Freddy Sanchez, Jack Wilson Offered Extensions By Pirates

(Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images)

Of all possible outcomes involving the Pittsburgh Pirates' middle infield, this had to be the least expected. According to Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, both 2B Freddy Sanchez and SS Jack Wilson have been offered contract extensions by the Pirates.

This move has fans and bloggers everywhere asking one simple question:

Umm...why?

Fans of the Pirates who think they can be competitive this year or next are thrilled about this move, but they're still left questioning why. This runs so counter-actively to the firesale the Pirates have been conducting. This move has those types of fans very suspicious.

Meanwhile, fans who want to see the Pirates continue to make moves with the goal of building for the future are obviously left scratching their heads. Why would a rebuilding team offer multi-year deals to two 31 year old players? They need to be getting younger!

So, let's take a look at a few possible reasons.

1. The Pirates are just manipulating the market.

Right now, the front office of the Pirates is reportedly underwhelmed with the trade offers they're receiving in regards to both Sanchez and Wilson. This could simply be a move in attempt to say to the market "you can up your offers or not have these players."

That would certainly help give a boost to any trades involving the Pirates middle infield. A team that sees that the Pirates don't feel like the "have" to trade anyone will feel more compelled to put together a good package. If that's the case, this may be an offer that the Pirates don't plan to complete.

Which leaves us to...

2. This is just a PR move.

This move is just something to appease the fans. The Pirates are lowballing these players in order to soften the blow when they are inevitably traded. At that point, they can say "we offered extensions to Freddy and Jack, but they wouldn't meet us in the middle financially."

This seems to be the most popular theory in the blogosphere, and beat writer John Perrotto of Pirates Report says that the contracts are "of the lowball variety."

UPDATE: Kovacevic now says in the Post-Gazette that the offer is "not in the stratosphere of what it will take to keep [Sanchez], and there we no indications last night that it would be upgraded."

If that were the case, it seems out of character for this front office. I doubt they had a popularity contract in mind when they traded players like Nate McLouth and Jason Bay, so it would be a bit weird for them to start considering it now. Not to mention that it's a fairly easy PR ploy to see through.

Maybe there's something else going on here. Something like...

3. The Pirates are looking for a better deal next year.

The rumored returns thus far for Sanchez and Wilson have been...underwhelming, to say the least. Sanchez has garnered talk about some interesting players, but has never had a truly attractive package put together for him. Wilson's name has rarely even come up in rumors.

These extensions may be less about the desire to keep Wilson or Sanchez and more about packing up and trying again next year. The goal is likely to see if the players would take a pay cut, thus making their contracts both cheaper and longer-term and artificially inflating their value.

Or perhaps the Pirates aren't actually looking to trade the middle infield at all...

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