I know Reynolds is a UFA in his age 31 season, I meant that with that 6 year deal, he'd still be a UFA at age 33 and can get a big contract at that point too. It's not "get a big contract at age 31 or don't get it", it's "get a big contract at age 31 or buy out 2 UFA years and then Reynolds gets a slightly smaller deal at age 33".
Oh my fault. Yeah, that's a good point -- at the end of the day I think if we were willing to make the huge investment to buy out two free agency years, there's plenty of reason for Reynolds to simply jump on it. I don't want to be excessively naive, but there's a big difference between throwing around 100-110M vs. a possible 150-160M for example, on the one hand, and actually being able to sign a piece of paper and know your family has 100 million dollars no matter what else happens.
If we wanted to get really crazy, we could try to sell Reynolds on basically being a Pirate for life. Hayes is signed through 2029, and it's 2030 unless we are idiotic (or he gets traded before his 10/5 rights kick in, but let's not go there now...). That's something like an 8 or 9 year deal for Reynolds, but in this scenario, he probably would have to sacrifice long-term earning potential for near total security.
Honestly, I think the way that the Pirates are probably looking at it (setting aside what ownership can/will do) is in terms of what years we want Reynolds around for and why. A lot of the thinking now is that players are right in their primes at his current age and potentially starting to go downhill even now. It depends on the player, the skill set, etc., and I don't want to be a total doomer, but I do think there's a chance that the front office would seek to move him right now if they got a return headlined by a top-10 in baseball prospect that they believed in.
In any case, I think 6 years is the realistic sort of target contract that gives you Reynolds as a cornerstone for a team you hope wins it all in the 2024-2027 range, and still gives Reynolds some chance for a big contract after the 2027 season. I don't want to downplay baseball concerns, but I truly think it's still a put up or shut up situation at the end of the day. Unless we just don't think Reynolds will be an all star type talent, if the will is actually there, we can pay him an AAV of even 30, 35 million for a year or two if that's what it would take.
The only potential wrench in that crazy scenario is if Cruz is an MVP type talent, but even in that case, you'd be able to have them all together plus other players plus supplementary free agents and the total would never push above 110-120M. I do think there's an argument that trying to get Cruz to sign a similar deal to Hayes is a better use of time than chasing Reynolds, but with Reynolds specifically, I think bare minimum you have to keep paying him through arbitration and try to get a good enough team to make a run in 2025.
