BRADENTON, Fla. _ Let's start with a couple truths about the Pirates right now _ and hold the jokes.
_ Even though they won just 69 games last season and their leadership issue(s) required owner Bob Nutting to completely clean house this winter, they do have some talented young players around which to build. Josh Bell, Kevin Newman, Bryan Reynolds and Joe Musgrove are a few of the names that have been mentioned, and for good reason.
_ General manager Ben Cherington is also on record having said that he believes Nutting will back his desire to increase payroll whenever that time is right. Fans and the team absolutely have different views on when that should and will be, but the point is that Cherington isn't being handcuffed here.
_ Taking this one step further, Cherington said at Grapefruit League Media Day that "the payroll will need to increase in order to have the winning team we envision."
Add it all together, and last week's news _ this headache coming courtesy of one tweet from MLB Network's Jon Heyman _ that they're going to explore multi-year deals with a select group of young players really isn't as groundbreaking as it sounds.
If they have the talent, as well as the means, authorization and desire to keep it, what are we talking about here?
"I wouldn't take what (Heyman) said as an indication that anything new or front-burner is happening," Cherington said Monday at LECOM Park.
As a small-market club, these are the calculated risks the Pirates need to take. They need to buy out arbitration years, as they would in this case, and pony up money by betting on potential and a somewhat small sample size.
It's what they did on Gregory Polanco in April 2016, signing him to a five-year extension, and it's what they should do again, at minimum, with Reynolds and Newman, who were minor-league players at this time last year and somewhat out of nowhere enjoyed terrific rookie seasons.
In this case, the Pirates would be betting on the makeup of these guys _ and Musgrove, Mitch Keller or anyone else with which they went this route. Bell, too, although he's done more than anyone else mentioned.
The Pirates would be betting what they saw was real and locking it down by a reasonable price by offering the players security and more money than they've probably ever considered.
The reason this is a story now, Cherington argued, is that these conversations tend to happen around this time. Other parts of the year are for signing major league free agents or avoiding arbitration. March is for potentially hammering out these types of extensions, which pushes this issue to the forefront.
"I would say that, in any case, with any player, from my perspective, we ought to be sharing information," Cherington said. "There are times to share information related to contract that's going to be different in almost every case. It tends to be that if you're signing a major league free agent, that happens in the offseason. If you're dealing with arbitration, it happens during the same time. If you're talking about a different kind of contract, it tends to happen before or during spring training. I think that's where that question comes from.
"My sort of general response would be, 'Hey, we're always interested in sharing information and would want to share information so players are as informed as they could be.' There's nothing more to it than that."
Cherington is right, but the primary topic of this conversation should be about needing to get these deals done, not whether or not the Pirates are interested in doing them. If they're committed to building this thing right, growing with their best, young talent is essential.
The million-dollar question _ literally _ will be whether they can agree to terms with several of them and also what happens with Bell, who's represented by Major League Baseball's most powerful agent, Scott Boras.
Being around these guys every day, there's little doubt they're happy in Pittsburgh, especially since manager Derek Shelton took over. But this is also a business, and no player is going to make a bad business decision because driving through the Fort Pitt Tunnels looks neat.
Which means it's incumbent on the Pirates to give the fans something they deserve and keep the talented players they do have. It might be good business for them to trade Chris Archer and Keone Kela if they have strong first halves. Teams are always looking for extra arms, and the Pirates need to flip contracts that are nearing their end into multiple young prospects.
But when you have talented players you can build around, you have to at least try. It would also be a bad look for the Pirates after showing the willingness to change out the president, general manager and manager _ and more _ only to not retain a few of the key on-field building blocks for the future.
"We do have players here who we believe do have a chance to be part of a really good team in Pittsburgh," Cherington said. "We're excited about that."
