Jeff Passan is reporting the Pittsburgh Pirates are in on DH Kyle Schwarber, wanted 1B Josh Naylor

Jeff Passan is reporting the Pittsburgh Pirates are in on DH Kyle Schwarber, wanted 1B Josh Naylor

Jeff Passen. Sure you all know of him. See him all the time if you watch baseball. He’s the premier insider. He’s an outstanding writer, reporter, TV guy. He’s all of that. He’s Adam Sheper, only he also writes, you know, takeout pieces, which he did here on MLB’s off seasonason. Okay? It’s called Jeff Passen’s MLB offseason preview intel updates. Listen to this. And I quote, “Any concern about the health of Major League Baseball’s free agent market vanished at the GM meetings in Las Vegas. With the expiration of the CBA barely a year away and an extended lockout potentially crippling the sport in 27, teams made it clear they are forging ahead without allowing the uncertainty of the future to derail the present. People, and this is me talking now, people are primed to spend and spend big this off season. It’s an uncertain future in Major League Baseball. They’re opening their wallets. Listen to the next line. Nowhere is that clearer than with the unlikeliest of winter spenders, the Pittsburgh Pirates. What limits? Can you say what in your most incredulous voice? What? What? Say it again. What? I think everybody said that when they read that. He goes on, “The largest free agent contract the Pirates have ever handed out, we know this, was more than a decade ago, 3 years and 39 million to Francisco Liriana. They are consistently a bottom five payroll team,” says Passen. And yet the pirates, he writes, were primed to spend more than twice that on Josh Naylor before he re-uped with Seattle for 5 years and 92.5 million. And they’re considering other possibilities to supplement Paul Skins and a rotation that was among the five best in MLB in the second half. All right. Then he starts before I get to the other piece of news here from him or opinion or reporting whatever you want to call it. Who exactly are we talking about here? Well, Kyle Schwarber is one. Kyle Schwarber. The demand for Schwarber is high, which is no surprise considering he won’t get more than a 5-year deal because of his age and positional flexibility as a full inflexibility as a full-time DH. teams have made that abundantly clear that you know that part doesn’t matter. All the way from obvious suitors, the Phillies are fiending to resign him, he says. And the not so obvious, yes, Pittsburgh is in on Schwarber as well. Are we being hoodwinkedked here limits or is this real? Like I said, Passen has been among the most vocal critics of Bob Nutting and the Pirates out there in all the baseball landscape. He doesn’t write this. There zero chance he writes this if he doesn’t believe there’s something to it. What do we What are we supposed to make of this? Yeah, I agree with you on that because I don’t think this will just be somebody from the Pirates organization in there saying, “Hey, we want this out there. Put it out there for us.” I don’t think passions try to do them a favor. I don’t. So, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Does that mean that I think they’re going to actually sign Kyle Schwarber? No. But there’s but there’s other chance and they’re interested. And yeah, there’s a Josh Naylor portion of this as well. There’s two hitters from Japan that are coming here. Uh Murakami is one guy. Okamoto is another 29year-old right-hander, right-handed hitter with uh who’s just supposed to be a stud. Plays third and first. He writes among those targeting the first guy who’s strictly a first baseman, Murakami, lefty with top of the scale raw power and as high a ceiling as any free agent, domestic or international. He writes that the teams in them are the Mets, Red Sox, Diamondbacks, Rangers, and yes, even the Pirates. What What does this mean? You know, this is this is sort of a case of, you know, Omar Khan going after a receiver. Not in terms of money, but in terms of deliver me the baby and I’ll believe it. Anything else that happens here, I will not believe. I won’t believe it until I see it. Period. Yeah. I’m just concerned that this is going to become the we tried off season for the Pirates where the narrative is out there. Hey, we’re we’re going to try to go after these guys. We know that Paul Ske needs help and we’re going to go out there and do everything that we can to make it happen, but talk is cheap. Just like Paul Ske said, this ain’t the we tried Olympics. It’s the we did Olympics. So, let’s let’s do it here. And there’s I wrote a couple weeks ago and we talked about it. There’s lots of affordable names out there that can help this team. I’m just I’m not going to believe it until I see them outbid for somebody. Pittsburgh is in on Schwarber, writes Jeff Passen. I respect him too much and he has too much of a track record of absolutely shredding this organization to believe he’d write that if he’s not convinced it’s true. He would not embarrass himself like that. So, what are we to make of it? And here’s the other part that we kind of have been given indications of by the likes of Dan Zangrilli and Greg Brown. I think Greg Brown said this. Don’t quote me on that. Actually, I may have just absolutely lied through my teeth, but I know Zan Grillley has with uh with us. The passen writes, “The Pirates are strongly considering giving 19-year-old Connor Griffin the opportunity to win their big league shortstop job. While the idea is no means by no means decided, he has wowed scouts by hitting and his fielding and 65 stolen bases. the internal models for multiple teams have off thecharts projections for Griffin. So, everybody thinks this kid’s going to be a star. He talks about how the decisions complicated by the CBA stuff and all of that. But he ends with this. The mere thought of pushing Griffin to team up with a fresh batch of free agent bats and a frontline rotation is tantalizing enough to make the Pirates a team to watch. This winter, the market is unlikely to kick into high gear until after Thanksgiving, but once it starts burbling, it’s going to be a busy off season. This is incredible. And this is what pirate fans deserve if it happens. All of this together, I just don’t believe it sitting here in this seat. I’m sorry. I don’t believe it until I see it. Griffin with a fresh batch of free agent bats limits. Yeah, I I I I can’t believe it until I see it. But I the question, am I encouraged? Are my eyes open by this? Am I sitting up on the edge of my seat wondering, wow, is this really going to happen? Yeah, I am. Because it’s only because it’s him. Him or Rosenthal gets me to s of the national guys. You get me to sit up in my seat and say, “Wow, is this actually going to

ESPN insider Jeff Passan stated in his latest offseason story that the #Pirates were willing to offer double what they signed Francisco Liriano for Josh Naylor and are interested in Kyle Schwarber. Could the Pirates be notable spenders this winter??

Listen: https://www.audacy.com/podcast/the-pomp-and-joe-show-81ff1/episodes/jeff-passan-reports-pirates-are-in-on-kyle-schwarber-wanted-1b-josh-naylor-bc5ba
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXosPQcym4M

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