Last week we heard from Dejan Kovacevic that the Pittsburgh Pirates and Andrew McCutchen are currently in talks about extending the young center fielder. Today, Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated has an update on those extension talks. Heyman posted the following on Twitter:
the #pirates are talking to andrew mccutchen about an extension but team is insisting on AT LEAST 5 year deal
A five year extension would buy out control of McCutchen through the 2016 season, which would cover one of his free agent years. It would also line McCutchen up with Neil Walker, Pedro Alvarez, and Jose Tabata, who are all under control through the 2016 season.
As I mentioned last week, any deal with McCutchen needs to include free agent years in order for the deal to have any value to the Pirates. Just getting cost certainty really does very little, at least in comparison to the value the team receives by having the player for an extra year. This is especially true for McCutchen, who will just be hitting his prime when free agency rolls around.
