The Pittsburgh Pirates ultimately fell short in their quest to sign left-handed power hitter Kyle Schwarber in free agency, watching as he returned to the Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday with a five-year, $150M contract. That offer topped the Pirates’ reported four-year, $120M offer, which would have been light years beyond the previous largest free agent contract in franchise history (a three-year, $39M contract with Francisco Liriano all the way back in 2014).
On one hand, it is a dramatic change to see the Pirates so heavily involved in the pursuit of a top-tier free agent. It could be taken as a sign of urgency from the organization to rapidly improve and try to compete while it has National League Cy Young winner Paul Skenes on the roster.
But the Pirates also deserve no benefit of the doubt here. Their reputation is what it is for a reason. All their flirtation with Schwarber should have done was raise the bar for them to do something meaningful this offseason.
Pressure is on Pirates to make significant addition
The Pirates are routinely near the bottom of the league in spending and have not actually signed a free agent to a multi-year contract since starting pitcher Ivan Nova in 2016. Every team in the league has signed at least one multi-year free agent since then.
It’s a bad look for the team, a bad look for Major League Baseball and a terrible experience for fans. Making an offer for Schwarber does, on some level, show some effort. But effort is not good enough. They do not deserve praise for finally trying to do the bare minimum.
The only questions that need to be asked as a follow-up to the Pirates pursuit of Schwarber are: 1) Did they try to up their offer or increase it when they knew they had competition, and 2) Are they going to spend that $30M per year they were willing to spend on Schwarber on somebody else, whether it be through free agency or a trade that brings in a big contract?
If the answer to those two questions ends up being “no,” then none of this matters. All the Pirates did here was raise the expectation — and pressure — for this offseason.
They have the best pitcher in baseball on their team for what everybody knows will be a very limited period of time before he prices his way out of their budget. Along with him, they have what was one of the best pitching staffs in baseball a year ago, and one that could be even better this season with a full year of Bubba Chandler and the eventual return of Jared Jones.
But they need offense. And a lot of it. Top prospect Konnor Griffin will arrive at some point in 2026, and they did add an interesting prospect from the Boston Red Sox in Jhostynxon Garcia, but that can not be enough. They can not just stumble through this offseason and add lower-tier, bargain basement additions like they do every other offseason.
They need to do something bold. If that $30M per year was not enough to entice Schwarber, it needs to be spent elsewhere. It should — and perhaps could — put them in the market for almost anybody that is available, whether it be through a trade (Ketel Marte, Steven Kwan, Brendan Donovan) or free agency (Bo Bichette?).
It is time for them to join the rest of Major League Baseball and start acting like a serious team. Moral victories and “we tried” are not enough. They have to get somebody.