Jim Bowden of The Athletic wrote about his takeaways from the Winter Meetings and what he learned from the busiest time of the offseason. He deemed the Pirates as not serious spenders and that the offers
they made for Josh Naylor and Kyle Schwarber were simply just eye-wash.
He stated that both Naylor and Schwarber were never going to sign with Pittsburgh and that the Pirates need to overpay for that type of talent for them to even consider signing. Especially with the lack of recent success.
“There were a lot of people celebrating the Pirates for making offers for free agents Schwarber and Josh Naylor,” Bowden wrote. “However, once the news got out that they offered Schwarber four years, $125 million and Naylor five years, $80 million, it became clear that the offers were more about being able to say they were willing to spend that money than they were a sincere attempt to get the player. They knew even if they offered the exact same money each player eventually got, or even $5 million to $10 million more for each player, they weren’t going to get either one”.
“If a non-contending team like the Pirates wants to sign stars like Schwarber and Naylor away from their playoff teams, they have to grossly overpay or they’ll never get them. It’s what the Nationals did with Jayson Werth and the Tigers with Magglio Ordonez and Pudge Rodriguez”.
“My point is this: The Pirates’ offer for Schwarber should have been six years, $180 million to $200 million; and for Naylor, six years, $120 million. Even then, it’s unlikely the players would have signed, but at least it would have given the players and their families something to think about. Once the Pirates become the highest bidder on a big free agent, only then will we know they mean business. For now, it’s just eye wash”.
The Pirates finished the 2025 season with a 71-91 record, which was last in the NL Central Division and the fifth worst record in baseball. It served as their 10th straight season missing the playoffs and the seventh consecutive losing season. Those are the second longest streaks in baseball, just behind the Los Angeles Angels.
Pittsburgh is historically a team with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball and one that rarely makes moves in free agency,
The Pirates haven’t signed a big free agent position player to a multi-year deal since outfielder John Jaso, two-years, $8 million on Dec. 23, 2015. Their most recent free agent multi-year signing was starting pitcher Iván Nova for three years, $26 million on Dec. 27, 2016.
They are notorious for not spending money and not being aggressive in free agency. Bob Nutting has served as the primary owner of the team since 2007 and the Buccos have ranked in the bottom five MLB teams for Opening Day payroll for 16 of those 19 seasons, according to Cot’s contracts.
Everyone in Pittsburgh got their hopes up because of the promises made by Bob Nutting and the rumors that were swirling around in the offseason. It has been about ten years since theBucs made the playoffs so it’s hard sell to get big name free agents to come to the steel city. You really have to wonder how serious all of the rumors were considering how uneventful the offseason has been for the Pirates. It seems that they were making offers to make Pirate fans happy that were making moves but they were never actually in play for any of those players.
All of this is important because they have been linked to numerous free agents and big name players and they haven’t gotten anyone yet. As a Pirate fan, I should have expected this to happen, but it’s still frustrating to see them in play for almost every free agent and not be able to land them. The offense is in a desperate need for an upgrade but Schwarber, Naylor, and Pete Alonso all passed. The Pirates don’t make a lot of moves in the offseason but with them having some more money to throw around we expected them to be different and be more aggressive in the offseason but that has not been the case, just the same old offseason moves that we have seen over the last couple of years.
