Pirates' long-awaited competitive window could be destroyed by MLB's looming labor war

The Pittsburgh Pirates' 2026 season didn't go the way they or the fans had hoped, though there were small victories along the way. Oneil Cruz broke out. Braxton Ashcraft soared. Mason Montgomery dominated. In all, the team learned valuable lessons about what it will take to win.

Now, the focus is on the moves that Ben Cherington and the Pirates must make to take the lessons from 2026 and turn the ballclub into a winner in 2027. To that end, questions abound. Will Pittsburgh pony up to retain Brandon Lowe? How will Cherington address the starting rotation, and what does that mean for Mitch Keller and his future? Will the team be able to pull off a trade for a big-time right-handed bat to balance the lineup?

The list goes on and on. While we'll see answers to many of these pressing questions in the coming weeks, the answer to the biggest question that this organization and many others must worry about is completely out of their hands. That would be: Will there be baseball in 2027?

The league is heading toward a lockout beginning on December 1. If it happens — and all indications are that it will — how long will it last?

The Pirates' best chance to win will be in 2027, but a lockout could spoil their plans

The worst-case scenario is that this labor dispute drags on and on and takes down the 2027 season with it. How realistic is it that this is actually what happens? Well, it's not alarmist to say that there's a possibility that we could see the worst.

The sticking point is the issue of a salary cap, with both sides digging their heels in and refusing to budge. From the owners' perspective, a cap is an absolute necessity. They'll cite competitive balance, though the logic that supports that argument took a bit hit when the playoffs delivered us a Brewers-Rays World Series. The performance of clubs like the Cleveland Guardians and Chicago White Sox didn't hurt either.

Meanwhile, the MLB Players Association argues that the cap is just a means to suppress player salaries and skew the revenue split even more in the owners' favor. With more and more private equity investments making their way into the game, and franchise valuations soaring, there definitely seems to be something to the union's argument.

This is an issue that is so fundamental to both sides that it's hard to see either team budging. The one way to potentially save next season could be both sides agreeing to a one-year extension of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, giving them more time to negotiate. Don't count on that, though, as Evan Drellich of The Athletic has reported that neither Commissioner Rob Manfred nor union head Bruce Meyer believes a one-year extension is in the cards.

That brings us back to the Pirates. While one would think that a salary cap (and floor) would benefit Pittsburgh, there are two factors to consider. First, the Pirates will still be one of the lower-revenue teams in the league, thus ensuring that they will have weaker buying power. Second, Bob Nutting will still be the owner.

The more important part of this whole debacle is the fact that it threatens to derail everything that Pittsburgh has going for it. If the 2027 season isn't played, the contracts will still toll. That makes the young core that much more expensive.

Paul Skenes will be paid in 2028 as a second-year arbitration-eligible player, one year closer to free agency and pushing the Pirates closer to having to make a Tarik Skubal-esque decision on his future. Oneil Cruz will be in his walk year. Overall, the youth on the team will be more expensive than they were in 2027, giving the team less wiggle room in the budget to continue adding.

Some of the free agents the Pirates brought in and who helped with the 2026 turnaround will be gone, too. We could be looking at the end of Ryan O'Hearn in Pittsburgh, for example.

And finally, the minor league system has already taken its lumps. The pipeline isn't devoid of talent, but the upper levels lack the high-end impact players that could be ready to step in. Overall, the system is just a bit thinner than in years past, too.

In many ways, the stars were aligning for 2027 to be the year that the Pirates return to the postseason and potentially make a run. It's ironic now that a battle over a system that presumably would help them compete consistently might be the very thing that derails their dreams of contending.

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