Pirates entering unprecedented decision time

If you thought the Pirates being a competitive baseball team would be all sunshine and roses you were wrong.

Not only does it cost $80 to sit in section 315 for Opening Day, we are also nearing the time when some of the young talent that helped the Pirates bring the franchise back into relevancy are weighing the advantages of the dreaded free agency. Pirates fans have suffered the consequences of being a small market team in a big market world from one side of the spectrum already - the side where their team has no chance of signing any big name free agents to instantly add to their big league roster. Now we're faced with the side that makes it more appealing for the good players we already have to leave Pittsburgh for the biggest contracts.

The Pirates brilliantly dodged facing this issue with their franchise player Andrew McCutchen a couple years ago when they signed him for a pretty affordable $51.5 million contract the year before he really showed what he was capable of. They're now trying to pull the same thing with Starling Marte, but he and his agent aren't going for it. We learned recently that Marte has already rejected two extension offers from the Pirates, which honestly is probably in his best interest. There's a very good chance that Marte does what McCutchen does and puts up pretty monster numbers in one of the next three seasons and instantly sees his free agent value skyrocket. For his bank account's purposes, signing now would be a horrible idea - especially with what the Pirates probably offered him already.

We really have not been faced with a problem like this in the past. The Pirates haven't had any legitimate young talent that they've had to consider giving big contracts to, save maybe Jason Bay, who they wisely chose to let go. Now the team has a solid base and looks like they can be competitive, but to do so they're going to have to start acting more like a medium market team. They'll certainly enjoy some new revenue from ticket sales this year that will come along with the cities baseball revival, but will it be enough?

There's still a couple years before it's make or break time, but I'm sure the Pirates don't want to wait to that time. Pedro Alvarez is arbitration eligible starting next year, and Marte is eligible in 2016. Both of those players are already big money names that the Pirates probably would not have a chance to sign in an open market. They are just hoping that the players like playing in Pittsburgh and will value more years and guaranteed money over the big time news breaking headline contracts. Alvarez has Scott Boras as his agent, who might as well be Lucifer himself for the Pirates purposes. It would be pretty shocking to see Alvarez in a Pirate uniform in five years. It's encouraging to see that the Pirates are trying to get to Marte as soon as possible; that's absolutely the best option. The ideal situation would be for the Pirates to do with Marte what they did with McCutchen, take a bit of a risk and give him a big (but not excessively big) contract now, before he can really realize his potential. That comes with some risk, as we aren't sure that Marte will be what we think he will be, but that's a trade off that is in the Pirates best interest.

Neil Walker is also in this picture. The Pirates and Walker have talked before but never reached an agreement, which doesn't bode well for his future in Pittsburgh either. They now have bigger fish to fry with Marte and Alvarez and possibly Gerrit Cole and Gregory Polanco a few years down the road. Walker is a hometown kid, which will only help the team, but that doesn't make him stupid. If Walker can make more money elsewhere and doesn't feel respected by the Pirates attempts to keep him around, he'll leave.

We all knew that the Pirates weren't the team that could have 5-6 players on long term, high-paying deals, we just never thought we'd ever actually have to face that reality. Now it is a reality, and while it's a very good problem to have, it still sucks pretty bad for the fans. The good news is that I personally am doing my best to keep all the players in Pittsburgh, I've already paid more for one ticket this year than I did in the entire 2010 season.