Pirates and outfielder Brian Reynolds have agreed to a $106.75 million contract extension from 2023 to 2030 with a team option for 2031, major league sources have confirmed. the athlete. Here’s what you need to know:
- Reynolds led the Pirates in batting average, home runs, RBIs, on-base percentage and hits in 2022.
- Through 22 games in 2023, he batted . 294 with five home runs and 18 RBIs on 25 hits.
- Going into Tuesday, Pittsburgh (16-7) leads the National League Central on a seven-game winning streak.
the athleteInstant Analysis:
What does this mean for the future of hackers?
When general manager Ben Chirrington was hired in 2019, the Pirates were a mess. The front office had lost sight of it, the coaching staff had lost control, there was internal strife at the club and ownership seemed indifferent to everything but the bottom line.
That all changed. The Reynolds deal is a tangible sign that the team’s star player and its ownership and management are confident the Pirates will be competitive in the near future. It’s also a signal to fans that after years of pinching cash, owner Bob Nutting is willing to spend what it takes to put together a competitive team.
Reynolds, 28, is in the prime of his career and Cersei is an outdoors field that is still being pieced together. The pirates still have questions to answer. And Neil Cruz is out with a broken ankle. Several major prospects will begin arriving later this summer. The team will need time to have fun.
The Pirates won seven times in a row, were atop the NL Central and were one of baseball’s biggest upsets in the first month of the season. Even if they can’t maintain their hot start deep into the season, the Pirates have plenty of pointers that point squarely. – birtmpville
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What does this say about the front office?
Nutting allowed Cherington to give up the biggest stretch in franchise history. In April 2022, third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes was awarded an eight-year, $70 million contract.
Reynolds’ new deal comes three days after Pirates boss Derek Shelton was extended. (The terms of Shelton’s contract were not disclosed.)
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Cherington has won Nutting’s trust, but now he must keep it. For starters, Reynolds and Hayes should continue to perform. Cherington recently said there are two other players he would like to join on multi-year deals.
Cherington didn’t elaborate, but the list almost certainly includes Cruz, Roancy Contreras’ right-hand man, and possibly also Mitch Keeler. said all three players the athlete They would be open to exploring long-term contracts to stay in Pittsburgh.
It’s not yet clear how much Nutting has left in his coffers for other deals. The Buccaneers ended up upping the offer they made to Reynolds last fall by more than $26 million — pocket change for some clubs, but not for the Buccaneers. – birtmpville
How does this decade compare to Reynolds’ peers?
This is a return to contract extensions from about half a decade ago when they were more upfront with the team and took relatively few risks for the team. Since Reynolds was already earning $6.75 million this season, it’s basically a seven-year deal and $100 million in new money. Reynolds will likely earn about $25 million over the next two years in arbitration. So that stretch values the free agent’s five years at about $75 million — Andrew Benintendi’s money instead of Brandon Nemo’s money. (I had suggested Reynolds’ free agent years are valued 60 percent higher than that, at $24 million per season.)
Put it this way: Reynolds, despite four years out of a big-league track record, and with his minimal salary years behind him and free agency on the horizon, signed for lesser Corbin Carroll of the Diamondbacks. He signed for less than Ronald Acuña Jr. in Atlanta (calculating inflation), when Acuña had one year of service time. Without opting out of this deal, the Reynolds extension is as good a fit for the team as any signed extension in recent memory.
Of course, it’s also a nine-figure deal that’s hard to turn down on an individual level. Not every player prioritizes moving the market forward. (In that respect, that’s reminiscent of another playoff general manager Ben Sherrington signed: the eight-year, $110 million deal he signed with Dustin Pedroia in 2014, months before Robinson Cano reset the market for second base when he made more than double that. )
Commencement of the deal in 2023 brings Reynolds’ average annual value over the life of the deal to $13.34 million. Even if Reynolds starts to dip into his mid-30s near the end of the deal, the salary is manageable enough for Pittsburgh. And if he continues to play like an All-Star, that will be a huge win for the Buccaneers. – Breton
the background
The Pirates continue their surprising early season success by locking up their best player. Reynolds was an All Star in 2021 and trade rumors circulated during the negotiation process.
The extension is the longest ever for a recruit recruited out of college. Reynolds was selected in the second round in the 2016 draft by the Giants before being traded to Pittsburgh in the deal that netted San Francisco’s Andrew McCutcheon in 2018.
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