Pirates are again trying to extend star outfielder after trade request

The Pittsburgh Pirates are again trying to sign star outfielder Bryan Reynolds to a contract extension before the start of the 2023 season, even after he requested a trade earlier in the offseason.

That report comes from baseball insider Jon Heyman on Friday. 

The Pirates had previously offered Reynolds a reported six-year, $76 million extension this winter, a set of numbers that were so far below what Reynolds was hoping for that he requested a trade out of Pittsburgh. 

The Pirates held firm in their decision to not trade him, especially since Reynolds remains under team control through the end of the 2025 season and is one of their best players.  

He is scheduled to make $6.7 million this season and is arbitration eligible for the 2024 and 2025 seasons. 

Signing him to a long-term deal now would not only give the Pirates cost certainty with him over those two arbitration years but would also keep him well into his free agency years.

Reynolds was acquired by the Pirates in the trade that sent Andrew McCutchen to the San Francisco Giants back in 2018 and he has since developed into their best and most reliable position player over the past four years. 

While not quite a superstar, he has still been an outstanding all-around player and finished with an OPS over .800 in three of his first four years in the league, while also hitting at least 24 home runs in each of the past two seasons. He was a starter for the National League in the 2021 All-Star Game.

The Pirates wanted to sign Reynolds to an extension and actually signing him to an extension, however, are two very different things. The Pirates are notoriously one of the lowest-spending teams in Major League Baseball and have never paid a player more than $70 million on a contract. That figure went to third baseman Ke'Bryan Hayes on an eight-year, $70 million contract last year. Prior to that signing, the largest contract the Pirates had ever handed out in franchise history was a six-year, $60 million contract to former All-Star catcher Jason Kendall all the way back in 2000—more than two decades ago. 

The timing of this report is also interesting because, on Thursday, Pirates team president Travis Williams gave one of his first interviews since joining the team, and basically said it was okay if the team lost just so everybody had easy access to moving around the concourse and getting soft pretzels and ice cream. It was not well received among Pirates fans.

The best course of action after such a PR blunder is to float some potentially positive PR news about keeping a star player. It still needs to actually happen, though.