Pirates Should Make Brandon Lowe Decision as Early as Possible

The Pittsburgh Pirates have to be mindful of a couple of things during the offseason with Brandon Lowe. It almost feels like this is the worst possible time to be a player and a team. 

Ultimately, teams like the Pirates could be in a better position if Major League Baseball implements a salary cap, but there's no guarantee that's going to happen just yet. 

There's also no guarantee a salary cap will benefit them, since we don't know what players want.

For a guy like Lowe, there's reason to believe that he's going to get paid handsomely this offseason. I'd even go as far as to say that there's a good chance that he's going to be one of the highest-paid offensive players in all of baseball this winter. 

The problem with that is that there aren't many other offensive threats around baseball available on the free-agent market. For that reason alone, there's a possibility that Lowe is going to get significantly more money than some think.

“It’s not a great time in Major League Baseball to spend money. Uncertainty surrounding a likely lockout and the new rules that will emerge after it are good enough reasons to be conservative with your cash. But the bigger problem is an upcoming free-agent class largely bereft of game-changing talent… “The best bats available — Randy Arozarena, Seiya Suzuki and Brandon Lowe — are entering their age-32 seasons,” Tim Britton wrote. 

“The players who in the spring were thought to be the most likely to cash in, such as Bo Bichette and Jazz Chisholm Jr., had subpar seasons. (Bichette will probably turn down his opt-out clause and remain with the Mets.)”

There's obviously so much that has to happen over the next month or so with this possible lockout, though it's possible that Lowe could sign before it. That's another factor the Pirates will have to consider. 

If the Pirates are content with making Lowe walk, there's a very good chance that another team is going to be aggressive. 

We won’t find out until it’s known how many rules and what type of rules are put into place.