Pirates Owner wants to lock up Andrew McCutchen with a monster extension

An article today by Rob Biertempfel appears optimistic that the Pittsburgh Pirates will do an early contract extension with Andrew McCutchen that will keep him in a Pirates uniform for the remainder of his career. A quote from the Pirates owner, Bob Nutting:

“Andrew’s been a critical part of the team,” owner Bob Nutting said Wednesday. “I love having him in a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform, and I hope he (wears it) for a long, long time.”

McCutchen is currently under contract until 2018 technically, with that year representing a club option that the Pirates would most certainly exercise.

But as a show of good faith and in what is quickly becoming a new trend in baseball, teams are keeping their homegrown stars in one uniform for the duration of their careers again. It’s neat to see, and one of the best current aspects of the sport.

There are no active talks at this time. However, industry sources said that if the Pirates decide to open talks, they are willing to go to great lengths to keep McCutchen in Pittsburgh, even if the numbers approach the current salary stratosphere of $25 million-plus per year.

“If that happens, that will be something we’ll talk about,” McCutchen said. “Right now, I’m not too worried about it. It’s nothing that I’m thinking about, really. If it happens, that would be great. I look forward to it if they do that.”

If the Pirates are prepared to offer McCutchen something that resembles a 10-year, $250 million dollar contract extension; there’s going to be more than just talking going on. That’s a deal that gets done and gets done quickly.

Of course, McCutchen is 28 years old, so the Pirates would be paying for a player that plays a good part of the contract in his age 30 years. McCutchen figures to be a guy who ages well and is productive into his late 30’s, much like Torii Hunter was.

He’s just a helluva player to build your franchise around. A generational talent, a sure thing. He might have won back to back Most Valuable Player awards last season if not for an injury. His last four years he’s been worth a bWAR of 27.1, an average of 6.8 per season. Andrew McCutchen has played at an MVP level for the last four seasons on average, in layman’s terms.

We really love the guy, and we’re proud of the Pirates for even thinking along these lines. Our buddy who loves the Pirates – we’ve mentioned Matty before – always said that McCutchen would jump ship after that first contract when he got too expensive and join the Yankees or a big market club. It’s looking like Matt was being a worry-wort over nothing.

The baseball purist can only hope. Get this done, Buccos.