Pittsburgh Pirates News: Bryan Reynolds Requests a Trade

Well, the conversations about the Pittsburgh Pirates potentially signing Bryan Reynolds to a long-term deal can end as the All-Star outfielder has requested to be traded

To quote Vince McMahon in a promo he cut during the height of the WWF’s Attitude Era and the Mr. McMahon character, “life sucks and then you die!” Fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates can relate to that statement all too well.

Saturday afternoon, the latest body blow was landed on fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Jason Mackey reported that Bryan Reynolds has requested a trade. The team’s best player, their center piece, one of the best center fielders in all of baseball, has requested a trade.

Trade rumors have long swirled around Reynolds, but the Pirates have never shown much interest in moving him. Reynolds remains under team control through the 2025 season and is the type of piece the Pirates should be building around. So, the Pirate never having any interest in trading him made sense.

Now, however, Ben Cherington’s hands could be tied. Any time a player requests a trade and that trade does not occur you run the risk of the player becoming disgruntled and all the issues that can stem from that.

With MLB’s Winter Meetings set to kick off on Sunday, it would not be a shocker to see Reynolds traded by the Pirates during the meetings. Assuming Reynolds is eventually moved he should net the Pirates a huge return. He owns a lifetime .281/.361/.481 slash line with a 126 wRC+ and a 127 OPS+ and, as already mentioned, still has three years of team control.

Reynolds request comes after he had expressed interest in remaining in Pittsburgh long-term last season. With the Pirates starting to add pieces this offseason to look to improve in 2023 and a large contingency of highly touted prospects set to graduate this season, it appeared that Reynolds would be the center piece of the Pirates improving in 2023 and potentially contending in 2024. Now, in a lot of ways, it’s back to the drawing board for Cherington.

Then again, it is also hard to fault Reynolds for wanting to be traded away from an organization that has back-to-back 100 loss seasons and the only reason it’s not three straight is due to the 2020 season only being 60 games. Nothing was done last offseason by Cherington to attempt to improve the 2022 team and it’s very possible all of this sits poorly with Reynolds.

Make sure to stay tuned here at Rum Bunter as this story continues to evolve. Especially during this week’s MLB Winter Meetings as a Reynolds trade during the meetings now appears to be a real possibility.