroll is if he gets visited by three sprits on Christmas Eve.

  9. If Passan reported it, there has to be some truth to it. Atleast they’re trying, but I’m not gonna get excited until I see someone that’s younger than 38 and has had a good season at some point after 2018 get signed to a multi year deal

  10. Call me crazy but I can see them “spending”.

    The looming lockout creates the potential for smaller term, low risk contracts. Cheap owners love 1 year deals (or deals with options) because there’s no risk for “dead money” if things go bad. From a dollar perspective it’s expensive, from a commitment perspective it’s non-existent outside of this year’s balance sheet.

    Adding to this, you have a GM that’s close to losing his role. Desperation can get the ball rolling.

  11. Do I believe the pirates sort of threw out a “lower” offer for Naylor to give it the look of being aggressive? Yes. Did they want to sign Josh Naylor…. Really? Nope. They’re in search of bats, for sure. Major league caliber players, definitely… and FAN FAVOR (in lieu of it being at an all time low) undoubtedly. You will hear their names associated (in always a losing way) for every major free agent this off season. It’s exactly what they (internally) think they did wrong last year and why they lost their favor. There’s a lot of smoke. I wanna see the fire, remains to be seen if they can make it.

  12. Just fake news from Bob to try and generate some interest/excitement. Show me you are willing to do it, don’t just spew BS

  13. They could do absolutely nothing and roll into camp with a $50M payroll and still exceed my expectations for urgency to win now if they give Griffin a shot to break camp with the team.

    I’d obviously love it if they are actually playing the free agent market but I’ve been around too long to assume anything but the least.

  14. My guess, pirates need to boost payroll to battle against the drive for a salary floor. Their disinterest in spending and competing is likely a huge point of contention in the labor negotiations. I am pretty sure the pirates are on the side of teams against the cap/floor. Them being cheap assholes and not trying to win does not help them make that case, it supports the cap system to get teams spend revenue (they want to dispute the notion that the current system disentivizes spending)z

    The risk to the pirates is that the union starts siding with the middle class owners that want the cap floor.

  20. “Pirates are in on Kyle Schwarber” yea and I’m on a date with Ana De Armas both are equally likely to happen.

  21. To be fair, Naylor was going back to Seattle unless he absolutely got blown away with a significantly higher offer. So I actually will give the Pirates the benefit of the doubt that they did seriously try.

  24. lol they were primed to spend but he was offered more money by another team. Bob Nutting is a piece of shit conman don’t believe a word of any of this BS. Griffin isn’t coming up this year that needs something to sell after they trade away Skenes.

  25. When I saw “Big Spenders” in the headline, I actually checked to see if I had gone r/TheOnion by mistake.

  26. I just thought of a theory. It might actually make sense for Nutting to throw around some significant multi-year contracts this offseason. Here’s why: he may know (or have strong reason to expect) that the Pirates will either have to, or have the ability to, spend more money in the coming years. The new CBA could either have a floor (probably not), or more likely, additional revenue sharing that’s contingent on spending it on major league payroll. So if he throws some money around now, he’d potentially be covered on that, and actually get out ahead of the market inflating after the CBA is official.

  27. Part of me is really cynical that they are only doing this because MLB is nudging them on. I mean they are the poster child for basically leeching off revenue sharing and doing nothing with it except pocket the profits.

    That being said , I do find it exciting that they seem to want to sign legit free agents (outside of Bichette and Tucker which I get) and improve the team while they still have Skenes. It basically makes the guys I thought (Suarez, the two Japanese hitters) would be out of their price range in play.

    Just get it done, BC. Doesn’t matter if it’s a signing or a big trade . Just get hitters

  28. Brought to you by the staff writer who was paid by Bob to say this.

    They need to sell season tickets and it’s easier to sell season tickets to gullible idiots when you can point to puff pieces like this as “we’re turning the corner and surely you want to be there for it”

  30. The problem is that, for a lot of the more desirable free agents, the Pirates would likely have to *overbid* to lure them here. You never know, of course – there certainly are *some* reasons this could be an attractive destination for the right guy – but most good athletes want to *at least* be competitive, and the Pirates are working against not just their track record over the last 20 years, but also the widespread perception that there’s a *culture* of losing here that’s rooted in the owner’s box (we’ve heard plenty of stories over the years about talented players who eventually became disgusted with how this organization is run, and those stories definitely circulate among players and agents around MLB).

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