Pittsburgh completed 82-80. Write that down someplace, as a result of it took eight years to occur once more. An 11-game soar from final 12 months’s 71-91, and the Pirates’ first profitable report since they went 82-79 in 2018. That 12 months can also be, not coincidentally, the final time anybody on this metropolis bothered getting enthusiastic about September baseball.
Nice. Cool. Now do it once more, besides this time make the playoffs, as a result of 2018 didn’t and neither will this.
Pittsburgh Already Ran This Actual Play
That’s the half no person desires to say out loud. The Pirates hit 82 wins as soon as earlier than and the response was seven extra dropping seasons and a entrance workplace that handled “aggressive” as a synonym for “completed.” An 82-80 report reads like the identical web page Pittsburgh was on in 2018: similar group, similar proprietor, eight years later, simply with barely higher pitching depth.
The playoff drought hooked up to that stretch is now eleven years previous, relationship again to 2015, which implies this profitable season doesn’t even finish the factor it was alleged to remedy. A profitable report acquired the Pirates again to even. It didn’t get them inside shouting distance of October.
Matt Gajtka of The Early Shift mentioned what most of this fanbase already feels: breaking .500 “meant one thing, man,” a small, earned aid after a childhood of mediocrity. Truthful. It ought to really feel good. It simply shouldn’t be mistaken for the end line.
Buchanan, Keller and Rodríguez Aren’t the Improve
Pittsburgh employed Sean Buchanan this winter to run pitching improvement. He spent the final two years teaching pitchers for the Astros’ Sugar Land affiliate. It’s an actual rent. Houston’s farm system has produced a gradual pipeline of big-league arms, and Pittsburgh clearly desires a bit of no matter Buchanan was doing down there. It’s additionally the most cost effective type of transfer a entrance workplace could make, a workers title change as a substitute of a roster transfer. Mitch Keller and Endy Rodríguez acquired activated off the 60-day injured checklist, pushing the 40-man roster to 38 gamers.
Pirates Transactions: MLB
Pittsburgh Pirates claimed LF Akil Baddoo off waivers from Milwaukee Brewers.
Pittsburgh Pirates activated C Endy Rodríguez from the 60-day injured checklist.
Pittsburgh Pirates activated RHP Mitch Keller from the 60-day injured checklist.
Seattle Mariners…— Pirates Prospects (@pirateprospects) November 3, 2026
None of that may be a roster improve. A training rent is improvement, not depth. Reinstating two guys who have been already harm when the season ended is simply paperwork catching as much as actuality. Pittsburgh spent the winter getting its personal injured gamers again and borrowing a coach off Houston’s farm system: the total extent of the roster motion.
Followers observed the hole between that and an precise signing. A publish asking who desires Lowe again in Pittsburgh for 2027 cleared 2,700 likes inside a day, which tells you the place this fanbase’s head already is. The entrance workplace’s winter, to this point, hasn’t matched it.
The $12 Million Pittsburgh Gained’t Spend
Then there’s Brandon Lowe, who arrived in a three-team deal and promptly acquired a one-year, $23.15 million qualifying supply, the identical tender seven different free brokers acquired across the league.
Eight gamers acquired the one-year, $23.15 million qualifying supply right this moment. The deadline to simply accept it’s Nov. 17.
Randy Arozarena (Mariners)
Seiya Suzuki (Cubs)
Brandon Lowe (Pirates)
Trevor Rogers (Orioles)
Adrian Morejon (Padres)
David Bednar (Yankees)
Jake Bauers (Brewers)…— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 2, 2026
A qualifying supply is a procedural tender with a Nov. 17 deadline, the precise mechanism a group makes use of to recoup a draft choose when a free agent walks. Possession doesn’t need to need Lowe again to make it. If he accepts, it’s the biggest single-season wage in franchise historical past, which says much less about Pittsburgh’s ambition than about how little this roster has ever paid anybody.
Pirates present payroll…$106 million.
Add Brandon Lowe at $25 million a season…that will get you to $118 million (he is already making $13 million).
And when you paid Paul Skenes $50 million a 12 months.
That will get you to $168 million.
Nonetheless $12 million UNDER the cap ground. pic.twitter.com/RtL77AzDac
— Andrew Fillipponi (@ThePoniExpress) November 3, 2026
Add Lowe at market price and a theoretical Paul Skenes extension at $50 million, and the Pirates are nonetheless $12 million underneath the league’s wage ground. Pittsburgh has the room and chooses to not use it, then asks followers to depend a improvement rent as proof it’s attempting.
Pittsburgh followers have watched this film sufficient occasions to know the way it ends. The Brewers began from an analogous place and funded their approach to a World Collection, spending actual cash on the roster as a substitute of leaning on a pitching-development rent to hold the story. Lowe has till Nov. 17 to determine whether or not he desires to stay round for the following model of this group. Pittsburgh already determined how a lot that call is allowed to price: $12 million of unused room, nonetheless sitting within the account, untouched.