1-10-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X
For a baseball team that doesn’t have unlimited resources risk becomes something to avoid. Now, don’t get me wrong, risk isn’t always a good thing, but a team that has no choice but to live on that edge, well, you better have some guts, and some very smart people helping you place the right bets.
When the last window of competitive baseball opened up here in Pittsburgh, a series of risks helped make it happen. Some, we wouldn’t consider risks if they were to come up today.
Back in 2012 the Pirates had seen enough of Andrew McCutchen to know he was ready to extend, and they did, buying out his arbitration years and adding on two options, a 6 year 51.5 million dollar pact that was to keep him in Pittsburgh through 2017 at least. It bought out his 3 years of arbitration plus 3 more.
They’d follow this in 2014 by signing Starling Marte to a 6 year deal while the young promising outfielder had only accrued 1 year of major league service time. They tacked on two option years for good measure.
And that my friends, is a risk. An exciting young 5-tool kid who had done precious little. 748 at bats, 17 homers, .784 OPS his top mark in 2013, but the Pirates took a bet and they locked up the player Starling Marte would become for 31 million dollars. I mean just his arbitration awards alone they probably saved that much.
The flip side of that coin is of course always going to be Gregory Polanco. This too was right at the beginning of his arbitration year, and he signed a 5 year 35 million dollar contract with escalators built in for performance that could have valued up to 60 and a couple option years on top. He of course didn’t turn out as good, and the funny thing is, when signed he was even less of a perceived risk.
Here’s another risk, Jose Tabata in 2011 signed after only having one year of service time a 6 year 14.5 million dollar deal. I guess you could call that a risk, but it was peanuts even if he sucked, which he did, so they could have just cut him like it was nothing, instead they held on for dear life ’til 2015
The lesson learned here is, and yes, you have to adjust for inflation, but the riskier the deal, the cheaper it could be, and if you’re wrong, it’s only going to hurt for a year or two tops, financially anyway.
Now you fast forward to today. Mitch Keller made this very hard for the Pirates. He was awful for years, and while he showed signs here and there, never enough to think you want to take a jump, well, until the end of 2022. He showed at the end of that year he had found something, but even then, I could see not trusting it. Heck, I’m a fan and wasn’t sure.
That’s the thing though, it was also the perfect time to approach him.
I think at the time, he’d have jumped all over it, and I bet the Pirates could have gotten him to sell them 3 years of arbitration and 3 more for 35-50 million. One year later, make that 2 years of arbitration and you kinda hope he gives you two years of free agency for what, maybe 70-80?
Being sure is really expensive.
How about taking a guy like Johan Oviedo? He’s hurt now with Tommy John, but he showed enough to believe he could be a 5th starter when he gets back right? He’ll be back in 2025 and right then he’ll be one year shy of hitting arbitration. Do it now, you maybe get him for 6 years and can keep it reasonable, maybe he even becomes better, something in the 30-40 range and maybe you get a year or two of free agency. Wait through 2025 to make sure he’s healthy, or maybe you never saw enough in 2023 to be “sure”, mark my words, by 2026 this conversation is silly if he lays down a good one in 2025. He’ll price himself out of town before he goes apartment shopping.
Listen, I’m not saying they have to roll the dice on everyone, but much like the moral to Finding Nemo, if you’re too afraid of risk, you don’t really get to live.
Jackson Chourio just signed with the Brewers before he even debuted, to an 8 year 82 million dollar deal that buys out all his years of team control plus 2 years. If he’s even just a major league regular for all that time they win.
Oneil Cruz has easily shown more than Chourio, and he spent all last year on the IL, yet, if you were to approach him right now looking for 8 years, which would buy out his pre arb years, arb and 3 years of free agency, I’d be shocked if you got out of it for less than 100, maybe more. Let him hit this year and guess what?
The point is, the Pirates have a ton of restraints, but risk can help them afford better players longer. It can also stick them with problem contracts. In this case, the earlier the risk the better.
Chourio could suck out loud and it’ll sting, but 10.25 million per year won’t kill them and it wouldn’t kill the Pirates either. What kills the Pirates and teams like them is being so locked up with fear that they wait until such a point that they feel certain a player is going to at least be a certain level before broaching the subject.
I can say with certainty, had they jumped on Bryan Reynolds 1 year earlier, they’d have had the same deal for 20 million less. 2 years earlier, maybe 30 or 35.
I don’t say this to rob the players of money, far from it, these deals pay the players much better early in the contract than the MLB minimum and the team gets to pay a bit less for the more mature player that hopefully they can afford to put even more talent around.
You have to know when to push in your chips, and what I think we’ve seen from Ben Cherington is he’s willing to extend guys, I just think if he was just a bit more willing to take on some risk, he’d ultimately get more out of his budget.
And I don’t think it’s asking too much. Nobody can forecast out the future entirely, but be real here, you know when you first thought this guy might wind up pricing himself out of here was for all these guys. Keller was during last year. Cruz was really the first time you saw him flick his wrists and put a ball on the riverwalk. Maybe you aren’t there yet on Oviedo, it could be a reach, I admit it, but if I think that, and you think that, guess what the league thinks too. That my friends is why it would come cheap.
Hayes, honestly last year, but they jumped on him and for the affordable type of deal I’m hoping to see more of it. Hayes gives me hope that Cherington can work his way into jumping into a risk, because if he hits like he did in 2023 again, he’ll never spend another day in which a human utters the silly thought he might be overpaid.
For a team that spends the way the Pirates do to win in a league in which they could face a foe that spends 4 or 5 times as much as them, it’s going to take some luck, risks and of course, educating yourself as much as possible to mitigate both.
It’s going to take a magic trick or two.
The Pirates as it comes to extending players, are always a victim of their risk adverseness. They have to be super sure, and the thing is, ‘sure’ costs money, lots more than ‘close to sure’, or ‘probably’ cost. That mentality has to change or they’ll never pull any meaningful trick off.
Steel City Pirates 