Pittsburgh Pirates: SPENDING or Pretending in 2026?

Pittsburgh Pirates: SPENDING or Pretending in 2026?

Here’s Brody Brazil. The voicemail line is always open and ready for you at 18334. Brody, I literally listen to every single message you leave and then I get to play back and respond to the very best ones. Eric from Orlando, my question to you is this. I’ve heard lots of whispers and since you’ve covered the Pittsburgh Pirates a lot this year, I’ve seen lots of whispers about them actually spending money on the team this year. With everything you know and everything you get and all the information you get about baseball, do you think this will actually happen? Eric, I appreciate the call and you’re right. I never thought I would be doing so many Pittsburgh Pirates videos, but they have certainly emerged as one of the problem franchises of Major League Baseball. And they’ve got a situation now, not a stadium situation where they’re talking about relocation or moving this or that, but they’ve got one of the best phenoms in Major League Baseball, Paul Skins. He is soon to enter his arbitration years. He’s not there yet, but what is the team going to do? If they’re going to play it cheap, they certainly can’t do so with Paul Skins. Are they serious about building a team? to your point, are they going to spend money? Does it start with skins? Does it start with players surrounding them? Uh, surrounding him. If you’re really trying to build a team, you’re eventually going to need to entice free agents. And I’m not sure right now that free agents are really wanting to come to the Pittsburgh Pirates. If there are these whispers out there, and I do agree with you because I’ve seen it from multiple sources. I don’t have it on firsthand information, but to your point, I’ve seen it everywhere, too, that the Pirates are reportedly planning on spending more this year on their player payroll. If that’s out there, the Pirates are either helping put that out there or they’re very happy. At the least, that is out there. That is intentional. If it’s true, it’s intentional because the pirates want that narrative to exist because at the very least they won’t be accused of not spending and there’s no potential of a grievance filed by the Major League Baseball Players Association. And we were close to that with the athletics last year because there is this rule that teams receiving revenue sharing, teams receiving money, not paying into the competitive balance tax like the Dodgers, like the Padres’s, like the Yankees, like the Mets. I’m talking about the low spending teams. Teams that receive that money, that luxury tax money, they need to spend 1.5x of the revenue sharing that they’ve received on their player salary and payroll. For example, the athletics reportedly last year receiving about $70 million of luxury tax money, right? So, they needed to spend at least a hundred to get above that threshold so that the players association wasn’t saying, “Hey, you need to spend more.” So the pirates at least trying to put that narrative out there. So they’re either doing one thing. They’re only talking the talk here to kind of get people off their off their shoulders and off their back or maybe they’re preparing to walk the walk. But if they’re walking the walk, that’s going to take some time and we’re going to have to actually see that starting to happen. Their opening day uh payroll last year, $87 million. the MLB median, like if you go to the 15th and 16th ranked payroll teams of Major League Baseball, right around $165 million, they were basically half of I’m not going to say average, but half of the MLB median in spending approximately. That’s where they were. A little bit north of that, but not much. They’ve got a lot of ground to make up if they’re actually going to be competitive about spending. There is speculation right now to put this all into perspective. Oh, they’re going to spend more. Like how much more? I don’t know, $30 million more. Maybe 40. Maybe they’ll get up to about $110 million this year. That is still $55 million short of the median. Not of the high-spending teams, but of the median. So again, to put this into perspective, hearing that the Pirates are going to be big spenders, whoa, whoa, whoa. They’re they’re maybe planning on spending more, but maybe again this is just all a facade to promise people to get people excited to see what’s out there before they actually ever even do it. If in fact they’ll ever even do it. The last Pittsburgh free agent hitter signed to a multi-year deal. John Jo in 2015. Former athletic by the way, former Mariner, I think, too. Uh good catcher, good guy in the clubhouse. I remember him as being a good athletic. but signed to a 2-year, $8 million deal back in 2015. That’s the last multi-year free agent deal. The Pirates signed a play or two, a hit or two, position player. Man, that just goes to show you they haven’t done this in a very long time. And even when they did, that’s a tiny deal. Paul Sches, by the way, going back to that conversation, he’s pre-Aarb in 2026, means he’s not eligible for any one of those three ARB years, which are going to happen for him in 2027, 2028, 2029. And basically the way that works is if they can’t come to terms on something, he gets to file an into arbitration. An arbitrator will decide the salary for Paul Skins. That’s how it works in Major League Baseball. But the point being, don’t you want to avoid all that in the first place? Like if you really are getting serious about spending more about being a serious competitor, this one is the no-brainer. But also, you do need to surround Paul skins with free agents. And I’m just wondering at this point, players and their agents who know that about the Pirates, are they really enticed on becoming a Pittsburgh Pirate as a free as being a free agent right now? Is it difficult for the Pirates to surround Paul skins with good, talented free agent baseball players? It probably is at this point. So even if the Pirates want to just spend money, if they’re saying we’re they’re not going to spend irresponsibly, but it may be a situation where they’re kind of locked out of the best talent because they’re like, “Wait, if if we don’t even know you’re signing your your backbone, your superstar, your cornerstone, your foundation. Why do I want to be there for 5 years, right? Why would anybody sign up for that if they didn’t know that the anchor wasn’t set?” Paul Skins is that anchor. There are players like Connor Griffin, the shortstop and outfielder, who is projected to hit the big leagues in 2027. Bubba Chandler, right-hand pitcher, projected uh to have a good future with them in the upcoming seasons. And Seth Hernandez, not projected to hit the big leagues for a couple years, but also a right-handed pitcher. There are other prospects in the pipeline, but again, where do you give this money to if it’s not your pipeline and it’s not Paul Skins and you’re having trouble with free agents? So, like where is this 30 something million dollars actually going to go? So, I know the point of the question and I can’t obviously answer it specifically yet because we don’t know. But we’re at that point where the pirates can start talking the talk, but they also need to start walking the walk. And until they do that, it’s hard to believe that they’re ever going to change their spending habits. And I’m telling you, Paul Ske is is the the tipping point here. Paul Sches is everything in what they’re bound to do. And I’m sure they love having him and they love winning every time he gets a start. But if they don’t do something with him and for him, then obviously that’s a sign that they’re not taking this as seriously as everybody else wants them to. Let me know what you think about this in the comments section below. Also, thumbs up. While you’re down there, don’t forget to subscribe to the channel. I would love to see you back here next time.

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The Pittsburgh Pirates don’t have a history of making big moves in the offseason, but this time around, things might end up differently than before.

Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reported that the Pirates plan on spending on the free agent market, bucking the trend of their offseason activity for the past 10 years.

The only teams with lower payrolls last season than the Pirates were the Miami Marlins at $68.9 million, Chicago White Sox at $74 million, the Athletics at $78.2 million and the Tampa Bay Rays at $82.9 million.

This lack of spending goes into free agency, as the Pirates haven’t signed a free agent to a multi-year deal in over a decade

The last free agent to a multi-year deal since right-handed starting pitcher Iván Nova, who signed a three-year, $26 million deal on Dec. 27, 2016, and the last position player the Pirates signed to a multi-year deal was outfielder John Jaso for two years, $8 million on Dec. 23, 2015.

Read More: https://www.si.com/mlb/pirates/onsi/news/pittsburgh-pirates-could-shock-everyone-offseason

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