By now it’s no secret that the Pittsburgh Pirates are prioritizing re-signing Francisco Liriano. They need a starting pitcher, and he seems to be the top choice. Robert Murray had an update today, saying the team appeared to be close to re-signing the lefty.
Source: #Pirates appear to be close to re-signing LHP Francisco Liriano.
— Robert Murray (@ByRobertMurray) December 9, 2014
There have been a lot of issues with teenage reporters and #sources recently, but Murray was the first to report that Liriano would be turning down his qualifying offer, at a time when everyone thought he would be accepting the deal. So there could be something to this. Ken Rosenthal followed up by saying that the Pirates are working on re-signing Liriano, but no deal is done yet.
Sources: #Pirates working on re-signing Liriano, as @RobertMurrayMLB said. No deal yet.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 9, 2014
We’ll have more updates as they come. Rosenthal will be on MLB Network in ten minutes and might have an update then.
UPDATE 12:15 PM: Rosenthal on MLB Network just commented on the Robert Murray tweet, saying “I don’t know that the Pirates are close, but they are talking and this is something they want to do.” So Rosenthal confirms the interest that we already knew about, but doesn’t know of a deal being close at this point.
UPDATE 12:34 PM: Bill Brink says the two sides have been close for about a week.
#Pirates and Liriano have been close for about a week, source says, but no deal yet. @Ken_Rosenthal, @RobertMurrayMLB mentioned.
— Bill Brink (@Bill_Brink2) December 9, 2014
UPDATE 1:10 PM: Murray is now reporting that the deal is done at 3/39 M. We will wait for more confirmation on this…
Source: Francisco Liriano to the #Pirates on a three-year, $39 million deal.
— Robert Murray (@ByRobertMurray) December 9, 2014
UPDATE 1:26 PM: Jon Heyman confirms a deal is in place.
liriano has deal with pirates. expected to be $39M, 3 yrs. robert murray 1st
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 9, 2014
UPDATE 1:38 PM: A lot of people were skeptical that Liriano would re-sign when the reports came out yesterday that the Pirates wouldn’t go beyond three years. It appears that no other team wanted to go beyond that point either, or else Liriano just really wanted to remain in Pittsburgh. This was about where I expected him to be in terms of his average annual value. The FanGraphs projections had him at three years and $36 M. My guess was that he would land a four year, $48-50 M deal, which would have been the same as similar free agent pitchers in recent years. He ended up with three years, but a million more per year than the estimates.
This is the largest free agent deal in Pirates history, surpassing Russell Martin’s two year, $17 M deal.
