The Pittsburgh Pirates have been linked to multiple third basemen, but two potential names can likely be crossed off the list. After the Philadelphia Phillies missed out on Bo Bichette, it feels safe to say that Alec Bohm won\u2019t be an option.<\/p>\n
There are others, too.<\/p>\n
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According to Alex Stumpf of MLB.com, the Pirates aren\u2019t expected to sign Eugenio Suarez, despite some believing they would earlier in the offseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean they checked in on him this offseason,” Stumpf said, per Dominic Campbell. “There is, I guess, for a lack of better way of saying it, a \u2018level of interest in him\u2019, but I just don\u2019t know how it\u2019s going to work. The money that he is going to need to be signed, I just don\u2019t see the Pirates having it without making other moves to facilitate it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see them dumping Mitch Keller for pennies on the dollar to sign Suarez, this type of deal. They have been in contact with him. To borrow a phrase from former Steelers coach Mike Tomlin. \u2018Never say never, but never.\u2019 I would look elsewhere for the third base answer.”<\/p>\n
The Pirates are still operating within obvious payroll concerns, and Suarez isn\u2019t the type of player that could be signed for a few million per year. Even if he gets a one or two-year deal, he\u2019s likely looking at around a $15 to $20 million deal per year.<\/p>\n
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He hit 49 home runs a season ago and while he struggled a season ago in the second-half with the Seattle Mariners, 49 home runs will still require a team to give up a decent contract.<\/p>\n
Moving Mitch Keller also doesn\u2019t seem to be the plan, but there have been reports for a year or so now that suggest he could be moved. If there isn\u2019t a good deal out there for him, it might not be the worst idea to salary dump him and go from there to add another bat, though I don\u2019t love that idea.<\/p>\n
Suarez would be a nice fit, but it seems like the Pirates will be going in a different direction at third base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Pirates have been linked to multiple third basemen, but two potential names can likely be crossed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[15802,44355,42343,41988,17150,1425,73,75,74,10997,23786],"class_list":{"0":"post-89549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-alec-bohm","9":"tag-alex-stumpf","10":"tag-bo-bichette","11":"tag-eugenio-suarez","12":"tag-mitch-keller","13":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","14":"tag-pittsburgh","15":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","16":"tag-pittsburgh-news","17":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","18":"tag-seattle-mariners"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}