Pittsburgh Pirates: Are the Pirates Nearing an Andrew McCutchen Extension?

As Dejan Kovacevic reported this morning, the Pirates have entered talks to extend their beloved, up-and-coming outfielder Andrew McCutchen.

While this might sound like a sure-fire plan by the Pittsburgh Pirates front office, depending on the length of the extension, the timing itself might be poor.

McCutchen is under team control until the 2016 season, after which he will get his first chance to test the waters of the free agent market.

Up until the 2016 season, however, the Pirates will have a chance to offer McCutchen arbitration and keep the most valuable piece of their young nucleus on board in the Steel City, so why extend him so soon?

Unless this eagerly awaited extension includes years beyond 2016, the year McCutchen is scheduled to become a free agent, why invest money in a player that isn't going anywhere?

I know the common reaction from Pirates fans—now that we have this young nucleus, let's toss money at them to make sure they stay employed by our much-maligned team. That's fine.

However, the Pirates still need to do this in the smartest way possible.

Essentially, an extension at this point would simply be buying out the remaining years that McCutchen is scheduled to be under Pirates control—why not wait and buy out the years where McCutchen isn't set to be under Pirates control?

McCutchen is currently set to hit free agency directly in the middle of potentially the best years of his young career.

The Pirates need to think long and hard about investing in those years, more so than investing in the years that McCutchen is still blossoming and is (more importantly) definitely still here.

I understand the desires of Pirates fans to keep McCutchen patrolling center field in the beautiful PNC Park for many years to come, and an extension should symbolize the Pirates front office's awareness that this needs to become a reality.

However, the Pirates need to approach this situation in a rational, wise and financially-sensible manner.