PITTSBURGH — Andrew McCutchen can sense the top of his baseball profession coming.
It is not fairly right here but.
The five-time All-Star agreed to a one-year deal on Monday to return to the Pittsburgh Pirates for the 2025 season, assured he can nonetheless be a difference-maker for a group making an attempt to get again towards postseason competition.
Monetary phrases weren’t disclosed however the deal is price $5 million, a supply informed ESPN, confirming a report by MLB.com.
“I feel the largest factor for me is understanding I can nonetheless compete and might nonetheless have the ability to produce,” the 38-year-old stated. “I nonetheless really feel like there is a manner that I may be higher, and I do know that it is nonetheless in there.”
When that hard-to-define “it” disappears, McCutchen will know it is time to transfer on. The 2013 Nationwide League MVP realizes that day will come quickly sufficient. For now, he is looking forward to a seventeenth season within the huge leagues, together with 12 in his adopted hometown.
McCutchen has made no secret of his need to complete his profession in Pittsburgh, which drafted him in 2005 and the place he spent the primary 9 seasons of his profession earlier than returning in 2023.
Basic supervisor Ben Cherington repeatedly stated towards the top of final season the group wished to discover a method to maintain the outfielder-turned-designated hitter who hit .232 with 20 residence runs and 53 RBIs in 120 video games final season.
The person who indicators the checks felt the identical manner.
“It was vital for me and for everybody inside our group that Andrew stay in a Pirates uniform. It’s the place he belongs,” Pirates proprietor Bob Nutting stated in an announcement. “In my conversations with Andrew, he made clear his sturdy need to assist the group in each manner he can, each on the sphere and within the clubhouse. I’m glad he’s again.”
So is McCutchen, constructing a résumé that might benefit Corridor of Fame consideration at any time when he retires. He’ll enter 2025 with 2,127 hits and 319 residence runs. He is additionally within the high 10 in most main offensive classes for a franchise that is been round for over 137 years and counting.
Whereas McCutchen allowed there are particular facets of preparing for the season he does not fairly take pleasure in — like discovering a rental residence for his spouse Maria and their 4 youngsters throughout a two-month keep in Bradenton, Florida, Pittsburgh’s spring coaching residence — the drive that made him one of many greatest stars within the recreation whereas main the membership to 3 straight playoff berths from 20013-15 stays vibrant.
“I all the time wished to be ready to the place I’d have the ability to … play for so long as I would like or so long as my physique would let me,” he stated.
McCutchen was shut down in September 2023 as a result of an Achilles damage and had handled hamstring points final season, although that did not cease him from reaching the 20-homer plateau for the tenth time. He has spent a few of the offseason making an attempt to get right down to 190 kilos, about 10 kilos lighter than in 2024.
“I do assume that is going to assist me quite a bit and assist my legs out quite a bit,” he stated. “And studying once I want to show it off and switch it on. If I can try this, I do assume it might maintain me on the sphere and I may be within the lineup for 120-plus video games, as a result of I do really feel like I can produce.”
The Pirates are coming off a second straight 76-86 season and have a beginning rotation that options NL Rookie of the Yr Paul Skenes. McCutchen stays bullish on the close to future, although Pittsburgh has been comparatively quiet by way of buying expertise to complement a lineup that completed close to the underside of the NL in runs, batting common and homers. The one vital acquisition to date has been buying and selling for first baseman Spencer Horwitz.
But McCutchen is not essentially married to the concept the Pirates must splurge to contend. He was the centerpiece of Pittsburgh groups with modest payrolls a decade in the past that reached the playoffs for 3 straight seasons from 2013-15.
“There are issues you may’t look on paper and see it,” he stated. “You simply go on the market and do it. We bought to do these small issues, plenty of small issues. It is what I am right here for.”
ESPN’s Buster Olney and The Related Press contributed to this report.