The Pirates may have made their own Brandon Lowe dilemma a lot harder to explain.
Last winter, Pittsburgh reportedly went big for Kyle Schwarber, putting four years and $125 million on the table before he went back to Philadelphia on a five-year, $150 million deal. That Pirates offer would have carried a $31.25 million average annual value, which actually topped the $30 million AAV Schwarber got from the Phillies.
For a club whose biggest free-agent contract is still Francisco Liriano’s three-year, $39 million deal, that was a massive swing. And now it hangs over the way Pittsburgh has to handle Lowe.
The age argument gets slippery fast. Schwarber is 33.
Lowe is 32 and won’t turn 33 until July 6, 2027. If the Pirates were willing to commit four guaranteed years to Schwarber starting with his age-33 season, it’s hard to suddenly claim that Lowe is too old for a three- or four-year deal.
Lowe also did exactly what Pittsburgh hoped he would do in his first season with the club. He hit .260/.331/.493 with 35 home runs, 96 RBI and an .824 OPS over 150 games. He finished with 4.9 fWAR and posted much better defensive numbers at second base than he had the year before.
The difference, of course, is production level. Schwarber was coming off a 2025 explosion: 56 home runs, 132 RBI and a .928 OPS.
Lowe’s case is not that he should be treated as Schwarber’s equal on the market. It’s that the Pirates already showed how far they were willing to stretch for the right veteran bat.
That matters now because Lowe’s market could land around the three-year, $60 million range that has been floated, or even higher if Pittsburgh has to tack on a fourth year to stay in the mix. Once the Pirates were willing to go past $30 million annually and commit four years to Schwarber, they lost a lot of room to act like a Lowe deal is somehow beyond their reach.
Ben Cherington has already made clear how the team views him, calling Lowe “everything we could have hoped for” both on the field and in the clubhouse and saying it “would be a great outcome” if he returned. Lowe has said he loved his time in Pittsburgh and that he would be “all ears” if the Pirates wanted to talk about another contract.
That doesn’t mean Lowe has to accept anything Pittsburgh offers, and it doesn’t mean the Pirates should ignore the market. Another team can always drive the price to a place they won’t go.
But there’s a real difference between getting outbid and choosing not to stay in the fight.
For years, the Pirates could lean on baseball economics when free agents got expensive. That explanation gets a lot less convincing after a reported $125 million push for Schwarber. Once you’ve shown you’re willing to spend like that for the right player, it’s tougher to turn around and tell everyone a proven fit like Lowe is suddenly too pricey.
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