Jason Mackey: Yes, the Pirates made an offer to Kyle Schwarber. But, sadly, it's not that simple.

Jason Mackey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Dec 8, 2025

Published in Baseball

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ORLANDO, Fla. — There are two ways that most seem to be characterizing the Pittsburgh Pirates, as the baseball world descends on Signia by Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek for the annual winter meetings.

Most everyone expects the Pirates to be active.

Yet there's skepticism regarding how this could go.

How those two thoughts square, and if they do, could ultimately determine whether this trip is viewed as a smashing success or a frustrating failure.

Indications of the Pirates' desires haven't been hard to find. They've expressed interest in Jorge Polanco, Ketel Marte, Ryan O'Hearn and others. Jarren Duran, Steven Kwan, Yandy Diaz, Brandon Lowe and Alec Bohm have been connected to them as players who would make sense.

The latest and most serious indication yet was an offer they made to Kyle Schwarber, one of the top available bats on the market. A source confirmed the offer Monday.

While exact terms are not known, it would undoubtedly shatter anything the Pirates have previously done in free agency.

The problem comes with it actually happening, considering the fact that Schwarber's market is not small and the Pirates are fighting an uphill battle with this sort of stuff.

Coming off a year where he hit a career-high 56 home runs and also posted the most wins above replacement (per FanGraphs) of his career at 4.9, Schwarber has obviously attracted a lot of interest.

His previous employer, the Philadelphia Phillies, are viewed as one of the front-runners for his services, while the New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds, Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles have been connected to Schwarber. Along with the Pirates, of course.

For the Pirates to land one of the bigger available fish, they'll likely need to overpay, demonstrate their urgency via trades or likely both. In other words, they need to entice Schwarber to sign in Pittsburgh.

From a monetary perspective, they're not going to outbid the Mets or Red Sox. They'd have to separate themselves from the Reds and Orioles, and they'd have to give Schwarber an offer he couldn't get anywhere else.

It's tough to see.

Which is why, as much fun as it might be for everyone to see they've made an offer to Schwarber, who has averaged 47 homers over the past four seasons, it might behoove them to adjust their strategy.

To build off an analogy that started here of the Pirates coming off like a college kid with a credit card for the first time, they might want to consider a nice Honda CR-V instead of a BMW. At least to start.

Demonstrating they're serious would help change the minds of other free agents, the guys who are maybe giving a second glance at the Pirates due to all that's been floated out there about their intentions but still worry about their seriousness when it comes to competing.

Sign a middle-tier free agent that helps your club, and it gets the ball rolling, the same as general manager Ben Cherington's trade of Johan Oviedo for Jhostynxon Garcia (with minor leaguers surrounding it).

They need a left-handed reliever and potentially more bullpen help. There are offensive weaknesses at third base and left field. The Pirates also having the pitching and prospect capital to make something happen via trade.

The entry point to this offseason almost assuredly won't be Schwarber, unless they somehow have the greatest 24 hours in baseball offseason history.

Until there are other steps taken, or an absolutely ridiculous second offer made to Schwarber that nobody saw coming, it's hard to see how offers for Schwarber or many other top-tier free agent land.

As several sources have indicated, there are a lot of eyeballs on the Pirates right now, and there's plenty of buzz floating around here about their intentions to operate differently this offseason.

That's fun.

But they also need to operate in a productive way that nets players who'll help fill needs. That could involve overpaying for someone below Schwarber or executing an aggressive trade or two. It's just hard to see how or why Schwarber would be the first one through the proverbial wall.

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